Government to restore old powers of AICTE

The Union government is planning to introduce legislation that would reverse a Supreme Court order and restore the powers of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to oversee technical institutes including engineering and business schools—a move that would cheer thousands of professional colleges left in a regulatory vacuum by the ruling. “We are for restoring the powers of AICTE,” said Ashok Thakur, Secretary, Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). “We have taken the opinion of the law ministry on it. Instead of an ordinance route, we will go through legislative route.”

On 25 April, the Supreme Court ruled that AICTE does not have the authority to control or regulate professional colleges that are affiliated to universities, rendering the once-powerful technical education regulator ineffective and leaving some 11,000 professional colleges without an overseer. Nearly a million students graduate from these colleges every year.

In December, the University Grants Commission (UGC) unveiled draft guidelines to regulate the institutes, which have been at a loss regarding how to operate in the absence of a regulatory mechanism, for instance, getting approval for plans to raise or lower their student intake. Thakur indicated that UGC will serve as a stop-gap regulator of these institutes until the AICTE’s powers are restored. He said that a joint coordination committee of UGC, AICTE and officials of the MHRD had met earlier this week and are again meeting on 10 January to chalk out their strategy.

As an interim measure, AICTE will continue to set the standards for professional colleges to follow; the National Board of Accreditation (NBA), another government body, will conduct the assessments; and UGC, through the universities under it, will offer affiliation and approvals to these technical schools.

The MHRD plans to introduce the draft law in the next session of Parliament and table it most probably in the Rajya Sabha. Bills moved in the upper house of the Parliament will not lapse even if the Lok Sabha is dissolved in the run-up to the general election due by May. 

To be sure, the window open for the Bill to be passed is narrow. “We will push for it in the coming (budget) session and if it cannot get passed, then it will carry over for early resolution in the next government,” Thakur said. If that scenario pans out, the stop-gap regulatory arrangement would be in place for one academic session.

Legislation restoring AICTE’s powers would mean that professional colleges would be able to stay clear of UGC’s control and command structure while ensuring that they emerge from the regulatory limbo they found themselves in after the Supreme Court order. It will also help the government avoid legal hassles. 

Several associations of private colleges, including the Education Promotion Society of India, have been planning to move the Supreme Court against the new guidelines of UGC. They argue that coming under UGC’s fold will take away their autonomy—their curriculum, for instance, will have to be prescribed by the university to which they are affiliated. The curriculum is often outdated and out of step with industry requirements.

“The autonomy of the top colleges should not be violated. A regulator is important but UGC regulation via universities is not desirable,” said Harivansh Chaturvedi, director of the Birla Institute of Management Technology in Greater Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi.

Source: Mint, January 4, 2014

UGC: New technical education norms not for diploma courses

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and University Grants Commission (UGC) on Monday said the new regulations being drafted for technical educations institutions will affect only affiliated colleges and those offering graduate degrees. A senior official said, “Draft regulations will leave out institutions offering all diploma courses.”

Clarification has come in the wake of reports that a large number of management institutions are planning to go to the Supreme Court (SC) against the proposed UGC regulations. Their plea is that regulation by UGC will delay the admission process that is already in motion.

The UGC had come into the picture after the Supreme Court (SC) earlier this year said approval of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is not required for obtaining permission and running MBA course by private institutions since it does not fall under the definition of technical education. The SC had also said AICTE’s role vis-a-vis universities is “only advisory, recommendatory and one of providing guidance and has no authority empowering it to issue or enforce any sanctions by itself.” Instead, the apex court had said regulatory function is with the UGC or the university.

Ministry sources said, “Management institutions have not understood the Supreme Court judgement. It does not impact diploma courses by non-affiliated institutions. Regulations have not been finalized yet. It will take some more time.” MHRD’s effort to amend the AICTE Act to circumvent the SC order has not happened so far and is unlikely to take place in the remaining few months of UPA-II government. 

Meanwhile, in order to implement SC judgment, UGC got into the act. Earlier, it wrote to universities with affiliating colleges that no new courses should be approved by them. The Commission had said it would also not approve any new course. A senior UGC official said, “Regulations have to be in place before the 2014-15 admission session begins. AICTE had already finished the process for 2013-14 by the time SC order came.” But AICTE officials are still hopeful that regulatory function will be restored either through amendment or ordinance.

Source: The Times of India, December 31, 2013

MHRD panel’s move will make 39 central universities lose autonomy

In a move that will take away the autonomy of 39 Central universities, a high-level committee set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has recommended that they be brought under a legislation of Parliament. If recommendation of the panel is implemented, universities will lose the autonomy of appointing teachers, managing their finances and diversity of courses to be offered.

