by Vinod Rai
In addition to the poor quality of teachers and infrastructure in many of the privately-run institutions, they simultaneously also tend to have poor oversight over their functioning. Review committees are often aware of private institutions failing to meet benchmark standards in their legal precondition assessment as required by regulatory bodies. Yet, there are instances of individual members of these committees being lured to lean in with their clearances for such institutions. Further, there are allegations of corruption in many universities, where PhD candidates are treated differently depending on how well the faculty guide is ‘taken care of’.
Leadership in Higher Education Institutions
Leadership qualities are seen lacking among the heads of many of the state-run institutions, and team building between colleagues for the holistic development of the institution remains a challenge for leaders who may feel insecure when surrounded by their academic equals or perhaps superiors. Besides, the transfer system among government college faculty remains a draconian measure to bring them in line, and they are shifted from one institution to another every few years, preventing any loyalty and attachment to any one particular institution. Even as teachers race to complete syllabi, there is an acute shortage of faculty, with vacant teaching posts estimated at 40 per cent of the total sanctioned faculty strength of colleges and universities.6 While massive online teaching courses are currently being encouraged, developing e-content and bringing students to use the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), with creative use of flipped classrooms, they remain a challenge for both teachers and students.
Yet, all is not dismal as a high quality of education is imparted in premier institutes such as the IITs, the IISc, the IIIT, the IIMs, and the NIT, with some of the reputed universities also beginning to appear in international rankings.
Gaps in Innovation and Mentoring
In a world of innovations and start-ups, there are gaping holes in policymaking to build an integrated, institutionalized system of encouraging and incentivizing innovative ideas, providing mentorship through sustained involvement of industry and safeguarding IPRs. The leaders who run the institutions of higher education have enough autonomy to reform curricula, to go in for CBCS and the semester system, take up platforms of e-learning through building relevant parameters for faculty review, introduce peer review of teachers and other reforms. Yet, they stand guilty of not doing enough to deliver a qualitative system of higher education due to lack of mechanisms holding them accountable and answerable. There are, however, efforts being made to put in place such accountability measures. In Andhra Pradesh, several Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have been identified for higher education institutes, the data for which are updated monthly on the CM dashboard. The ongoing process of evaluation of performance through these indicators means that the university leaders are held accountable to improve their KPIs. While efforts are being made to better streamline the process, a step in the direction to establish accountability for university leaders has already been taken.
Attracting Investments into Higher Education
Smart classrooms, which link institutes of excellence within the country and abroad, have become an important requirement for a system groaning under the scarcity of qualitative faculty. A limited number of quality institutions and teachers, and the absence of diverse course content has been resulting in large outflows of Indian students and is unlikely to stop unless India is able to transform its higher education.
Two quick ways of doing so are by inviting private and foreign investments into the higher education sector. State universities can explore opportunities for collaboration through joint programmes, dual degree programmes, collaborative research and other forms of partnerships to combine strengths from both institutions while at the same time sharing best practices to enhance the quality of state universities. Options like inviting foreign universities to set up branch campuses or research institutes here can also be exercised. This often raises questions of the impact on state universities and access for the less privileged students. Such anxieties, however, cannot be allowed to hinder progress towards higher education reform.
Andhra Pradesh Attracting Private Investments in Higher Education
Similar questions were raised when the Andhra Pradesh Private Universities Act was notified in January 2016. Care was taken by the state government to simultaneously strengthen state universities through means such as a government order to fill up long-standing faculty vacancies, propagation of online education, industry-relevant curriculum upgradation and introduction of choice-based credit and semester systems. At the same time, four state universities applied for and received the prestigious Times Higher Education (THE) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) world university rankings for the first time, boosting their brand value.
Premier national institutions of higher education sanctioned by the Government of India at the time of the state’s bifurcation in 2014 were expeditiously established with effect from the academic year 2015–16. Consequently, IIM at Visakhapatnam, IIT at Tirupati, NIT at West Godavari, IIIT at Kurnool and Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) at Tirupati became functional. This established the state’s credibility in the implementation of a vision in higher education to transform itself into an education hub and benefit its youth.
In this environment that strengthened the public sector institutes of higher learning, the ball was set rolling to simultaneously attract private investments into higher education. This was initiated with a new act hailed as the most progressive private universities act in the country. The legislation allows for a lot of autonomy for Greenfield private universities, while defining strict timelines for the government to complete the process of permissions to private investors. Within ten months of the enactment, eight Greenfield university proposals were accepted, which are expected to bring in investments of USD 14 million over the next eight to ten years. The initiative will also encourage best practices through a network of academic and industry partnerships, infrastructure of global standards and autonomy to the universities, while ensuring accountability through a higher education regulatory authority. To ensure access for less privileged students, the authority shall ensure that the fee charged by the private universities is reasonable. Also, it is open for private universities and the state government to offer scholarships to meritorious students from less privileged backgrounds.
