Education in India

UGC publishes, for consultation, a set of draft rules for disclosure norms and deceptive advertising by higher education institutions

In 1979, the UGC had put out the UGC (Returns of Information by Universities) Rules (1979), requiring every university to furnish a set of information to the UGC every year. The 1979 rules were probably drafted with the intention of collecting all of the above data for statistical and administrative purposes.

Today, with the advent of the Right to Information Act (2005), the UGC has interpreted the RTI Act to include all information provided to the UGC (which is a public authority) by every higher education institution in the country. The UGC web site states the following.

The Right to Information Act, 2005 (22 of 2005) has been enacted by the Parliament and has come into force from 15 June, 2005. This Act provides for right to information for citizens to secure access to information under the control of public authorities in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority. All Universities and Colleges established by law made by Parliament or by State Legislature or by notification by the appropriate Government or owned, controlled or substantially financed directly or indirectly by funds provided by the Government shall come within the meaning of a Public Authority under this Act.

Whereas, some provisions of this act have come into effect immediately on its enactment (that is on 15 June 2005), other provisions shall come into effect on 100 / 120 days of its enactment. All universities and colleges are therefore advised to carefully go through this Act and take necessary steps for implementation of various provisions including proactive disclosure of certain kind of information. Such information shall be made available to the public at large through the website by the concerned university/college.

The UGC has gone one step further. It set up a Committee in August 2005 to devise Disclosure Norms for higher education institutions in the context of the implementation of The Right to Information Act, 2005. I was one of the persons invited by the UGC to be on the Committee and was involved in the framing of the model publication scheme for disclosure norms for higher education institutions.

The task of the Committee was to adapt the Returns of Information by Universities Rules (1979) to encourage disclosure of various kinds of information by higher education institutions which would enable students to make choices about which institutions to join, based on the information made available in the public domain. The committee met once on August 18, 2005 (which I had attended) and a second time on September 15, 2005 (which I couldn't attend) and has come up with a revised draft of the Returns of Information by Higher Education Institution rules, which the UGC has now published on its web site for consultation.

The Revised Draft Rules require that

Every higher education institution shall, on or before the date specified by the UGC in this behalf, publish information, as per the Model Publication Scheme given in Schedule I appended to these rules, on their respective websites and inform UGC of the URL of the page on their web site where such information has been published, as also provide a pdf version of the same to the UGC by email or on a CD-ROM or through a web-based interface.

The information described in the Model Publication Scheme in Schedule I of the draft rules includes the following:

• Profile
  
• Governance
  
• Academic matters
  
• Faculty and staff
  
• Student enrollment
  
• Infrastructure and facilities
  
• Finances (audited annual accounts)
  
• Operating budget including Income (Fee and other income) and Expenditure (by head)
  
• Investments
  
• Fee structure
  
• Research activities
  
• Student amenities and support
  
• Name of the Principal Information Officer, and
  
• Course details (for each course).

The level of detail is described in the Draft rules on the UGC web site.

In addition, the Revised Draft Rules also make another important addition to the rules by stating that all institutions shall

• necessarily disclose (in all its advertisements and promotional materials in print form or electronic form) the name, address, URL and type of body that runs the institution along with the contact details of the head of the institution and the Public Information Officer. The institution shall also explictly state the accreditation, recognition and approval status of the institution and/or courses advertised.
  
• ensure that it does not furnish information (in its advertisements, promotional / information materials either in print or electronic form), that may amount to a deceptive practice as specified in Schedule II of the Returns of Information Rules.

If you have any comments, suggestions or ideas on the above, please send them to Dr. A.K. Parate (akparate@ugc.ac.in) in the New Initiatives Cell at the UGC.

While this is a good start, there is a lot more to do to ensure that students not only have access to information but are also able to use that information to make informed decisions.

The way it works in the financial sector could serve as the model for the education sector too. All publicly listed companies and those accepting deposits from the public are required by law to disclose various kinds of information to potential investors, but rarely do individual retail investors actually go through the annual reports or the prospectus or offer documents put out by these companies. Most often, the retail investors rely on intermediaries like CRISIL, ICRA or CARE (the independent rating agencies) to publish ratings based on the information disclosed by the companies and further research, and the investment decisions by investors are made largely on the basis of such ratings.

In the case of the education sector, CRISIL, ICRA and CARE can go through all the information disclosed by the higher education institutions under the UGC Returns of Information Rules and if required ask the institutions for any further information and then arrive at appropriate ratings. All maritime education institutions in India are already getting themselves rated by CRISIL, ICRA or CARE as a result of this being made mandatory for them by the Directorate General of Shipping, which is the regulator of maritime education in India.