At present 39 central universities — including the old ones like the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Delhi University (DU), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and others — are managed by 24 Acts of Parliament. In 2009, 16 new central universities were created under a single Act of Parliament. The committee, headed by A M Pathan, former Vice-Chancellor of Central University of Karnataka, has recommended that the existing Acts should be repealed. “Government should reject the recommendation forthwith. If implemented, it will take away the diversity of Indian higher education. Intervention like four-year undergraduate programme will be expanded to other universities,” one VC of Delhi-based central university said.

Though Pathan committee has said visions of luminaries like Madan Mohan Malaviya (BHU), Rabindranath Tagore (Shantiniketan), Jawaharlal Nehru (JNU), Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (AMU) and B R Ambedkar (Ambedkar University) will be retained, the recommendations are going to cause furore in some of these old institutions.

Pathan Committee has said the office of chancellor should be abolished and a Council of Vice-Chancellors (CVCs), a new body, be put in place. CVCs will be headed by the MHRD minister as ex-officio chairperson and consist of University Grants Commission (UGC) chairperson, all VCs of central universities, four members nominated by the central government representing Ministries of MHRD, Finance, Youth Affairs and Science and Technology, not less than three but not more than five members to be nominated by the Visitor (President of India) and three Members of Parliament. CVCs will co-ordinate the activities of all the central universities, advise on matters of policy relating to academic matters, synchronize academic calendars and other functions.

VCs will be appointed by a search-cum-selection committee consisting of nine members. Of the nine members of the panel, three will be nominated by the Visitor, six by the CVC out of which one will be from the scheduled caste, one from socially and educationally backward classes, one woman and one from a minority community.

In a bid to curtail VCs independence and make him subservient to UGC, immediately after appointment s/he is expected to give a report to the UGC about varsity’s infrastructure, number of posts of teachers, employees, details of research, courses, collaboration with other institutions and perspective plan in respect of academics, administration and development.

If this is not enough, the committee has recommended establishment of the Central Universities (teachers, registrar and finance officer) Recruitment Board that will make centralized appointment of assistant professors. Candidates will give preference for allotment of central university but the decision will rest with the recruitment board. Performance of teachers will be done through external peer review. Universities will have the option of either admitting students through a common test or evolve its own procedure.

Source: The Times of India, December 14, 2013

Foreign universities get independent access to India

The government has decided to allow foreign universities to operate independently in India, set up campuses and offer degrees without having a local partner—a move that finally opens the gates for foreign educational institutions seeking to establish a presence in the country. To foreign universities, the move presents an opportunity to tap a country with a population of 1.2 billion. To Indians (at least those who can afford it), it is an opportunity to receive quality education without leaving India (and without paying in dollars). And to India, it could mean significant foreign direct investment.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) have agreed to allow overseas universities to operate as so-called Section 25 or non-profit companies under the newly passed Companies Act, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) said on Tuesday. Companies registered under Section 25 of India’s Companies Act cannot distribute profit or dividends to members, which means that the foreign universities cannot repatriate money—a constraint that was criticised by at least one expert.

Several foreign universities have been keen to enter India to tap a higher educational market that is worth Rs. 46,200 crore (Rs. 462 billion) and expanding by 18% every year, according to 40 million by 2020, a report from audit and consulting firm EY. They have been constrained by the need to do so through partnerships.

The Foreign Education Providers’ Bill is still awaiting parliamentary approval. Tuesday’s announcement, which is effectively an executive order, doesn’t need to be approved by Parliament and could see a rush of foreign universities to enter India. “The ministry had sought comments and observations of DIPP and DEA on the rules. Both DIPP and DEA have supported the proposal,” the MHRD said in a statement on Tuesday. Ministry officials said that the details are being vetted by the Ministry of Law and an official notification will be published soon.

With the powers vested in it through the University Grants Commission (UGC) Act, the ministry will allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India and award foreign degrees. Currently, a foreign university needs to join hands with a local education provider to offer courses and the degrees are not considered foreign degrees. Under the proposed rules, foreign universities can set up campuses in India once they have been notified as ‘foreign education provider’ by UGC. An educational institution wishing to operate in India needs to be in the top 400 in one of three global rankings: the UK-based Times Higher Education Ranking; Quacquarelli Symonds ranking published in UK again; and the China-based Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings.