More examples emerge in India of the coexistence of private and state universities. Gujarat passed the Private Universities Act in 2009. Earlier this year, the Gujarat state assembly passed bills that have allowed four new private universities and two new government universities to come up in the state.7 The case study from Andhra Pradesh, where the Private Universities Act was passed in 2016, too, demonstrates how private and state universities can coexist and thrive. In addition, applying the twin strategies of resource-sharing of faculty, lab and research facilities, besides utilizing the large number of retired faculty members, would yield mutually beneficial results, and improve the supply side of the higher education sector.
Foreign Universities in India
Legislation regarding foreign universities that enables a ‘win-win’ situation for both Indian and foreign universities can see the emergence of higher education as a strong service sector segment that will attract larger numbers of students from Asia and Africa. This will result in forex earnings, more jobs in teaching and benefits to local economies. The Bay Area with Stanford and Berkeley and Boston city with Harvard and MIT in the US demonstrate the effect world-class universities can have on local economies. However, there has been a lot of resistance to foreign investment in higher education in India for fear that it will benefit only a small elite section. At the same time, the requirement for universities to be ‘not for profit’ institutions limits the scope for foreign investment in the country.8
As such, the question of keeping education affordable should not trouble the public as state universities can continue to be strengthene
d, and attracting offshore campuses of premier international universities to India will only provide boost to a possible ‘Study in India’ campaign, and to the economy at large.
Identifying Key Universities to Develop as World-Class Institutes
The time has come to identify key universities in India, facilitate generous funding (perhaps through CSR) and enable them to establish themselves as world-class universities. Such universities should also be allowed greater levels of foreign collaboration than possible under present regulations. This would ensure these universities emerge as institutions of high repute with strong links to socioeconomic research, serve the needs of local economic development, and design academic disciplines to benefit local area needs.
In this context, the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) come to mind, which seek to utilize scientific research with the social sciences and humanities, to find solutions to socioeconomic issues. However, each university and college, and institute of higher education needs to adopt a similar approach, make themselves more relevant to local economies and foster innovations for local issues. That will create a unique body of research and innovations in these institutes, make them more relevant to the economy and help them strengthen funding as well, while improving the quality of teaching and learning and their own rankings.
Challenges in the Current Scenario
The current scenario in the higher education sector shows an improvement in GER, an impressive increase in the number of higher education institutions (at the rate of 9.6 per cent per annum during the Eleventh Plan Period) and increasing private sector participation (at the rate of 10 per cent during the Eleventh Plan Period).9 However, the challenge remains to take GER from its current levels of 24 per cent to 50 per cent by 2050. This will require a massive increase in investments in infrastructure, faculty recruitment, training of faculty, reforms in curriculum, and so on.
Other positive trends are seen in the increase in accredited institutions to 67 per cent as an impact of funding under the national programme of Rashtriya Uchchattar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA). Universities and professional colleges in India are being supported under the National Mission on Education for enhanced connectivity, content and access devices to educational institutions. Almost 400 universities and more than 18,000 colleges have received broadband connectivity under the programme.
Various programmes have been launched to strengthen research and development activity in higher education institutions. Grants to improve infrastructure, fellowships for doctoral and post-doctoral work, schemes for faculty development and promotion of research have been taken up by the regulatory body of the University Grants Commission. The Government of India also launched the GIAN programme for engagement of an international pool of academicians with institutes of learning in India to augment existing resources and raise the quality of teaching inputs. Initiatives have been taken under a newly developed National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) for infusing a competitive spirit among institutions of higher education while identifying weaknesses in the institutions, with a view to bring transparency and accountability in the system. A National Digital Library has been developed to increase the reach of books to millions of students for learning on the Internet. In addition to the above initiatives, the Government of India has also launched SWAYAM, which is a portal for free online education. Programmes like IMPRINT are aimed at addressing challenges in teaching science and technology.
Reforms for Qualitative Improvement in Higher Education
Reforms in the quality of education require interventions like reducing the number of affiliated colleges with each university, giving more autonomy to colleges, improving research and citations in universities and colleges, and building partnerships with private institutions that enable easy sharing of resources, whether pertaining to faculty or research-related infrastructure. Besides, financing models for universities will have to be fixed and regulated for access to greater funding from governments, multilateral bodies or industry. RUSA support may actually be focused more on institutions in remote areas that need the support rather than those that qualify on parameters of quality.
