Prof. Kaushik Basu wrote a dissent note to the Yashpal Committee Report, the full text of which (as provided by Prof. Basu himself) is as follows.
Report of The Committee to Advise on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education in India
A Note of Dissent
Kaushik Basu
The broad ideas outlined in the main report, such as forming an apex body for managing Indias higher-education sector, nurturing inter-disciplinarity and extending university education to much larger and diverse segments of the populationare commendable. My apprehension, however, is that without more detailed plans of action and sharper targets these broad aims will remain unfulfilled, like so many well-meaning previous pronouncements. There are many areas where we need reform and which have been dealt with in the main report. What I mention here are items which, in my opinion, deserve consideration but are omitted or not emphasized in the report and also some fine points on which I have a difference of opinion.
Till a few decades ago India's higher education system stood out for its excellence, in comparison to developing countries but also some industrialized nations. The high economic growth that India has witnessed since 1994 has several causes; one of them is our good higher education. Unfortunately, this sector is now faltering. Several nations which trailed India on this score are now ahead of us. This is not because India has changed but because India has not changed while others have. If our nations development is to be sustained and we want to be a progressive and enlightened nation, then it is imperative that we reform our system of higher education.
First, the main report speaks about the need for greater autonomy for colleges and universities. However, one stumbling block for this objective is the huge power vested in the UGC and AICTE. There is need for these organizations to divest themselves of some of this power.Also, there should be a refocusing of their main function. It is the responsibility of the UGC to maintain the quality of our higher education and research. However, this must be achieved by nurturing excellence instead of spending a disproportionate amount of energy creating barriers to entry, and preventing new colleges and universities from coming into existence. The latter has led to the creation of what is effectively a licensing system in higher education. Just as India gave up on industrial licensing in the early nineties (and thereby unleashed growth), the reformed UGC and AICTE should give up on the licensing of higher education. At times we forget that the market with all its faults does perform certain functions reasonably well. Poorly-performing colleges and educational institutes, if information about their performance is made easily available, will be competed out of existence by the pressures of the market.
For this reason, one principal activity of a revised UGC should be to rate universities and institutes of higher education. As we know from the modern industrial sector, good quality rating is vital for the economy and successful nations spend a lot to collate information and rate corporations. The UGC should, likewise, produce and publicize ratings of and information about all universities and institutes of higher education. This should be a detailed, annual exercise and be prominently available on a website.
Our main aim must be to nurture excellence instead of spending a disproportionate amount of energy trying to curb the lack of it. While the United States has arguably the world's greatest universities, it also has many sub-par ones. The existence of the latter does not harm the reputation of the US as a nation of academic excellence. If there was a perfect way for the state to efficiently weed out the bad, I would be for it. But as we learnt from our experience with industrial licensing, often the effort to weed out the bad by using bureaucratic control can do more harm than good.
What has to punished is misinformation. Many private colleges levy charges midway through the course of study by when the student has no choice but to pay up; they advertise achievements of the college which are false; they promise to offer courses without any intention to actually do so. These need to be severely punished.
Second, we have to recognize that it is not possible for any government, let alone the government of a developing nation, to run over three hundred universities with equal generosity.Such an agendum is bound to cause either a fiscal breakdown or doom the university system to mediocrity. It follows from this that we have to reconcile ourselves to the differential treatment of institutions and universities and also of individuals. This has to be based on a transparent system of objective evaluation, so that every individual and every university has the same opportunity. But to expect the outcome to be the same across individuals and universities is to court failure.
This takes us to the touchy topic of salaries and research support. The old system of a flat scale, where every professor was supported in the same way across all the over-300 universities, was once an attractive idea. It is no longer feasible. On the one hand, most nations are switching over to the system of special salaries and research budgets for star researchers and professors. This began with the U.S.. Now other nations, including U.K. and even China, have switched to this. On the other hand, corporate salaries have gone through the roof. Given these facts (about which there is little that we can do), if we want to attract top talent to research and teaching, we have to allow for pay differentials. The exact modality of this will entail discussion and debate. Two ways of doing this are: first, designating, say, 20 universities, as centers of excellence and putting them on a higher funding scale. The list of top 20 should be evaluated and revised every three years so that all universities stand a chance of getting there. The second option is to select a small number of professors in each field from the entire nation and place them on a higher salary and research support. By higher salary I do not mean 5% or 10% higher but three or four times the regular professorial salary. This will create incentives for academics to work harder and also attract top minds that would have gone to the corporate sector to come into academics and research. If this system is properly managed, it can transform the quality of India's higher education. Further this can be achieved with no additional fiscal burden. The average salary of all professors all over India can be held constant and this achieved by simply creating a graded salary system.
Third, we should allow private sector money to come into higher education. Surreptitious privatization is already a fact of life. It will be better to let this happen openly; there can then also be open monitoring. The purely-private colleges should of course not be subsidized by the state. They should be allowed to set college fees as high as they choose (as long as this is made transparent). It is true that such private colleges will end up teaching mainly commercially-viable subjects and cater to relatively rich students. There is no harm in this and some advantages, since the state will now be able to allocate more money to the colleges and universities under its charge and provide good education to the remainder at a lower cost.
