Archive for the ‘Private Higher Education’ Category
How Indian business leaders are creating Indian Institute of Human Settlements
For modern Indians, the town-planning masterpieces of Mohenjodaro and Harappa built by their ancestors nearly five millennia ago are a distant memory, far removed from the chaotic urban spaces they inhabit in the twenty-first century.
Harking back to the spirit of that hoary accomplishment, a handful of eminent Indians have come together to build an institution dedicated to pedagogy and practice which could help transform and renew the country’s cities and towns. Brick by brick, the intellectual and financial foundations of the Indian Institute of Human Settlements (IIHS) are being laid by some of India’s most prominent and generous business leaders, academicians and technocrats.
Following a donation of Rs. 50 crore (Rs. 500 million) by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and his wife Rohini, the institute has been bestowed with gifts of money from investment banker Hemendra Kothari and Uday Kotak, the Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Bank.
“We all know India is rapidly urbanising in a very chaotic manner. While one cannot cure all the ills, you can make your own little contribution. That is the basic idea behind this institution,” says Chandrasekhar Bhave, the former chairman of securities market regulator – SEBI – who was named the Chairman of IIHS in May.
To be housed on a 55-acre campus in the south Bangalore suburb of Kengeri, IIHS aims to raise around Rs. 400 crore (Rs. 4 billion) from independent donors. Once it wins recognition as a university, it will offer undergraduate, masters and doctoral programmes using an inter-disciplinary approach that has few global parallels.
Housed in Temporary Campuses
“Across the developed world, universities offer only a masters programme in this area but India needs a pool of professionals very much like the BTech graduates from IITs,” says Aromar Revi, Director of IIHS. Apart from sustainable environment practices, the specialist schools of study will include governance & policy, economic development, human development and settlements and infrastructure.
The 17-member promoter group, which is providing its services pro bono and has committed Rs. 15 crore (Rs. 150 million) in funding, includes leading lights of Indian business such as Deepak Parekh (HDFC), Jamshyd Godrej (Godrej & Boyce), Kishore Mariwala (Marico), Nasser Munjee (DCB) as well as professionals such as Rakesh Mohan (former RBI deputy governor) and Vijay Kelkar (former finance secretary).
Kothari says he decided to write a cheque for Rs. 10 crore (Rs. 100 million) after conversations with Nilekani and Rahul Mehrotra, professor of urban design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and one of the promoters of IIHS. “What I have given is just a little portion of what the institute needs,” he says.
The DSP Blackrock chairman’s munificence will endow a chair in the School of Environment & Sustainability that is named for the Nilekanis and is one of five interdisciplinary schools at the proposed university. Kotak, too, has endowed IIHS.
Set up with a charter of being independently funded, IIHS is a not-for-profit company under Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act. Donors will have no influence on the way the university functions. Nearly three years after it was first seeded as an idea, IIHS is still awaiting the passage of a law which will allow it to apply to become a full-fledged university.
Housed in temporary campuses in New Delhi and Bangalore, IIHS offers brief courses in disciplines such as social venture design. In October this year, it will launch an eight-month course for working professionals in the area of urban development.
Source: The Economic Times (Online Edition), August 13, 2012
Northeast India opens doors to private universities with a Rs. 3 billion investment
Policymakers in northeast India are finally creating a framework and inviting private investors in higher education, filling a glaring shortage that has in the past seen students in the region migrating to the rest of the country. The sector has till date received investments to the tune of Rs. 300 crore (Rs. 3 billion), and projects worth Rs. 200 crore (Rs. 2 billion) are in the pipeline. At least three to four private universities are looking to soon start operations.
“There is a huge demand for higher education institutions. Our foray in this sector has been met with a very positive response from students,” says Stephen Mavely, Vice Chancellor of Don Bosco University in Guwahati. Some of the initiatives are in the public private partnership mode. Meghalaya, for instance, has inked a memorandum of understanding with International Finance Corporation for starting the Shillong Medical College.
The Assam government, in partnership with the Tata Group and Oil India Limited (OIL), is starting the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Advanced Sciences (IIITAS), which, says Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, will cover the advanced and applied sciences. “Emphasis would be on industry-interface research and development relevant to Assam, besides skill development, helping the youth of the state to be employable here and elsewhere.”