Further, public institutions need to focus on improving the standards of education imparted. This can be achieved through curriculum upgradation, adoption of CBCS and the semester system, regular teacher trainings, leadership and motivation workshops for teachers, foreign collaborations in research and teaching, adoption of massive online teaching with links to academic inputs from premier institutions within the country and abroad, getting industry experts to teach in universities and colleges, encouraging non-resident Indian (NRI) academicians to take up semester-wise teaching in India as visiting faculty or through online courses, encouraging visiting professors from foreign universities and so on.
Internationalization of Higher Education
Emphasis on internationalization of higher education through a curriculum that matches the best global standards, flexible faculty exchange programmes, collaborations with foreign universities, attracting foreign students to courses that are relevant, and setting up dedicated hostels, with good standards of accommodation and food, for foreign students would go a long way. For building new knowledge in Indian institutions, regular and relevant upgrading of curricula is extremely important as is targeting skills being demanded by an increasingly changing industrial and technological scenario. Encouraging institutes and students to involve themselves in local problems and build innovative solutions will encourage industry to come forward to support research and innovation in these institutes.
Good Governance in Higher Education
India needs to raise the educational standards right from schools, improve governance and introduce a professional approach in educational systems. It needs to have a national-level, data management system for enrolments and monitoring of results, outputs and outcomes. There is a recent policy announcement on integration of regulatory bodies like All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and UGC into a single regulatory body, doing away with multiple agencies, and giving clarity to new institutions in higher education. HEERA is a legislation that is awaited for establishing an independent body setting global standards for the sector.
XVI
Few Hits, Many Misses : India’s Mixed Record in the International Sporting Arena since 19471
Ronojoy Sen
One of India’s most prominent sports administrators once said that sport is against the Indian ‘ethos’ and the nation’s ‘entire cultural tradition’.2 While this comment was possibly borne out of acute disappointment with the country’s poor performance in sports, the fact is that India has had a vibrant sporting tradition, arguably going back several centuries. Long before the British introduced various Western sports into India, there were wrestling matches being organized in the Vijaynagar kingdom and polo being played by the Mughals. This essay documents India’s sporting performance across four periods. First, the immediate aftermath of Indian Independence and the 1948 Olympics in London. Second, the first two decades after Independence. Third, the seventies when India won some famous victories in cricket. And finally, from 1983, when India won the Cricket World Cup, to the contemporary period.
The Aftermath of Independence: Glory at the London Games
The 1948 London Games was India’s first as an independent nation. Though India had sent an eighty-strong contingent, expectations were not too high except from the hockey team, which had won three gold medals on the trot from 1928 to 1936. The 1948 team was completely different from the one that had won in the 1936 Berlin Olympics with all the greats from the pre-war era, including Dhyan Chand, having retired. The team was captained by Kishan Lal with the brilliant K.D. Singh ‘Babu’ as the vice-captain. An India–Pakistan contest in the hockey final was narrowly avoided as Great Britain beat Pakistan in the semi-final to set up a gold medal match with India.
At the final held at Wembley Stadium before some 10,000 spectators on 12 August 1948—just th
ree days before India’s Independence Day—neither the persistent wet weather nor a ground made muddier by the play-off for third place played before the final, which was protested by the Indian officials—could stop the Indian team. As a correspondent reported, despite ‘the heavy, muddy turf and the light rain’, the Indians ‘outclassed the British team with their superb ball control, accurate passing and intelligent positional play’.3 Balbir Singh, who scored twice in the final, recounts that Kishan Lal and Babu both played barefoot to tackle the slippery surface with the Indians winning handily 4–0. In the crowd was the staunch anti-imperialist and close ally of Jawaharlal Nehru, V.K. Krishna Menon, independent India’s first high commissioner to Britain, to whom the Indian victory must have seemed especially sweet. He was among those who ran onto the ground to congratulate the Indian team; later he hosted an official reception for the team at India House.
India’s barefoot footballers made quite an impression despite getting knocked out in the first round of the 1948 Olympic Games. While Indians had been playing barefoot for decades, this was the first time that the Indian football team was playing with naked feet in an international tournament. As a veteran sports commentator pointed out, ‘There was a certain Indianness about it, which was as unique [as] the rope trick or shall we say Ranji’s leg glance.’4 However, for the rest of the world it was a most unusual sight. And this was evident in the reaction in London and the several legends that grew up around the Indian team. When at a reception in Buckingham Palace, Princess Margaret reportedly asked India’s star footballer Sailen Manna if he was afraid to play barefoot, he replied that it was ‘easier to keep the ball under control’.5 Another story was that King George VI made Manna roll up his trousers to check if his legs were made of steel.