An MHRD \official said that at least 20 foreign universities—mostly from US, followed by Australia and Canada—have expressed their desire to enter the market. “Universities such as Duke University, California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and VirginiaTech are some of the names that have shown interest,” said the official, who asked not to be identified. Mint could not independently verify this. In September 2012, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business’ deputy dean Robert H. Gertner told Mint that the school was exploring opportunities to open an executive education centre in India.

The degrees awarded by foreign universities in India will be considered foreign degrees and students holding these degrees need to get an equivalence certificate from the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), the MHRD said in its statement. These universities will also function under the UGC rules.

The profit motive
A foreign university cannot repatriate money that it makes in India. And any university seeking entry to India must be accredited by bodies in its home country. “Quality control is key and we will build the safeguard mechanism with each of the universities,” a second official in the HRD ministry said.

An expert was critical of these provisions. “On the one hand you are saying, we want top 400 institutes to come and on the other, you are not allowing them to repatriate surplus to the home campus. It’s a fundamental problem. I think there is still an inherent trust deficit between the government and the (foreign) educational institutes,” said Pramath Sinha, founding dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. “They have to stop questioning everybody, at least the best of the institutes. This problem was there in the Bill and if they are retaining it in the executive order, it will be a huge drag,” added Sinha, who is setting up a liberal arts university, India’s first, in Haryana.

The two MHRD officials said enough changes have been made to make it attractive for foreign universities to enter India. The India campus will function as a branch campus of the parent, rather than as an independent campus. The universities will offer the same degree they are offering in their parent campus. And the ministry has reduced the deposit universities have to maintain with the ministry (and which they will forfeit in case of any violation) from Rs. 50 crore (Rs. 500 million) to Rs. 25 crore (Rs. 250 million).

To be sure, it will not be easy for foreign universities to acquire land, especially in the context of India’s new land acquisition law. “We will not facilitate the university in getting land at a concession. Anyway, procuring land and other infrastructural facilities in India will be way cheaper than in developed countries,” said the first ministry official.He added that there were still three things that would attract foreign universities to India: a huge education market and the young demography to grow that further; lower recruitment and research costs; and the opportunity to offer executive education programmes and consulting services to Indian companies. The second official grandiosely described the ministry’s move as “liberalizing the higher education space the way India economy was liberalized between 1991 and 1993”.

Manish Sabharwal, the chief executive of staffing and training company TeamLease Services Pvt. Ltd, said that India remains an attractive destination for education. In many countries there are two problems, he added—demography and cost—but in India both the issues are in the right place. The problem, he said, is in the details.

Anton Muscatelli, Vice-Chancellor of the UK-based University of Glasgow, too stressed the importance of details. The Indian government’s willingness to allow universities to come into India should certainly boost the entry of foreign universities, but the details will be important, he said. His own university, he added, has several partnerships in India and will continue to work with strong Indian partners.

Once it is notified, the ministry’s order will render irrelevant the Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill 2010, a brainchild of former HRD minister Kapil Sibal, who is currently in charge of the telecom and law ministries.

Source: Mint, September 11, 2013

Private universities set to be future of quality education in India

“Ruined result, ruined career, ruined life” — Facebook status of Aman, a Delhi student after the CBSE class 12 results a fortnight ago. Aman (name changed on request) scored 90%. That evidently isn’t enough for the 17-year-old to dream of a career. And a life. The cut-off at Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), University of Delhi’s (DU) bellwether for higher studies in commerce and economics, was 96.5% to 98.5% in 2012. At other perceived top colleges of India, it’s nothing less than 95%. If Aman thinks his life is ruined, it’s clearly because 90% isn’t going to get him admission to SRCC or any other of the country’s Tier I colleges.

While he will later learn in life that marks are not necessarily the most accurate barometer of success, unfortunately at the moment Aman may be right. And he’s not alone. There are tens of thousands of Indian students all over the country who aren’t assured of quality education not because they didn’t score top marks but simply because the Indian education system cannot accommodate so many overachievers.

The bottom line: if you are not right up there at the top of the heap, you will miss out on quality education. The other option is for parents to fork out a small fortune and send their children to universities abroad. It’s an option only for the elite.

If it’s not about cut-offs at universities it’s about those cut up with them. Ishita Batra, 18, is among the 7,231 students in India who have crossed the 95% threshold in their class XII results for the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) this year. Batra, a student of Delhi Public School (DPS), RK Puram, scored a neat 95.6% in the science stream.

