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Educational Management

Notes

It is interesting to note that the plan allocation for higher education which went up
to 28per cent in the fifth plan period( 1974-79) has been slowly year on year basis
and came down to 6per cent of total plan expenditure during the tenth plan period.

26.3 Quality Improvement Issues in Higher Education

Although Higher Education has expanded several times since independence, issues of access, equity,
and quality still continue to be the areas of concern.
Access : The Gross Enrolment Rate(GER), measures, the access level by taking the ratio of persons
in all age groups enrolled in various programs to total population in age group of 16 to 23. For
Higher Education GER has risen from 0.7per cent in 1950-51 to 1.4 per cent in 1960-61, and 8per cent
in early 2000. The current GER which is about 10per cent stands very low when compared to the
world average of 23.2per cent, and an average of 54.6per cent for developed countries, 36.3per cent
for countries in transition, and 11.3 per cent for developing countries. In view of the projected
population in the age group of 18-23 years for 2011-12 which is 144.287 million(Table 3), the access
to higher education for all eligible in the country will be a major issue before the policy makers.
Equity : On one hand GER stands low for the overall population, while on the other hand there
exists large variations among the various categories of population based on gender, urban or rural
habitation and rich and poor. Due to regional disparity in economic development and uneven
distribution of institutions of higher education, the higher education is not equally available to the
different sections of the society.
Caste-based Reservation : To overcome the deep rooted problem of social inequity, successive
governments have introduced caste based reservations in higher education. At present the caste-
based reservation is applicable in only government funded institutions, which includes institutions
of excellence and amount to approximately 49per cent of the total seats. Due to the cast based
reservation, better talent coming from non-reserved category is deprived of the admission in good
institution, which creates social unrest and used as a tool to make vote bank by the political parties.
Quality : The higher educational institutions suffer from large quality variation in so much so that
a NASSCOM-MacKinsey Report-2005 has said that not more than 15per cent of graduates of general
education and 25-30per cent of Technical Education are fit for employment. The various regulatory
bodies regulating higher education have constituted an autonomous bodies for monitoring quality
standards in the institutions under their purview. For example, National Assessment and
Accreditation Council (NAAC) by UGC, National Board of Accreditation (NBA) by AICTE,
Accreditation Board (AB) by ICAR, Distance Education Council (DEC) by NCTE etc. Though, there
exists autonomous bodies for assessment and monitoring quality standards in the institutions of
higher education they suffer from two major deficiencies. First, the quality norms of such councils
are not comparable with international standards. Secondly, the enforcement process is not stringent.
Further political interference and corruption dilute the role and impact of these intuitions in ensuring
the desired quality standards.
Cost of Education : Government funding on higher education has been diminishing on a year on
year basis for more than one decade. In the view of withdrawl of government support to finance
higher education private institutions has been allowed to take over the responsibility of imparting
education to all. Further, in government aided universities the model of self financing and self
sustaining institutions has been introduced. All these developments have added to the cost of
education significantly. Though, the education loan has been made easy to facilitate higher education
still the terms and conditions imposed by banks in terms of guarantee and criteria of minimum
income of family restricts the talent coming from the poor families to go for higher education.

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