While the Centre will hold a 57.5% stake in the project, the state government will hold 35%, and the Tata Group and OIL will hold the remaining stake, says education minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma. “Our initial estimate for this project was around Rs. 127 crore (Rs. 1.27 billion), but this will now go up,” he says.
Nearly 375,311 persons from the the region migrated to other states in 2007-2008, according to an National Skill Development Council (NSCD) study on development and employment generation potential of the northeastern states. The majority of migrants were from Assam, followed by Sikkim and Tripura. In an attempt to keep the flock home, Assam and Meghalaya have seen at least five private universities starting courses. The privately-run Kaziranga University will commence MBA and engineering courses in Assam by July this year.
Anil Saraf, vice president of the Northeastern Knowledge Foundation, which is starting the university, says the group is initially investing around Rs. 100 crore (Rs. 1 billion) into the project, but will scale up the investment to nearly Rs. 300 crore in the next few years. The campus, on 50 acres, hopes to attract students from Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. “We will also collaborate with foreign universities and initiate joint programmes and research,” says Saraf.
There is a lot of demand for engineers in northeast India as huge projects in the infrastructure sector are being implemented here, adds SK Mahanta, CEO of MMS Advisory, a higher education consultancy. “Students in engineering colleges of the region are getting good campus placements,” he adds. Several new universities, piloted by local promoters, are in the pipeline, he says.
Source: The Economic Times, February 21, 2012
Scope for greater private role in higher education: E&Y
There is scope for greater private sector participation in higher education, says a recent Ernst & Young report. The report, brought out in collaboration with industry chamber, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), presents a case for loosening regulatory framework.
Private educational institutions have been mushrooming in the past few years. The percentage of students enrolled in unaided private institutions has also been growing, according to the report. Education is a lucrative business currently as India figures at the top of the most-sought after markets in the world with a population of 234 million in the 15 to 24 years age group, says the report.
With the implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, a surge in enrolment at the primary and middle levels is expected, which would create a huge eligible pool for enrolment in higher education in the long term, it says. State governments are focussed on capacity creation and a bulk of the expenditure is unplanned, directed toward maintenance and administration of existing institutions, claims the report.
The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of India is rising but is not as yet on par with international GERs. The Government has set a target of achieving 30 per cent GER by 2020, which means about 40 million students enrolments. At present, there are 14.6 million students in higher education sector. The private sector wants to target this additional capacity of 25 million seats over the next decade.
E&Y estimates an investment of Rs. 1 million crore (Rs. 10 trillion), an average of Rs. 0.4 million per seat. Of this, the private sector would be required to contribute Rs. 50,000 crore or Rs. 500 billion (assuming that private sector accounts for 52 per cent of total enrolment).
The report lists the corporate and academic collaborations private players must make and the marketing and brand building initiatives required to keep the business of education going good.
Source: The Hindu Business Line, November 10, 2011
New institutes in UP, Bihar keep the students at home
Till a decade ago, students finishing school in the cow belt of UP and Bihar, mostly migrated out of their home states to join better-quality, higher education institutes in other parts of India. For those wanting to pursue world-class engineering or management courses, except the some IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology), IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management) and a handful of government institutes, options were few.
There were almost no second and third-rung institutes. The students moved to Delhi, Mumbai, Pune or Bangalore, which are known for their management and engineering institutes, both in the government and the private sector. But now, with the advent of private institutes in UP and Bihar, which are also focussing on world class academic standards, students increasingly find options closer home.
“With several private institutes being set up in UP and the neighboring states, students from these regions find more options for their higher education,” says Apoorva Palkar, Executive President of the Consortium of Management Education (COME), a body of 52 private institutions in Mumbai and Pune. She adds that students are increasingly choosing to study closer home provided the academic and placement standards are good. What this means for institutes in western and southern India, is that they now have to go out of their way to woo students from the cow belt. “This does not mean that students from UP, Bihar and other states in that region are not opting for institutes in Maharashtra,” adds Palkar.
“But now institutes from Mumbai, Pune and such have to go the extra mile and market themselves and highlight their achievements to attract students from here. Obviously, with Pune and Mumbai being corporate hubs, even middle-rung institutes have handsome placement records, which helps.” Many southern India-based institutes are also holding seminars and career camps in cities like Lucknow, Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna and Bhagalpur, to inform students about their facilities and academic record, and to try and convince them to apply.