There is an additional question: Should we allow these private colleges to be profit-making organizations, that is, allow the owners or the shareholders to openly keep the profit to themselves? A common presumption is that,if someone is interested in profit, that person will not be interested in providing good education. This is a fallacy. It is like assuming that, if Tata Motors is interested in making profit, it will not be interested in producing a good small car. However, in reality, its interest in producing a good small car could be because it is interested in making profits. Likewise, in education. If a profit-making company wants to start a university, there is no reason why we should not allow this. This is an idea that should at least be on the table. There are not too many examples of such universities in the world. This can be a pioneering effort on the part of India and, if successful, can cause a huge infusion of funds into our higher education system.
Finally, this is the time to consider steps to make India into the world's major hub for higher education. Given our historic (though eroding) advantage in higher education, our strength in the English language and our low cost-of-living, it is possible for India to position itself as a major destination for students from around the world, not just from poor countries, but rich, industrialized nations, such as Korea, U.K. and even the U.S.. One reason why an African student goes to the US to study is to then acquire the right to stay on there and work. Attracting such a student will not be easy. But consider an American student who anyway has the right to go back to the U.S. and work there. In the U.S. each year of education costs approximately, $50,000 or Rs. 25 lakhs. If India can build some good universities with high quality residences for studentsand advertise globally, India can give this market tough competition. If India charges tuition fees of Rs. 5 lakhs per annum from foreign students, then with all other overheads a student can get quality education for Rs. 8 lakhs per annum, which is one third the cost in the U.S. There is clearly a huge comparative advantage in this and the scheme can attract lots of students to India. This can bring in a large infusion of money, which can make it possible for the Indian government to subsidize the higher education of Indian students and vastly expand the number of Indian students
A Note of Dissent
Kaushik Basu
The broad ideas outlined in the main report, such as forming an apex body for managing Indias higher-education sector, nurturing inter-disciplinarity and extending university education to much larger and diverse segments of the populationare commendable. My apprehension, however, is that without more detailed plans of action and sharper targets these broad aims will remain unfulfilled, like so many well-meaning previous pronouncements. There are many areas where we need reform and which have been dealt with in the main report. What I mention here are items which, in my opinion, deserve consideration but are omitted or not emphasized in the report and also some fine points on which I have a difference of opinion.
Till a few decades ago India's higher education system stood out for its excellence, in comparison to developing countries but also some industrialized nations. The high economic growth that India has witnessed since 1994 has several causes; one of them is our good higher education. Unfortunately, this sector is now faltering. Several nations which trailed India on this score are now ahead of us. This is not because India has changed but because India has not changed while others have. If our nations development is to be sustained and we want to be a progressive and enlightened nation, then it is imperative that we reform our system of higher education.
First, the main report speaks about the need for greater autonomy for colleges and universities. However, one stumbling block for this objective is the huge power vested in the UGC and AICTE. There is need for these organizations to divest themselves of some of this power.Also, there should be a refocusing of their main function. It is the responsibility of the UGC to maintain the quality of our higher education and research. However, this must be achieved by nurturing excellence instead of spending a disproportionate amount of energy creating barriers to entry, and preventing new colleges and universities from coming into existence. The latter has led to the creation of what is effectively a licensing system in higher education. Just as India gave up on industrial licensing in the early nineties (and thereby unleashed growth), the reformed UGC and AICTE should give up on the licensing of higher education. At times we forget that the market with all its faults does perform certain functions reasonably well. Poorly-performing colleges and educational institutes, if information about their performance is made easily available, will be competed out of existence by the pressures of the market.
For this reason, one principal activity of a revised UGC should be to rate universities and institutes of higher education. As we know from the modern industrial sector, good quality rating is vital for the economy and successful nations spend a lot to collate information and rate corporations. The UGC should, likewise, produce and publicize ratings of and information about all universities and institutes of higher education. This should be a detailed, annual exercise and be prominently available on a website.
Our main aim must be to nurture excellence instead of spending a disproportionate amount of energy trying to curb the lack of it. While the United States has arguably the world's greatest universities, it also has many sub-par ones. The existence of the latter does not harm the reputation of the US as a nation of academic excellence. If there was a perfect way for the state to efficiently weed out the bad, I would be for it. But as we learnt from our experience with industrial licensing, often the effort to weed out the bad by using bureaucratic control can do more harm than good.
What has to punished is misinformation. Many private colleges levy charges midway through the course of study by when the student has no choice but to pay up; they advertise achievements of the college which are false; they promise to offer courses without any intention to actually do so. These need to be severely punished.
