The Hindu Business Line : The Eleventh Plan: HRD and governance hold the key

Placing the economic growth target at 8.5 per cent for the Eleventh Plan, the Approach Paper emphasises the role of human resource development and governance. As part of the Eleventh Plan, a bold investment programme is needed to nurture world-class talent pool available for faculty positions, not only in premier institutions but in others as well.

On June 14, the Planning Commission brought out the 92-page Eleventh Plan Approach Paper. The Paper focusses on achieving high growth and better living standards for the people.

The nation can close the books on the Tenth Plan celebrating the achievements on economic growth, savings, investment and foreign exchange reserves.

The achievement on economic growth was the result of the joint effort of public and private sectors, with an increasing share of the latter. Post-1991, the share of the private sector in the economy has been growing and now accounts for 70-75 per cent of the total investment.

The output share of the private sector is, perhaps, higher, at around 80 per cent, since the government can be presumed to invest in long gestation projects.

The Approach Paper places the economic growth target at 8.5 per cent for the Eleventh Plan with the following growth rates for the key sectors: Agriculture 3.9 per cent; industry 9.9 per cent; and services 9.4 per cent. The Paper correctly notes that the targeted high growth should be accompanied by "a major effort to provide access to basic facilities such as health, education, clean drinking water, etc., to large sections of the population which do not have such access at present".

The seven challenges, according to the Paper, are: Providing essential public services for the poor; regaining agricultural dynamism; increasing manufacturing competitiveness; developing human resource; protecting the environment; improving rehabilitation and resettlement practices; and improving governance.

HRD and improving governance hold the key for all-round progress of the economy and the people and have a direct or indirect bearing on achievements in every economic and social sector.

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

The Paper, in its final form, and the Plan itself, should give particular attention to building world-class schools in the public sector and endowing them with the best teachers.

Addressing the drop-out rate in primary schools (around 31 per cent in 2003-04) and meagre learning outcomes (55 per cent of children with four years of schooling cannot perform simple division) require concerted action to create attractive school infrastructure and well-paid teachers, the pay being attractive enough to ensure good performance and commitment.

It is a sad commentary on our over five-decade-old socialist ideals that "private aided and unaided schools account for 58 per cent of the total number of secondary schools," and "their proportion is actually increasing at a faster pace than public-funded schools, mainly because State governments have nearly stopped increasing funding of public secondary schools and aided schools."

It is gratifying that the Eleventh Plan hopes to evolve strategies for secondary schooling that will emphasise the public responsibility.

In this context, building first-class standardised school infrastructure and offering good pay for the teachers apply equally well to the secondary education sector.

The failings multiply in technical/vocational education. Just about "3 per cent of the rural youth (15-29 years) and 6 per cent of the urban youth have gone through a formal course of vocational training of any kind".

Secondary schooling should be integrated with technical/vocational education for ensuring a vast pool of trained manpower.

What is needed is a right policy and massive expansion of technical institutions.

The Approach Paper, thus, identifies the crucial problems in higher education: First, only about 8 per cent of the relevant age group goes to university compared to 20-25 per cent in many developing countries; second, our institutions are generally not of high standard, though we have islands of excellence; and, third, even the best institutions are finding it difficult to get quality faculty.

The Eleventh Plan objectives and strategies in higher education contained in the Paper can be summarised thus: Setting up new colleges and universities and strengthening existing institutions; encouraging open and distance education; upgrading a few "existing" select universities (at least 20) with "potential for excellence"; increasing enrolment in universities and colleges, especially premier institutions such as the IITs and IIMs; and addressing the problems of varying standards, outdated syllabi, inadequate facilities, and most of all the need to create an environment that will attract top class faculty.

"Achievement of these objectives will require a substantial increase in resources devoted to this sector and successive annual Plans will have to provide rising levels of budgetary support.

However, this must be accompanied by internal resource generation by duly and realistically raising fees.

Simultaneously, efforts will be made to develop a wider merit-cum-means based loan and scholarship programmes through the banking system and other agencies," says the Paper.

As part of the Eleventh Plan, a bold investment programme is needed to nurture world-class talent pool available for faculty positions, not only in premier institutions but elsewhere too. Ten-thousand fellowships a year with an annual expense of a billion dollars would go a long way in creating a sizeable talent pool. The fellowships must be exclusively for doctoral programmes in top universities in the US and Europe. A minimum six years service in a university or similar institution in India must be insisted upon of students completing the doctoral programme.

What is the role of the private sector in higher education? The Approach Paper bears no mention to this. Away from all existing models of regulation and approvals, the Planning Commission should come up with innovative ideas to ensure an enabling environment with zero corruption for private institutions to thrive in higher education.

GOVERNANCE

Under the challenge of `improving governance', it is heartening to read the following: "Corruption is now seen to be endemic in all spheres and this problem needs to be addressed urgently." "Quick and inexpensive dispensation of justice is an aspect of good governance which is of fundamental importance in a successful civil society... "

Top priority to corruption control is vital to ensureing private and public sector efficiency for the following reasons: To minimise hidden transaction costs; to ensure that human energy is spent in a value-adding and productive manner; to promote investment from the best and efficient sources rather than those that bribe the authorities; and to promote human development by getting the best from health and educational expenditure by the government and the people.

As for the legal system, the Plan could consider launching programmes to quickly increase the numbers of judges and setting up special courts. On the first, the urgency is dictated by the fact that, as pointed out by The Economist of July 1, India has 11 judges per million population against 51 in the UK and 107 in the US.

As for special courts, they can be in as many functional areas as desirable.

(The author, formerly with the National University of Singapore and the World Bank, is Professor Emeritus, GITAM Institute of Foreign Trade, Visakhapatnam. He can be reached at bhanoji@gmail.com.)

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