Sharad Singh, CEO of the School of Management Sciences (SMS), which accepts about 900 students every year in its management and engineering programmes at campuses in Lucknow and Varanasi, says: “One can increasingly find the well-known south-based institutes vying with us to inform and counsel students about their colleges. With several good institutes coming up in the larger cities of UP and the Noida region, students now have an equally good option closer home. Having demonstrated good placements for the last several years at SMS, backed by good infrastructure and academic standards, we have also been able to win the trust of students.”
Nikhil Sinha, Vice Chancellor at the Shiv Nadar University, which has recently been set up in Greater Noida with an investment of Rs. 1,000 crores (Rs. 10 billion), says that while theirs is a world-class institute which would seek to compete on merit with premier institutions of the world, the country needs many such institutes to cater to the large base of graduates and students passing out of school each year.
Particularly those who cannot make it to the premier institutes like the IITs and IIMs. Sinha adds that many institutes have come up in the Noida area which offer good education, and where students can hope to be placed in good jobs after there are done studying here. Several institutions like Amity and the India Institute of Planning and Management have now started establishing branches in tier-II cities, providing good faculty and placements, which is helping address the demand among students.
Needless to say, students from the region are happy about the profusion of academic options. Uttam Narain Singh , who did his graduation from his hometown of Jaunpur, in UP, says that he wanted to leave home to study in another city. But his parents were unwilling to send him to Delhi as they did not know anyone who could serve as a local guardian for the youngster. Singh chose to apply to Amity’s branch in Lucknow, from where he has just graduated in engineering.
“I could not get admission into the Benaras Hindu University (BHU), which offers a reputed B.Tech. course,” says Singh. “I also wanted to move out of my hometown Jaunpur, which is a small place, for better exposure and opportunities. Lucknow was a good choice that my parents and I settled on, so I sought admission in the Amity Institute there.” Neha Kumari, who is from Giridih in Jharkhand, is a second-year student of B.Tech. at the School of Management Sciences in Lucknow. She says: “I took a conscious decision to study in Lucknow.”
Source: The Economic Times, June 14, 2011
Pearson India aims to step into the education void
Pearson Plc, one of the largest education services company globally and owners of Financial Times and the Penguin brand, views India as a laboratory in the education field. Post its acquisition of majority stake in Bangalore-based TutorVista, Pearson is planning an even bigger portfolio for itself. The President of Pearson India, Mr. Khozem Merchant, speaks to Business Line on the opportunities it sees ahead.
The Government has pumped around Rs 50,000 crore (Rs. 500 billion) into education in this year’s Budget. You have said that this is a clear indication of a ‘need gap’ in the sector that can be filled by education institutions. What will Pearson’s role be in bridging this gap?
I think first you have to step back a little bit and ask yourself why the Government is making such a colossal and welcome allocation. The reason for that is presumably that they believe, as everyone else believes, whether they are educationists, parents, administrators, that there is a big disparity between quality of learning and the demand for learning. That is a self-evident truth, but it is not one that has been necessarily publicly embraced for many years. But, it has been embraced now with great boldness and candidness by the Education Minister and his government, I guess for a couple of reasons. Over the past 15 years, accelerated economic growth has highlighted sharp disparities.
Unless these disparities are bridged, that level of growth will obviously not be sustainable… If India is to develop as a knowledge economy, services economy, then, it needs to have educated people as well as people with employable skills. Much of this is anecdotal evidence, but in the early period of economic growth, those gaps became evident as companies grew, recruited more people and discovered to their horror that people didn’t have the skills despite the degree. … This is a general observation but one that crept upon India and the consequences of ignoring that is that the country would lose competitiveness vis-à-vis its principal trading partners and say China.
If it is ignored, it could lead to a big social problem considering the demographics of the country……if young people don’t get jobs, it’s a problem… So, that is coming to very sharp focus in the last 4 to 5 years… India needs to train its people in a way that it sets them apart from other sources of skilled labour…this is the broad macro perspective.
So, how does Pearson plan to leverage this gap?