Lure of Foreign Lands
But it won’t be an Indian institute for her from hereon. After getting admission into half a dozen universities abroad, Batra has chosen to head to University of Pennsylvania to do a major in biology in a couple of months. Given an option, she would have stayed back in India for her undergrad education. But Batra didn’t see any option. “Indian education is inflexible. And I don’t have much faith in how the four-year undergrad programme will be implemented by DU,” she says with a shrug. DU’s executive council has approved a shift from a three-year to a four-year undergraduate programme. At the time of writing, DU had begun the admission processes and sold over 90,000 forms, including all categories, in the first three days.

This shift in the cornerstone of undergraduate education is just one of the changes playing out on the landscape of Indian education. The DU move has polarised the country’s capital (more of that later), but less controversial — and arguably more promising — is a slow yet decisive shift that centres on the advent of quality education through private universities at the undergrad level. The shift is not without challenges, but if it comes through it promises to transform the education ecosystem in India.

Says TV Mohandas Pai, Chairman of Manipal Global Education: “Students are now beginning to choose quality over lower fees, are looking for assured employability, have more choices than before and have more financial power to pay fees than before. We see the beginnings of a flight to quality. In engineering and management, many mediocre institutions are closing down and that is very good news.”

“Let’s face it,” adds Dhiraj Mathur, Executive Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a consultancy, “Apart from the big universities like DU, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, etc, the standard of education in most government colleges is at best spotty. Private universities can play an important role in bridging the gap between demand and supply of quality education.” He adds that because of greater autonomy, the private brigade has more flexibility in designing innovative programmes, “including the semester system”.

For now, semesters are largely the privilege of the well-heeled, who can afford to step overseas for further learning. The cost of a year’s education at an Ivy League university is prohibitive at around $60,000, or upwards of Rs. 3 million. Batra was among the few lucky ones to get 60% financial aid at Penn. Still, with or without aid, more and more youngsters who are unable to get into the domestic top league are taking flight to the US, Singapore, Hong Kong and to some universities in Europe.

Sample these numbers from Princeton University, one of the Ivy League universities. The number of undergraduate students enrolled from India in the 2006-07 academic year was 14; that has gone up to 59 in 2012-13. At Yale University, too, there has been an increase in the number of undergraduates from India. “Our enrollment of undergraduate students from India has more than doubled from a decade ago,” says a university spokesperson.

Private Universities, Ahoy For those who can’t afford milllion of rupees, private universities are a sliver of hope. They won’t come cheap, either, compared to current fees in domestic universities of just Rs. 10,000 per year for some DU courses; but, at between Rs. 300,000 and Rs. 500,000 annually, they won’t be as exorbitant as the foreign ones, either. “Private universities will play a significant role in meeting the demand and supply gap. Those who enrol students in thousands will make a big impact,” says Nikhil Sinha, Vice-Chancellor of Shiv Nadar University (SNU), which is in the third year of its maiden four-year undergrad degree programme. But it’s not just about soaking in more students; as Sinha points out, the new age universities are better placed to provide “broad-based education, a combination of liberal arts and professional education”.

Agrees PwC’s Mathur: “There is a growing awareness about the merits of a broad-based liberal arts programme. High-quality institutions like SNU are taking the lead in adopting this important innovation.” “Private universities will lead the change over the next 10 years. They are more focused; being fee-based, they know they have to attract students and deliver value; [but] they need to have a good management to survive and grow,” adds Pai.

Ashoka University, which has not yet come into existence, has more than 100,000 likes on its Facebook page. The university will be a full-fledged liberal arts institute and begins session in June 2014. “At Ashoka University, we are talking about liberal education, which is the notion of combining specialisation and general education,” says Pramath Sinha, one of the founders.

Sweet Spot
Perhaps there is a certain inevitability about private universities in higher education simply because of the sheer scale of investment required and the challenges that abound. As RK Pandey, President of NIIT University, puts it: “India’s higher education system faces challenges on three fronts: expansion, equity and excellence.” He adds there are other challenges, ranging from a low gross enrolment ratio (GER, or total enrolment at specific levels of education as a percentage of the population), inequitable access to education, and lack of quality research.

The government has set a target of 30% GER in higher education by 2020. Pandey says achieving that target — the GER currently is 18.8% — calls for an estimated investment of $190 billion. “Given the size of the investment required, the private sector needs to play a much larger role,” adds the NIIT University President. Sinha of Ashoka University has a clear idea of his potential market — not those who want to study medicine, engineering, and commerce.

“Some will go to Xavier’s and Stephen’s, they won’t come to us. But after this level, quality [of institutions] goes downhill. That’s the sweet spot we have,” adds Sinha, a former partner at McKinsey and founding dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB).

