Higher education reforms: autonomous colleges

The Indian government is thinking of freeing colleges from universities and letting them run their own show. This was announced by human resource development (HRD) minister Kapil Sibal during his meeting with principal secretaries and secretaries of higher education from the states.

In order to become independent, colleges will first have to excel in many areas. Should they improve further, they could be allowed to become universities.

The Centre plans to create a three-tier system of affiliated colleges, autonomous colleges and universities. Their standards will be judged through an accreditation system formulated by the States so that students know the quality and resources of institute they attend. That would introduce competition among the educational institutions.

The government wants to regulate the fees and the admission process in private and unaided colleges and create a regulatory mechanism to prevent the business of capitation fees. States have also been asked for ideas on how to insulate the selection of vice-chancellors from politics.

A three-month deadline has been set for the education secretaries to prepare a vision document on the targets to be achieved in higher education by 2020. That must contain the state's targets for higher education till 2020, details of the current conditions, the number of universities and colleges, what the state thinks of their quality and a plan to increase Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in higher education. The document will help the government plug loopholes, boost the sector and set benchmarks for 2020.

The government has ambitious plans for enrollment. It plans to bring a 5% increase in GER by the end of the 11th Plan and raise it to the global average of 30% by 2020. The states were also pulled up for pinching pennies on the education. According to the Ministry, the Centre's education spend, as a percentage of GDP, has increased to 0.91% in 2009 from 0.53% in 2000-01, while the states' spend has declined from 3.76% to 2.73%.

National Knowledge Commission on Higher Education

USA-India Educational Exchange

Full interest subsidy on educational loans for poor students

Change V-C selection process

Change V-C selection process Dr J D Bapat The Maharashtra Governor S C Jamir—as the chancellor of state universities—has called for a systemic overhaul in the appointment process of university vice-chancellors. Instead of a selection process he described as "politicized'', Jamir recommended that a group of eminent academicians must select vice-chancellors. The Governor was in Chandrapur on, 19 Jan 2009, Monday to inaugurate a state level principals' forum. The quality of governance of many educational institutions in the state is a cause for concern. In many states, university appointments, including that of V-Cs, have been politicized. Currently, a university vice-chancellor is appointed by the chancellor on recommendations of a committee consisting of representatives from the government, from the university academic council and management council, among others. When the scholars choose the vice-chancellor, universities would see a qualitative difference in their functioning. We do not have a dearth of talented people for the posts in our universities. To ensure that we get the best persons to run our universities, it is necessary to take a re-look at the composition of the appointment committee. There are growing concerns about the large number of teaching faculty positions that remain vacant in the universities and colleges. This has considerably paralysed some of our reputed institutions. The recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission have made teaching more attractive, offering good pay scales to the teachers. If the young and bright minds are to be attracted to join the profession, enough opportunities should be made available for growth. One of the reasons for the vacant teaching positions in the higher educational institutions is the perpetual reservations. When the teachers are not available in the "reserved" category, the vacancy should become "open" after certain time period. The qualified teachers draw job satisfaction, when teaching is accompanied by the research (as in IITs). Therefore research funding for the universities need to be increased substantially.