Second, we have to recognize that it is not possible for any government, let alone the government of a developing nation, to run over three hundred universities with equal generosity.Such an agendum is bound to cause either a fiscal breakdown or doom the university system to mediocrity. It follows from this that we have to reconcile ourselves to the differential treatment of institutions and universities and also of individuals. This has to be based on a transparent system of objective evaluation, so that every individual and every university has the same opportunity. But to expect the outcome to be the same across individuals and universities is to court failure.
This takes us to the touchy topic of salaries and research support. The old system of a flat scale, where every professor was supported in the same way across all the over-300 universities, was once an attractive idea. It is no longer feasible. On the one hand, most nations are switching over to the system of special salaries and research budgets for star researchers and professors. This began with the U.S.. Now other nations, including U.K. and even China, have switched to this. On the other hand, corporate salaries have gone through the roof. Given these facts (about which there is little that we can do), if we want to attract top talent to research and teaching, we have to allow for pay differentials. The exact modality of this will entail discussion and debate. Two ways of doing this are: first, designating, say, 20 universities, as centers of excellence and putting them on a higher funding scale. The list of top 20 should be evaluated and revised every three years so that all universities stand a chance of getting there. The second option is to select a small number of professors in each field from the entire nation and place them on a higher salary and research support. By higher salary I do not mean 5% or 10% higher but three or four times the regular professorial salary. This will create incentives for academics to work harder and also attract top minds that would have gone to the corporate sector to come into academics and research. If this system is properly managed, it can transform the quality of India's higher education. Further this can be achieved with no additional fiscal burden. The average salary of all professors all over India can be held constant and this achieved by simply creating a graded salary system.
Third, we should allow private sector money to come into higher education. Surreptitious privatization is already a fact of life. It will be better to let this happen openly; there can then also be open monitoring. The purely-private colleges should of course not be subsidized by the state. They should be allowed to set college fees as high as they choose (as long as this is made transparent). It is true that such private colleges will end up teaching mainly commercially-viable subjects and cater to relatively rich students. There is no harm in this and some advantages, since the state will now be able to allocate more money to the colleges and universities under its charge and provide good education to the remainder at a lower cost.
There is an additional question: Should we allow these private colleges to be profit-making organizations, that is, allow the owners or the shareholders to openly keep the profit to themselves? A common presumption is that,if someone is interested in profit, that person will not be interested in providing good education. This is a fallacy. It is like assuming that, if Tata Motors is interested in making profit, it will not be interested in producing a good small car. However, in reality, its interest in producing a good small car could be because it is interested in making profits. Likewise, in education. If a profit-making company wants to start a university, there is no reason why we should not allow this. This is an idea that should at least be on the table. There are not too many examples of such universities in the world. This can be a pioneering effort on the part of India and, if successful, can cause a huge infusion of funds into our higher education system.
Finally, this is the time to consider steps to make India into the world's major hub for higher education. Given our historic (though eroding) advantage in higher education, our strength in the English language and our low cost-of-living, it is possible for India to position itself as a major destination for students from around the world, not just from poor countries, but rich, industrialized nations, such as Korea, U.K. and even the U.S.. One reason why an African student goes to the US to study is to then acquire the right to stay on there and work. Attracting such a student will not be easy. But consider an American student who anyway has the right to go back to the U.S. and work there. In the U.S. each year of education costs approximately, $50,000 or Rs. 25 lakhs. If India can build some good universities with high quality residences for studentsand advertise globally, India can give this market tough competition. If India charges tuition fees of Rs. 5 lakhs per annum from foreign students, then with all other overheads a student can get quality education for Rs. 8 lakhs per annum, which is one third the cost in the U.S. There is clearly a huge comparative advantage in this and the scheme can attract lots of students to India. This can bring in a large infusion of money, which can make it possible for the Indian government to subsidize the higher education of Indian students and vastly expand the number of Indian students
Hi Satya,
Thanks for sharing this complete and informative note.
Regards,
Team Reforming Education
Posted by: Reforming Education | July 16, 2009 at 04:09 PM
I have seen some criticism of the Yash Pal Committee Report on the blogosphere. I have read the report (not in fine details though) and have found it to be very refreshing.
People have to rise from regional parochialism to understand the implications of the report and understand that at the end of the day, it is a very progressive.
Posted by: Vishnu Mathur | July 17, 2009 at 04:36 PM
Fantastic post and wonderful blog, I really like this type of interesting articles keep it up.
Thank!
Posted by: UK Dissertation | August 23, 2009 at 04:07 PM
Simply great. Good antidote to all that humbug "education is our sacred cow, you can not sell it for profit". Unfortunately this is a dissent note, real report is filled with nonsense like "universities are organically connected to cultural soil", whatever that means.
Posted by: Avi | September 01, 2009 at 06:49 PM
Hello Satya,
Where can i find the complete report instead of this summary note? I am interesting in the complete story behind the renovation and rejuvenation of Higher Education in India.
But thanks for creating my interest by writing this outline.
Kind regards,
Amar
India University
Posted by: Universities | November 03, 2009 at 01:31 AM