The Hindu Business Line : Advanced education stumbling along

Advanced education is in poor shape partly because of the perception that in a country with a large number of poor, the state should focus on primary and secondary education. Also, as the burden on the Budget for promoting quality advanced education is high, there is the political fallout of it being labelled elitist. Needed is strong support from both public and private bodies. Else, the country could end up paying a high price, with even the investments made thus far in advanced education not paying off, says A. Vasudevan.

WHEN Dr Amartya Sen got the Economics Nobel, we in India felt a sense of pride. But some are of the view that had he not researched and taught at foreign universities almost all through his career, he would not have got the award. This, indeed, is a sad reflection of the state of Indian universities.

There is a general indifference to the quality of advanced education and research, particularly in economics. The indifference is partly because of the age-old perception that in a country with a large number of poor, the state should focus on primary and secondary education. Also, as the burden on the Budget for promoting quality advanced education is high, there is the political fallout of it being labelled elitist.

The new paradigm is that the state should give larger space to the private sector catering to higher education in humanities, especially in professional courses. Private institutions, both indigenous and those that collaborate with foreign ones, have largely focussed on professional courses.

Though the fees they charge are much higher than those by state-aided institutions, they provide good computational facilities and clean classrooms, comparable with those available in the West. Those from such institutions are able to get jobs that fetch relatively higher emoluments.

Some of these institutions have on their faculty those with qualifications from foreign universities. But very few of these have established a reputation as India-centric research bodies. Some of them do not even have well-stocked libraries.

Now there is an added challenge that has been posed by the international agreement on services to provide equal opportunity to foreign universities to compete with state-aided universities. To compete effectively, the Government would have to hike fees — to provide additional infrastructure (libraries, better classrooms, and so on) — besides letting universities seek grants from the private sector.

The political fallout of increasing the fee structure would be considerable. What the Government can do is only to raise the fee structure in small doses. But it still may not be able to get quality teachers and researchers trained in modern techniques.

The universities, on their part, will try to introduce new courses but would still be short of funds, given the fee structure and the lack of quality faculty. They can get private business houses to support some of these initiatives, but none of them would be sufficiently organised to help on a sustained basis.

Not surprisingly, the number of registrations for Ph.D. has dwindled and most bright students prefer to go abroad for higher studies. Very few of those completing their studies abroad return to teach and conduct research in state-aided universities. This is because of unattractive emoluments and inadequate infrastructure facilities, as also the rigid syllabus and examination structure. Outside research grants are not easily available. But they could still be tapped if only the administration in universities stays in the background and lets the faculty take the lead in getting the grants.

Also, the intellectual challenges for the faculty have diminished because of the limited rapport with policy-making bodies and private corporate entities. And the flexibility in crossing over to policy-making bodies on short-period tenures is conspicuously absent.

A more recent development that has complicated the problem is that very few policy-making bodies and corporate entities ask for university teachers/researchers to head or participate in their committees or research projects. This is in contrast to the situation when the services of economists such as V. K. R. V. Rao, K. N. Raj, B. N. Ganguli, Bhabatosh Datta, Baljit Singh and M. L. Dantwala were sought.

Also, policy-making bodies have developed their in-house teams for research and, where necessary, rely on private consultancy firms for work on specific research themes. To be fair, however, these bodies have continued to support their endowment chairs. But in many instances, the endowment chairs are funded not according to the estimates of expenditures likely to be incurred.

The corpus fund provided for the endowment chairs earn interest income that help the chairs subsist. But the interest income is not a stable source, especially in a soft interest-rate regime.

Most academic institutions have had cuts in their budgets. And those relying on State government aid are more handicapped because of constraints relating to funding and appointment of teaching/research staff.

Unfortunately, neither the academic institutions nor policy-making bodies are interested in mobility of their staff, even on some agreed basis. This issue is not insurmountable as demonstrated by the fact that Dr I. G. Patel chose to work in the Delhi School of Economics in the 1960s and the late T. K. Velayudham of the Reserve Bank of India had a stint at the University of Bombay at the end of the 1970s for fixed periods.

While there are very few students pursuing Ph.D. after their Master's programme, there are instances of technocrats doing so to improve their career prospects. But the number of such technocrats is not large. In any case, this situation hardly gives opportunities to academics to gain insight into the considerations that practitioners of policy often use in their decision-making processes.

This situation cannot be corrected merely by inviting academics or policy-makers to participate in seminars and conferences. Academics also need to be encouraged to participate in the training programmes of policymaking bodies.

Academic institutions should also approach industrialists/businessmen and experienced former public policy-makers to be on their faculty either on a regular or visiting basis. This is necessary to help reduce inbreeding of talent, and to inject objectivity and freshness of approach.

Clearly, much has to be done both by state-aided academic institutions and policy-making bodies to ensure that the faculty that serves the former would not be at a disadvantage in the near term vis-à-vis the faculty that serves the privately funded academic institutions. This would call for governments and donors to adopt a hands-off approach to appointments but ensure that performance audits exist in respect of the work of the appointees and expenditures incurred.

While the responsibility for ensuring high-quality research and teaching largely rests on academics, there has to be strong support from both public and private bodies. Else, the country could end up paying a high price, with even the investments made thus far in advanced education not paying off.

(The author, a former Executive Director of the Reserve Bank of India, has taught at the University of Bombay and the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics. He can be contacted at asurivasudevan@hotmail.com)

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