Pearson has a big role…What we can do is manifold and India’s needs are manifold and we think that as the world’s largest education services company – by services, I mean the things that support the delivery of learning, its not just the content, its training the schools, managing the technology to provide learning tools, to provide remedial education – …we do feel that we can step in confidently into that gap in India. And the gap is a fantastic opportunity for India and I’m confident India will do it and it has done in the recent past, there is a precedent of similar gaps that have existed and India has done absolutely the right thing. For example, telecom and banking services where they made a great leap in telescoped time. It did in 3 or 4 years what mature economies take a lot longer to do… Indian reform can make these great exponential leaps for the whole generation in what is obsolete technology, obsolete learning, redundant techniques and redundant methodologies. So, the same can happen in education and it can happen through multiple suppliers. There are many very fine Indian companies and global companies developing the technologies but the point is steeping into that void…. we are excited because India presents to us a landscape of skills and capabilities, fantastic opportunities for providing services from K-12 to school management services to vocational training, and to professional education…. And there isn’t in my knowledge a comparable organisation that has done breath or depth…we would step into that void with some responsibility and humility…
So, while we are talking about the government, there are some public-private participation (PPP) models that you’ve been looking at. There are reports that TutorVista is talking to states like Rajasthan and Maharashtra to get involved in PPP education ventures.
With the acquisition of TutorVista, we’ve acquired obviously a company with four sets of activities – one of them is K-12 into which this PPP activity could potentially fit. If they see PPP opportunities as a way to expand their footprint in K- 12, I’m sure they’ll follow their nose on that. At another level of our strategic expansion here, we’re looking at the private sector and I think in large measure that will remain our focus…
You have raised your stake in TutorVista to 76 per cent, through which you now manage 19 schools which are currently under the Manipal brand. There has been talk that you are looking at taking over more schools. Would those form a separate chain under the Pearson brand?
No. TutorVista is now a company that we control. We’re very lucky to have a fantastic management and the founders with us, that’s an important part of our thinking. As we move forward and as we think about opening up or purchasing managing control of schools, then certainly there will be a branding exercise few years down the line… the point is that in time it would be a brand and marketing of our choice rather than the one that we have inherited…in time the rebranding will take place.
You have a joint venture with Educom – India Can – for vocational training…. Where do you see this going?
We have a dynamic partner in Educom for vocational training, mostly for blue collar workers. Here, there is a fantastic opportunity. We are looking to spread to 120 centres, from the 80 right now. Here, we will spread education in a physical face-to-face format as well as online.
You and the Chairman have repeatedly spoken about India serving as a laboratory for the company. What has been your learning till now?
First, we have learnt a lot about price. This is a price-sensitive market and we realise that to build presence in the mass market, one of the things that we will need is our ability to maintain the quality of Pearson products, but those will at the same time have to be affordable. We now have a practitioner sense of the price sensitivity of the market here.
We have also learnt a lot about the art of distribution for this is not a homogenous market and it changes pretty rapidly any which way you turn. We have also grasped how this country offers tremendous opportunity for the application of technology for learning. And that is really exciting when the audience is large and dispersed.
We can also offer a lot of our products only online and need not have them in the physical form… they could be in digital form… it is more the distribution of learning and not the distribution of books as we consume learning now it in many different ways. Our children today consume it in many different ways and the skill there is to master the different distribution channels. A markets like this and others with the same socio-economic profile forces you to grasp that.
Source: Business Line, May 9, 2011
>Shiv Nadar Foundation to establish university in Greater Noida
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The Shiv Nadar Foundation today said it will establish a university in Greater Noida to offer undergraduate, postgraduate and professional degrees across a number of disciplines. The Uttar Pradesh government has enacted the necessary legislation for the establishment of the Shiv Nadar University in the state, a statement said.
“UP has an extremely progressive approach towards education and we are thankful for the support of the state government which has approved our proposal to establish the Shiv Nadar University,” Shiv Nadar Foundation Trustee TSR Subramanian said. Apart from the students it will benefit directly, it will also contribute to the development of the state by enhancing its position as an education hub,” Subramanian said.
The Shiv Nadar Foundation has also appointed Nikhil Sinha as the founding Vice-Chancellor of the University. The Shiv Nadar University will commence operations this academic year.
The University will begin its academic programmes with the launch of the School of Engineering this academic year and plans to roll out other schools in the coming years, including schools of business, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. The University’s most significant differentiator will be the strong emphasis on inter-disciplinary research that will cut across all schools, the statement said.
