The Government has introduced several schemes and
policies to improve the education system of the country, particularly the
quality and content of instruction. However, the system has failed to achieve
its objectives and transform according to global standards. The Annual Status
of Education Report claims that close to 50% of class V students were not able
to read a text meant for class II students, which is not surprising. This calls
for looking into the various barriers to implementing educational reforms
“Teachers are a critical part of preparing our
children for the future, and their voices are an essential addition to the
national debate on education,” said Margery Mayer, Executive Vice President and
President, Scholastic Education. “At Scholastic, we work daily with teachers
and we know that they have powerful ideas on how best to tackle the challenges
facing our schools. Since teachers are the frontline of delivering education in
the classroom, the reform movement will not succeed without their active
support. Primary Sources is a step in ensuring that teachers’ voices are
a part of this important conversation.”
The Union HRD Ministry had, some months ago,
announced that it planned to scrap the University Grants Commission (UGC), the
All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and various other higher
education regulators and replace them with a single new body named Higher Education
Empowerment Regulation Agency (HEERA), which would regulate both technical and
non-technical institutions. Recently, however, it announced that instead of
HEERA, it is now bringing in Higher Education Commission of India (HEC) by
repealing the UGC Act. This initiative appears to address the reform that the
Ministry hopes to bring about that will be of critical significance for higher
education in India. Word on other regulators is still awaited.
For nearly a decade, concerns have been raised in
many quarters about the deteriorating quality of higher education resulting
from highly bureaucratic command-and-control based regulatory mechanisms in
place akin to the license raj that India witnessed until the economic reform of
1991.
Interests
and ideologies
While carrying out a reform or implementing a
policy, ministers and the ruling party, who are the key players are highly
influenced by their personal opinions, interests and ideologies. Textbook and
curriculum reforms have been difficult primarily because the ruling government
would insert their political and ideological views into the textbook. This can
be attributed to the government politics model of policy implementation which
takes into consideration individual behaviour — an important factor in decision-making.
Systemic
and structural issues
Education reforms have been majorly ineffective
because of the deeply rooted systemic and structural problems within the
system. These difficulties can be understood by Elmore’s organizational models
which can be applied to assess the implementation of social programmes like
education reforms. Education reforms are focussed on inputs rather than
learning outcomes as the performance of schools is assessed only by
infrastructure and midday meals. Moreover, teachers tasked with raising student
standards are burdened with administrative tasks, large class size, lack of
training etc. As a result, they resort to rote-learning techniques to cope up
with the mounting work pressures. Budgetary constraints and lack of manpower
and technological resources can be the other possible barriers.
A
top-down policy
India’s unique federal structure, and education
being a concurrent list subject, the policy interventions in education follows
a top-down approach — major decisions are taken at the central level. This
approach ignores the extent of change required in other areas for successful
implementation of a reform. Hurdles in implementing a common entrance exam for
admissions to medical colleges was a result of such an approach. State
governments opposed it stating that there was a huge variation in the syllabus
of their respective boards.
Behavioral change for a Change
The policy designers ask the teachers, students and
parents, the local implementing agents to do a thing in a particular order,
which requires a change in behaviour. But a change in behaviour can only come
through knowledge, experience and sense-making. Transforming the education
system is a value-driven and emotional process, which needs to be implemented
strategically through a behavioural change process. The best way could be
following similar strategies as that of the Swachh Bharat Mission — the largest
behaviour change programmer and transplanting it to the education sector.
A case in point is that of a 2010 AICTE circular
which announced that matters related to admissions, curriculum, fees, and the
like would be decided or approved only by an authorised government agency. This
circular was challenged in the Supreme Court, and institutions have been
functioning since then based on the reprieve granted by the apex court. This
matter has now been resolved through a compromise solution, but the core
problem issues remain.
Multiple regulatory controls by numerous statutory
bodies with their labyrinthine mechanisms have challenged all institutions,
preventing an innovative and creative environment from taking root in higher
education institutions. To illustrate, to set up a greenfield university one
may have to seek various permissions from more than 16 different government
departments. Also, regulators prescribing areas in an institution that must be
used for toilets shows the level and extent of such micro-regulation. Such
‘deep regulation’ reflects a flaw in the entire oversight system.
In the past, the reports of various committees and
commissions have highlighted the deficiencies of regulatory bodies, however, so
far nothing substantive has come out of these reports.
Indian institutions/universities hold dismal
rankings in the academic world. Currently, the best we have is IIT Delhi, at
172 in the QS World University Rankings 2018. Next is IIT Bombay at 179 and
IISc Bangalore at 190. China including Hongkong, for example, has nine
universities in this list of top 100. In the Engineering and Technology
sub-list, however, IIT Delhi ranks 64 and IIT Bombay is at 68. With major
financial support and almost full autonomy without having any external
regulator, this is the best international ranking these government institutions
have attained in the 60-odd years of their existence.
It is interesting to know that reportedly India
filed just about 45,000 patents last year while China filed over a million
patents. Further, Chinese (who do not speak English) institutions’ publications
in refereed journals is about four times that of publications from Indian
institutions in European or North American refereed journals. It is reported
that about 80 per cent of Chinese students studying abroad return to China
while this figure for India stands at about 20 per cent. This can be construed
to reflect a poor academic and research environment in India.
With the pincer-like grip of regulators stifling any
autonomy, it is anybody’s guess what Indian private institutions can achieve
when it comes to global standards, for there are a few private institutions
giving tough competition to these government institutions. Institutions such as
Harvard, Stanford, Kellog, Oxford, MIT, and the like earned their status of
“world class” not through government guidelines or regulations, but on their
own through the autonomy they enjoyed. Thus, it will do India good to treat
private and public institutions at par, as output is the same and only then to
hope for some respectable international standing.
It is high time Indian higher education found its
proper moorings at the global level and minimised the outflow of lakhs of
Indian students, who leave the country every year in search of quality
education.
Based on income levels of academics and research
funds available in the high ranking institution countries, it is easy to
speculate that India needs a sound financial model that addresses the
compensation level of academics and funding to institutions for research. One
of the important aspects in bringing up the quality of higher education besides
autonomy is the funds for carrying out quality research. Quality in teaching
and research must be built through a “pull mechanism” as merely providing funds
as a “push mechanism” cannot ensure quality.
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