Four-year vs Three
The four-year undergraduate system is one of the decisive shifts being witnessed in the Indian higher education system. Although the intent and objective is to address some lacunae in the existing system, its success and failure will purely depend on its implementation. One reason DPS’ Batra has chosen to look overseas for further education is that she feels she and her mates have become the guinea pig batch of the CBSE — the new system of CCE (continuous and comprehensive evaluation) started with them, class X boards were scrapped; and, now as the batch is entering college, DU is replacing the three-year system with a four-year undergrad programme.

“In principle, the four-year programme is nice, but then we know that the first batch of every new system faces chaos. I don’t want that instability,” says Batra. “It would have been ideal if considerable public debate had happened before implementing the system to avoid the present controversy,” says KR Sekar, Partner at consultants Deloitte Haskins & Sells.

Amity University, Noida, a private university that admits 7,000 undergrads annually, is averse to the change. “The three-year degree is more than sufficient. One year of a student’s life is very valuable. Plus, there are additional costs: residential, and opportunity cost of not working among others, says Atul Chauhan, Chancellor of Amity University.

The newer universities seem more open to accepting the four-year system. Ashoka University, for instance, is looking at a four-year undergrad degree, with two years of general education and the other two for specialised education — just like the way it is in the US. “To be able to provide breadth through general education, you need time. In three years you cannot do what you want to do,” says Pramath Sinha.

SNU, too, feels four years is the right timeframe for a degree. It gives students adequate time to build a basic foundation in a range of subjects, and even have the opportunity to change their minds about subjects. “The four-year programme was not pre-conceived; it was the outcome of wanting to meet these objectives,” says SNU’s Nikhil Sinha.

Building a Base
DU vice-chancellor Dinesh Singh avers that “education needs a totally different approach”, and hence the four-year degree. “Indian universities and institutes of higher education are not in tune with Indian society,” he had said a few weeks ago. The four-year degree has its advantages. “It will enhance quality of education and create better graduates. A four-year course gives students enough time to learn and grow. As there is a choice of opting out in two or three or four years, students can change course and ensure that they study what interests them too. Over time this will make a qualitative difference to graduates,” reckons Pai.

Manish Sabharwal, Chairman of staffing firm TeamLease Services and founder of one of India’s first vocational education universities, also sees good coming out of this change. “DU is a lighthouse for Indian education and these changes should spark changes nationally. And frankly the fourth year is an option that I don’t anticipate most students will take. Few realise that half of US college enrolment is in two-year associate degree programmes. Only 30% of these students go onto their four-year degrees,” he says.

Massification of higher education requires diversity; multiple on and off ramps will create flexibility that makes the current one size fits all redundant, Sabharwal adds. However, the four-year degree is hardly the panacea for all ills of the education system. “There is nothing that prescribes that the US or the UK model is the best for India,” says George Joseph, Assistant Secretary at Yale University. The issues Indian education faces have to be sorted out in a unique and indigenous manner because the systems of governance, regulation and education are different in India, adds Joseph.

The New World
Last year in August, Indranjan Banerjee, 19, a BA English student at Shiv Nadar University, did what 54,000 students will attempt to do this year at DU — be a part of the four-year undergrad degree. A student of ICSE board from Kolkata, Banerjee chose the university primarily because it offers a four-year degree. “A four-year degree gives a lot of opportunity to research. In every course you do research and present papers. I would get to do an undergraduate thesis. No other university gives you that opportunity,” he says.

Nipun Thakurele, 20, a batch senior to Banerjee and doing his second year of BS, mathematics with a minor in economics, had got an 88.6% in class XII. A recipient of tuition-fee and hostel-fee waiver, he says: “The research work from day one has done wonders to my learning.”

In most undergraduate programmes in India, students do not do research. “However, private institutes can be progressive and more innovative because they are not burdened with having to follow the same set of regulations,” says Joseph, who is keenly watching the shift in the Indian education system. He hopes to see experimentation, competing models, three-year and four-year programmes along with non-rigid or set curriculum.

Money Matters
If fees for the new age universities run into lakhs, that’s because running high-quality institutes require resources. It’s not inexpensive to maintain world-class labs and hire world-class faculty. “We cannot apologise for the fact that highquality institutes require resources,” avers Joseph. Yale does not derive the majority of operating income from students. It has an endowment of $20-billion plus. A new university in India does not have that option, he says.

Anurag Behar, Vice-Chancellor of Azim Premji University (APU), a Bangalore-based private university, acknowledges that education is an enterprise that is hard to sustain financially. But trying to recoup operating costs from fees is not feasible, he says. “One has to recognise that the enterprise of education cannot be sustained from those who benefit from it. Over a period of time, you have to have a fund-raising engine. The new age universities are smart enough to do that,” explains Behar. He adds that one has to have a “degree of patience and you need around 10 years to see shoots of success”.