“While India can be justifiably proud of having a robust education infrastructure, it has not uniformly kept in tune with the current Indian and global needs in higher education. The progressive outlook of Uttar Pradesh has enabled us to set up a University with a multidisciplinary and research led character to address many of these issues,” HCL Technologies and Shiv Nadar Foundation Chairman Shiv Nadar said.
Last year, HCL Corporation, promoted by Nadar and his family, sold a 2.5 per cent stake in group firm HCL Technologies to raise over Rs. 581 crore (Rs. 5.81 billion), the proceeds of which were to be utilised for the Foundation.
The University is located on a 286 acre campus in Greater Noida and Phase-I of the campus development plan would accommodate 4,000 students. When fully completed, the campus will accommodate 8,000 students, the statement added.
The Foundation has been established by HCL founder Shiv Nadar. It focusses on philanthropic activities in the field of education and had set up the SSN Institutions in 1996. It runs the VidyaGyan schools and is also setting up Shiv Nadar Schools across India.
Source: The Economic Times (Online Edition), April 25, 2011
>AICTE lowers processing fee for private institutions
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The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has reduced the amount of processing fee and money to be deposited by new and existing institutions for the year 2011-12. According to the new fee structure, all technical institutions will have to pay a processing fee of Rs. 500,00 compared with Rs. 750,000 earlier. The fee for minority institutions, institutions set up exclusively for women and those set up in the hilly areas of the North-east has also been reduced. These institutions will now have to pay Rs. 350,000 compared with Rs. 500,000 last year.
The decision was taken at a recent AICTE meeting “in light of representation received from the various associations and for the benefit of technical institutions at large”. Most private technical institutions are relieved with the lowering of fee. “We are very happy with AICTE’s decision, and will now go ahead with our plans. To begin with, this year we plan to set up an institute in Hyderabad,” Dr. A. M. Sherry, Chairman, IMT Group of Institutions, told Business Line.
Dr. H.C. Chaturvedi, Chairman, BIMTECH, welcomed the lowering of fee but wanted AICTE to change the norms regarding fixed deposits. “It is not right for a statutory body to ask us for FDs in its name and even keep the interest earned on it. We will be taking up the matter with the Ministry of Human Resource Development shortly,” he said. According to the revised fee structure, posted on AICTE’s website, engineering and technology institutions offering the post-graduate diploma and degrees will now have to pay Rs. 3.5 million compared with Rs. 9 million earlier. The fee for exclusive minority, women and NE hilly area institutions has also been reduced to Rs. 2.8 million from Rs. 7.5 million earlier.
Source: Business Line, March 25, 2011
Murthy’s Catamaran eyes Manipal stake: Set to be Premji’s co-investor in edu group
Three decades after N.R. Narayana Murthy and Azim Premji failed to find common ground to work together, co-founder of Infosys may soon be a co-investor with his information technology peer and Wipro chairman in an education venture. Catamaran, a proprietary venture capital fund of Murthy, is prospecting a potential investment in Manipal Universal Learning, in which PremjiInvest infused US$ 42 million almost two years ago. Catamaran is evaluating a deal even as Manipal, an Indian cross-border education story, is mulling a big-ticket initial public offering (IPO), possibly within the next 18 months.
Source: The Times of India, November 16, 2010
Private institutes to make accounts public
Private higher educational institutions will have to disclose their income and expenditure in a standard format and make them public in line with corporate-style accounting and auditing norms being readied by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).
The guidelines are aimed at promoting openness and accountability in educational institutions, officials say. “The effort is to have transparency in the income and expenditure of higher educational institutes. Things like from which heads they are earning and under which head they are spending”, said a senior ministry official who did not want to be named. “Parents, students and society should know clearly about all these things”, the official added.
Though all educational institutions need to have their accounts audited, there is scope for manipulation of numbers because of the absence of a standard format, officials say. The numbers are also not required to be made public. The ministry official said the new guidelines would make it mandatory for private sector institutions to make their accounts public. “Like private sector publicly listed companies, they have to put their statements in the public domain”, the official said.
Ministry officials say there are concerns that many private institutions engage in malpractices to fleece students. “They may declare the course fee openly, yet several other expenditures like hostel, library (fees) become hidden ways to charge more”, said a second ministry official. “As higher education in private sector flourishes, hidden charges becomes a headache for millions of students”.
