EDUCATION IN INDIA

One issue that has not received the attention it deserves from observers of the Modi Government has been its treatment of education. We have all heard for some time about the demographic dividend that awaits our nation from its youthful population, but we can only reap that dividend if we train and educate our young people to be able to take advantage of what the world has to offer them in the 21st century. Otherwise, the Naxalite menace shows us how easily the demographic dividend can become a disaster: there is nothing more dangerous to the nation than legions of under-educated, unemployed and unemployable young men with no stake in our society. This is why I have often argued that education in India is not just a socio-economic issue, but a national security issue as well.

But the Modi Government's performance in education so far does not inspire confidence. Its budgetary allocations tell the tale. The overall education budget is down from Rs. 82,771 cr to Rs. 69,074 cr. Whereas under the UPA, the Plan allocation went up by 18 per cent in 2012-13 and by 8.03 per cent in 2013-14, the BJP Govt has reduced the Plan allocation for 2015-16 by 24.68 per cent. The savage cuts go across the board: the flagship Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has been reduced by 22.14 per cent, funding for the Mid-Day Meal Scheme by 16.41 per cent, the Rashtriya Madhyama Shiksha Abhiyan for secondary education by 28.7 per cent and the Rashtriya Uchhattar Shiksha Abhiyan, to support state colleges, by 48 per cent. To take just one example, the SSA, which funds schools across the country: MHRD had asked for Rs. 50,000 cr in 2015-16; it received Rs. 22,000 cr from the Modi Government's current Budget.

In higher education, we have long lamented that not a single Indian university is in the top 200 of any of the global rankings. But look at the non-seriousness of the BJP's approach to our flagship IIT system. They have announced the creation of five new IITs with a grand total investment of Rs. 1000 crore - but the Government's own Detailed Project Report specifies that the cost of establishing an IIT is Rs. 2200 cr over a period of 7 years: in other words, each new IIT needs an annual expenditure of around Rs. 310 crore a year. Mr Jaitley's allocations fall dramatically short of that - and this excludes any amount which may be needed for completing the construction of previously announced IITs. Inadequate funding has compromised the quality of education in all newly established IITs and IIMs, with the government rolling out more such institutions without strengthening the existing infrastructure.

This is just one example. The reduced allocations across the board do not match the 12th Plan objectives regarding expansion, growth, access, or quality of Higher Education. The 12th Plan approach paper had proposed that 18 per cent of all Government education spending or 1.12 per cent of GDP should be on Higher Education, and Parliament's Standing Committee on HRD recommended raising it to 25 per cent and 1.5 per cent respectively. Instead, this government is going in the opposite direction.


An educated country needs good teachers, and enough of them. But only 63 per cent of government schools have a Pupil-Teacher ratio as per RTE norms (30:1 primary, 35:1 upper primary). According to the RTE Act, the prescribed norm had to be reached by March 2015: what is government doing about it?

We have a shortage of trained teachers as well as training institutes. There are 6 Lakh posts of teachers vacant under the SSA. Even in the KVs, 7698 out of 44,529 sanctioned teaching posts are vacant; so are 50 per cent of positions in teacher-training institutions. Most teacher training colleges, as the Verma Committee observed, are so bad they should be closed down. If we train teachers badly, they will teach children badly. A serious initiative by MHRD is needed: urgent recruitment, more Teacher Eligibility Tests, remedial training. Instead we have a level of governmental inattention to the crisis that matches our notorious culture of teacher absenteeism. The picture is even worse in higher education: Central Universities, IITs, NITs, IIMs, are all suffering crippling shortages of teachers.

Our educational system is over-regulated and under-governed. I hope this government will rethink the disastrous course upon which it has embarked, and revive the proposal to abolish UGC and AICTE and create an overarching Council of Higher Education to facilitate, rather than restrict, educational autonomy. Excellence can only thrive amid freedom.

-     - Mr. Manuel R  &  Mr. Krishna Mohan