Established by the Azim Premji Foundation, APU is one of the few new institutes that is not in it for the money. “We should distinguish between two types of universities: one is philanthropic and the other has commercial intent,” says Behar. “The fact is nowhere in the world is a robust education sustainable with for-profit capital,” he claims.

For the moment, though, the new age private universities have other things to worry about. Pai lists out the three biggest challenges: autonomy, freedom from bad regulation and government control, and freedom to decide their own destiny. “All regulators seem bent on ensuring low-quality similar education all over India. They intend to cater to mediocre institutions that toe the line. Even the accreditation is inputbased not output-based,” says Pai.

Global Network
To understand the damage caused by bad regulations and centralised control he cites an example. At the time of Independence in 1947, Madras University, Bombay University, Calcutta University, Mysore University would have been among the top 200 universities of the world. Today after 50 years of the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and government control through the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), none of them figure in the top 200 and have only gone down, some into oblivion. “This is what centralised control and lack of autonomy have done to our universities,” laments Pai.

SNU’s Nikhil Sinha says the paucity of faculty has the potential to derail the best-laid plans of universities, new and old. “Like most institutes, we have fewer faculties than we want. We will not fill positions unless we have quality faculty,” he says. His wish list for dealing with this scarcity is rather ambitious. He cites the example of China that has a programme for sending students abroad to do PhDs and come back and teach. They also send faculty abroad. “We need our government to think on those lines,” says Sinha.

Partnerships too can help. “Institutes like Yale can work in India. Research collaborations are important as are faculty-exchange programmes,” adds the SNU Vice-Chancellor. Ashish Dhawan, one of the co-founders of Ashoka University and founder and CEO of Central Square Foundation, an education-focused philanthropy fund, says building credibility by recruiting high-quality faculty and attracting talented students is the way to go.

“We have access to world-class faculty and strong partnerships with globally renowned schools. For Ashoka, we will recruit from all over the world.” At last count, Ashoka University had sent out two offers to “very renowned faculty in the US for English literature”.

Faculty, however, can be a differentiator up to a point. After all, as Sabharwal says, just like war is too important to be left to generals, education is too important to be left only to teachers. The onus is on the new age universities to create a comprehensive experience that will convince students that — to paraphrase Einstein — their education is no longer interfering with their learning.

Source: The Economic Times (Online Edition), June 9, 2013

Government sets up agency to streamline entrance exams

After successfully completing the first common engineering entrance exam for all central government-funded technical colleges, the government on Friday announced the setting up of a National Testing Agency (NTA) to streamline all such high-profile competitions. These include the Common Management Aptitude Test (CMAT) and the National Eligibility Test (NET).

The new agency will handle such tests instead of regulators such as the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), and institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

“The rationale for setting up the NTA lies in ensuring that multiplicity of entrance examination leading to stress on the students is addressed in a comprehensive manner by formulating a uniform entrance examination for admissions in different branches of higher learning,” the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) said in a statement.

The ministry also set up a seven-member task force led by Sanjay Dhande, the former director of IIT-Kanpur that will have representatives from CBSE, UGC, AICTE, the National Council of Education, Research and Training (NCERT) and the MHRD.

“Among the three wings of education—teaching, learning and evaluation—the third one is the worse off. The effort is to professionalize that and build expertise in this domain,” said Dhande. “The new agency will be a body like ETS (Educational Testing Service) of the US,” Dhande said.

ETS conducts examinations such as Graduation Record Examination (GRE) and the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Evaluation is about building expertise in areas such as psychometry, statistics and domain knowledge and NTA will engage with that, he said.

NTA will be a professional body that will use external test delivery agencies to conduct competitions, according to an MHRD official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE), NET, the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) and similar other entrance exams can be conducted by private entities under the supervision of the NTA.

While CMAT is an entrance exam for graduate courses run by B-schools under the AICTE, GATE is an entrance test for postgraduate courses and doctoral programmes in the IITs and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. GATE is also used by some public sector undertakings (PSUs) to select entry-level candidates.

NET is conducted for determining the eligibility of candidates for junior research fellowships and lectureships at various Indian universities and colleges. Currently GATE is conducted by the IITs, NET by UGC, CMAT by AICTE and CTET by CBSE. More than five million students sit for these tests every year.

The MHRD said that the task force will prepare a blueprint for “creating a special purpose vehicle” to take the NTA forward. The ministry expects NTA to start conducting tests in 2014. The ministry said the plan was discussed with state education ministers in the first week of April.