Prashant Bhalla, Vice-President of the private sector Manav Rachna International University in Faridabad, Haryana, said a broad accounting parameter could be ideal. “We can put the accounts in public through newspapers, but we (the private sector) should not be painted as a group only indulging in wrong practices”.
All state-funded higher educational institutes send their accounts to the government and are audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) before being tabled in Parliament. Non-government educational institutes will have the liberty to name their own auditor. “Since they don’t get grants, their accounts will not go to Parliament”, added the second official.
According to official statistics, India has 504 universities, 22000 colleges and several thousand technical education institutions. Of the total number of higher educational institutes, at least 60% are controlled by the private sector. At least 13 million students are pursuing higher education across India.
The move to enforce a uniform accounting system for private sector institutions is positive, said Shobha Mishra, Head of the education wing at industry lobby Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). “With increasing private participation in the higher education sector, attempts to bring transparency is not a bad idea”, Mishra said. “I believe there should not be any distinction between public and private sector in education on this subject”.
To boost education, the government is increasing its budgetary allocation. In the 2010-11 Budget, India earmarked Rs. 42036 crore (Rs. 420.36 billion) for education, an increase of around 15% from the previous fiscal. Higher education was allocated Rs. 11000 crore (Rs. 110 billion), around 7% more than in 2009-10.
The HRD officials also said the 14 proposed innovation universities, which will have private sector participation and enjoy greater autonomy, will also need to adopt the new accounting standards and make public their income and expenditure through newspaper advertisements and website postings.
The chartered accountants’ forum has agreed to prepare the common accounting format on a no-profit, no-loss basis. Amarjit Chopra, President of ICAI, confirmed that the institute was working on auditing standards for higher educational institutions. “By the end of October, the institute will come up with such standards. A committee is being formed for it within the institute”, Chopra said.
Source: Mint, September 8, 2010
Private institutes to make accounts public
Private higher educational institutions will have to disclose their income and expenditure in a standard format and make them public in line with corporate-style accounting and auditing norms being readied by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).
Though all educational institutions need to have their accounts audited, there is scope for manipulation of numbers because of the absence of a standard format, officials say. The numbers are also not required to be made public. The ministry official said the new guidelines would make it mandatory for private sector institutions to make their accounts public. “Like private sector publicly listed companies, they have to put their statements in the public domain”, the official said.
Ministry officials say there are concerns that many private institutions engage in malpractices to fleece students. “They may declare the course fee openly, yet several other expenditures like hostel, library (fees) become hidden ways to charge more”, said a second ministry official. “As higher education in private sector flourishes, hidden charges becomes a headache for millions of students”.
Prashant Bhalla, Vice-President of the private sector Manav Rachna International University in Faridabad, Haryana, said a broad accounting parameter could be ideal. “We can put the accounts in public through newspapers, but we (the private sector) should not be painted as a group only indulging in wrong practices”.
According to official statistics, India has 504 universities, 22000 colleges and several thousand technical education institutions. Of the total number of higher educational institutes, at least 60% are controlled by the private sector. At least 13 million students are pursuing higher education across India.
The move to enforce a uniform accounting system for private sector institutions is positive, said Shobha Mishra, Head of the education wing at industry lobby Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). “With increasing private participation in the higher education sector, attempts to bring transparency is not a bad idea”, Mishra said. “I believe there should not be any distinction between public and private sector in education on this subject”.
To boost education, the government is increasing its budgetary allocation. In the 2010-11 Budget, India earmarked Rs. 42036 crore (Rs. 420.36 billion) for education, an increase of around 15% from the previous fiscal. Higher education was allocated Rs. 11000 crore (Rs. 110 billion), around 7% more than in 2009-10.
The HRD officials also said the 14 proposed innovation universities, which will have private sector participation and enjoy greater autonomy, will also need to adopt the new accounting standards and make public their income and expenditure through newspaper advertisements and website postings.
The chartered accountants’ forum has agreed to prepare the common accounting format on a no-profit, no-loss basis. Amarjit Chopra, President of ICAI, confirmed that the institute was working on auditing standards for higher educational institutions. “By the end of October, the institute will come up with such standards. A committee is being formed for it within the institute”, Chopra said.
Source: Mint, September 8, 2010
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