Besides education regulators and institutes, the ministry has already interacted with a few private testing agencies that can be roped in as test delivery partners. “We have attended at least two rounds of dialogue and they are open to the idea of partnering private players,” said the head of a testing firm requesting anonymity.

Source: Mint, June 1, 2013

CSO working on Index of Education Services to track its growth

As part of an initiative to create a services production database in the country, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) is working on the Index of Education Services to track its growth. The segment contributes about 4% to the gross domestic product (GDP).

The index will throw some light on enrolments at different levels of education: primary, secondary and tertiary, vocational courses and separately for government, public and private institutes. Weights will be assigned according to enrolments in the base year in each of the segments.

As part of the Index of Services Production, CSO has fragmented different services as separate indexes, such as railways, air transport, postal, banking & telecommunication and has already released an experimental air transport and railways index.

For the education services index, the committee is examining various ways to measure productivity, in terms of enrolment and expenditure. Though enrolments are still collected using the net enrollment ratio for the millennium development goals, the index will go further. “The index will be able to track the impact of frequent changes in the education system, such as scrapping of board exams or increasing number of year to four for undergraduate courses,” said a CSO official.

The index will also track changes taking place on a short-term basis in different parts of the country. The index is expected to be finalised in the next six months. It will be released on an annual basis, unlike indexes for railways, banking and postal, which will see a quarterly release. Since enrollments occur once in an academic year, it wouldn’t make sense to release it monthly or quarterly, said a CSO official. Different sectors have different periodicities.

Given the gaps in services-related data, CSO will use data collected from major institutes only for the time being, including IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology), IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management) etc. Affiliation bodies like University Grants Commission (UGC) will also be asked for data. “Data from bigger institutes will be sufficient to track short-term movements,” the official added.

Services sector contributes about 60% to India’s overall GDP, but does not have a comprehensive database on production. Government is also working on an annual survey of services along the lines of annual survey of industries, which aims to provide turnovers and employment numbers.

As of today, only the HSBC Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for services gives an indication of the services sector on a monthly basis while the GDP covers some sectors on a quarterly basis. Data collection in the vast services sector is a major concern since most of it is informal.

Source: The Economic Times, May 30, 2013

Central universities differ from IIMs, favour overarching council

India’s central government-funded universities are favouring the creation of an overarching body to improve coordination and share resources, although the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have resisted a similar concept out of concern that it may undermine the autonomy of the elite business schools.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the 42 central varsities may take a final call on the plan after a series of meetings in New Delhi starting on Tuesday. “I think there is a communication problem among central universities. We will seek to put in place a better coordination mechanism like a council,” said Somnath Dasgupta, Vice-Chancellor of Assam University.

Proponents of such a mechanism say that an overarching body can coordinate the activities of all central institutions, deal with matters of common interest, review learning outcomes and help forge stronger ties among the 42 institutions, perceived to be the best in the country’s university system. India has 612 universities in the country under the control of the central government, states and private organizations.

In spite of their national reputation, the central universities are confronting challenges on several fronts, including lack of sufficient infrastructure, a shortage of teachers, deficient curriculums and inadequate interaction with corporate houses. According to government data, these universities are facing a shortage of at least 33% in teaching staffs; none of the 16 new central universities established four years ago has a permanent campus as yet. And none of these institutes are in the top 200 of global rankings, reflecting poorly on their standards.

The top-ranked Indian institutions, as per the UK-based Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) rankings, were Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi (212), IIT-Bombay (227) and IIT-Kanpur (278).

Surabhi Banerjee, Vice-Chancellor of the Central University of Orissa, said she backs the creation of an overarching council for central varsities. “A new university like ours is in favour of sharing resources and teaching staff. A council can help us learn best practices in other universities,” said Banerjee. Constant interaction will help central universities that are operating away from the cities to attain a national and even global perspective, Banerjee said.

Dasgupta of Assam University said that although the subject is not on the agenda of Tuesday’s meetings with the President and the Prime Minister, “we will take up this issue.” He said universities in the north-eastern states face a particularly tough situation—professors aren’t willing to stay long at the institutions given the region’s geographical remoteness from the rest of the country; that in turn affects their educational standards. “A coordination committee we believe can solve some of the problems. For sure, we would like exchange of faculties for a semester at a time,” he explained.

Abdul Wahid, Vice-Chancellor of the Central University of Kashmir, said he wants to incorporate innovative courses of universities elsewhere to provide his students “learning to become market-ready” for employment. “I will also like to have skill education and incorporation of grade system for students,” Wahid said.

Last month, some of the IIMs opposed a move by the MHRD to put in place a council akin to the IIT Council through a legislation and allow the institutes to impart degrees instead of diplomas. The elite B-Schools say such a move will hamper their autonomy.

A MHRD official, who requested anonymity, said that, on principle, the ministry wanted better coordination among universities, IIMs or institutes of national importance. Central universities favouring the concept is a “healthy sign and can improve quality of learning,” he said.

“The enormity of the challenges of providing equal opportunities for quality higher education to an ever-growing number of students is also a historic opportunity for correcting sectoral and social imbalances, reinvigorating institutions, crossing international benchmarks of excellence and extending the frontiers of knowledge,” said an HRD ministry document.

Source: Mint, February 5, 2013

Industries may soon get a role in higher education

India is preparing to involve industries in higher education in an effort to boost both research and employability. The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) expects this will, in addition to employability, solve issues related to land availability and finance. In return, the government will give industries independence and fast-track regulatory clearances for opening institutes that will focus on research specific to industry requirements.

The ministry, in association with lobby group Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), has invited 17 government departments and ministries and nearly 60 companies to a two-day conference in Delhi that will begin on Monday, according to a ministry concept note that Mint has reviewed.

“If we reach an agreement, then we don’t have to go to Parliament and it will be more of a ministry-level decision to engage industry in higher education,” said S.S. Mantha, Chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the regulator in the higher education sector for technical institutes and a part of the HRD ministry. “Through the conference we want to understand what the industry requires on regulatory front. We will try to accommodate that.”

Shalini Sharma, head of the education wing at CII, said companies are open to the idea and want to know “what the government is offering”. The exercise will fast-track industry involvement and is a positive for higher education, Sharma said, particularly as research needs to pick up in the country and should happen in sync with industry demand. “The government cannot do everything by its own. Once the industry participates, issues like land and finance will be taken care of easily,” said Mantha.

Mantha said involving the industry will promote theme-based research and innovation during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17). This will “stimulate discussion between industry players and ministries” on setting up institutes that will focus on specific research and enter into twinning and collaborative programmes with other universities and research organizations, he said.

Such institutes should admit trained people across disciplines to do research, leading to the award of doctoral degrees in sectors ranging from water to chemicals, urban development to manufacturing, and energy and mines, the concept note underlined.

The MHRD will function as the nodal agency for setting up such institutes, it said. Higher education reform has been left cold the past couple of years, but the government has given education a priority sector tag for the 12th Five-Year Plan period that began on 1 April 2012.

Several proposed legislations related to higher education, including the foreign university Bill, education tribunal Bill, education malpractice Bill and accreditation Bill are pending in Parliament.

Source: Mint, September 24, 2012

To tap into college talent, plans afoot for varsity sports leagues

Hoping to tap into sporting talent among college students like the US, the government is set to announce national-level university cricket and hockey leagues. Sponsorship has already been lined up for the 20/20 format cricket league and the International Hockey Federation-aligned hockey league that may be launched as early as February 2013, sources said.

At the recent Olympics, 450 members of the American contingent were university students. Hoping to make a similar impact, the Human Resource Development Ministry is planning a respectable prize money and public exposure for the leagues.

The Association of Indian Universities (AIU) that already holds the annual inter-university Rohinton Baria cricket tournament will partner with NDTV for the leagues. A three-day event, the Rohinton Baria tournament has thrown up a fair share of well-known cricketers such as Dilip Sardesai, Chetan Chauhan and Sandeep Patil.

Attempts are also on at the BCCI level to revive the Vizzy Trophy, the annual inter-zonal university tournament, that produced cricketers such as Kapil Dev. While the BCCI is said to have been consulted by the AIU, the plan is to organise the cricket league outside its fold.

The 2012 Olympics triggered deliberations on need to encourage varsity-level contribution to national and international sports. NDTV then came to the HRD Ministry with an offer to sponsor an inter-university cricket event, which was later expanded to hockey.

“We are planning the new university sporting leagues as big events that will not only generate interest in sports across Indian universities but also give a platform to talented youngsters,” HRD Minister Kapil Sibal told The Sunday Express.

The planned format includes north, south, east and west zones contesting against each other in cricket as well as hockey. The top two from each of the zones will play in the national leagues.

AIU traces its history back to 1925 when then Viceroy of India, Lord Reading, took the initiative to bring all universities on a common platform. It covers traditional universities, open universities, professional universities, institutes of national importance and deemed-to-be universities.

Source: The Indian Express, September 23, 2012