Concept of rating of educational institutions by CRISIL, ICRA or CARE is gaining momentum

The concept of rating of educational institutions by professional rating agencies (like CRISIL, ICRA or CARE) is slowly gaining momentum. The Directorate General of Shipping (DGS), the regulator of maritime education in India, had encouraged maritime education institutions to get themselves rated by CRISIL, ICRA or CARE in January 2004. The AICTE is also working with CRISIL, ICRA and CARE to introduce ratings for technical education, but the IITs and IIMs are fighting shy.

Times Shipping Journal (July 2005) reports that the DGS is now planning to make it mandatory for all maritime education institutions to get themselves rated (Emphasis below is mine).

The shipping directorate has decided to crack the whip on pre sea training institutes, which have shied away from getting benchmarked by rating agencies. According to director general of shipping (DGS), GS Sahni, it has been decided to make benchmarking mandatory for all institutes. Besides, he said, institutes not yielding good results at the common exit exams would be closed down. This comes close on the heels of the excellent response from the public and aspiring candidates to the few pre-sea training institutes, which have been graded. "It has been noticed that those institutes which had been rated during the past two years have improved tremendously in their level of standard and comfort," stated Mr Sahni.

"Eighteen institutes out of 60 pre-sea institutes have already been benchmarked. Another six are in the pipeline. This makes up 40% of the total that will have got graded. This step of making it compulsory for all institutes to be uniformly rated is being taken in the interest of raising the standard of training being imparted therein." It has observed that there have been wide variations in the quality of training being imparted by maritime training institutes. It is therefore felt desirable that if rating of institutes were done by independent and reputed agencies it would help aspiring candidates to chose between the good and better institutes. At the same time it would help in maintaining consistency of high quality of maritime training and education since it had to be of world standard. This would, besides, not only lead to healthy competition among the institutes but would also improve their status and thereby increase the marketability of Indian seafarers from such rated institutes.

According to officials in the directorate, three highly respected and independent rating agencies, CRISIL, ICRA and CARE had been asked to undertake grading of both public and private maritime institutes. There had been reports of some institutes suspected of having shoddy standards, resorting to ways and means of bypassing directives issued by the government and not complying with several other requirements besides.

Mr Sahni said, "The common exit examination held in the last week of June yielded encouraging results with 81.75% having been declared passed. Some institutes even attained a healthy 95% pass percentage, while on the other hand some others barely secured 60% and some even less. We have decided to call for explanations from them for their poor showing because 40% failure implies that the education imparted is much below standard and I do not like to see candidates wasting their precious money because of poor quality training of government recognised institutes. I therefore feel that if these cannot come up with good results we will have to derecognise them."

Times Shipping Journal (January 2004) had earlier described the ambivalence of the maritime educational institutions to the move by the DGC to introduce the rating idea.

Beneath the optimism of powering the institutes with uniform guidelines are deep worries about the huge costs the training institutes would have to pay for the benchmarking exercise. The Directorate is not deciding on the fee to be charged; similarly, it will not interfere in the fee settled by the agency and the institute. The institute-fee model has created ripples amid the sea of institutions.

According to Captain KN Deboo, General Manager and Principal, Anglo-Eastern Maritime Training Centre, the thought of grading is a good move to create a uniform standard, especially since there is a wide disparity in grading the various training institutes in the country. "The costs that the training institutes will have to bear is an area of concern for us. The question is: can institutes afford it? We have reservations since the grading will be undertaken per course and not per institute. The courses are subject to infrastructure and time period, among other factors. Each course cannot afford to go through the grading, only select and marketable ones will fit the bill. For Anglo-Eastern, not all the 50 courses merit evaluation. Among our DGS-approved courses, only simulator-based ones will be worth rating and not the other modular ones," he explains.

Others aren't convinced either. Take the perspective of Captain Yashoverman Sharma, Head, International Training Maritime Centre. He spoke to TSJ about how the criteria for grading is not easy to lay upon each institute. "How can financial performance be a parameter to judge the quality of an institute? If one drops the frills, and cuts costs of the course modules, financial viability could escalate but quality will be circumspect. To ensure quality, one has to invest more and thus the parameter is ambiguous. What's more, the financial performance is not a sustainable area and is dependent on the volatility of the market," he adds. In the end, every institute works out its own business strategy and divulging key business information to the rating agencies is a serious point of contention. After all, it's a competitive environment that we are all surviving in, he says.

but the DGS seems to have decided to go ahead and make it mandatory, which is a good thing. If required, each institution could charge an additional fee from every student to partially offset the cost of getting rated. Ultimately, the rating benefits the students who will have a better idea of the facilities and capabilities of the institutions, to enable them to make informed choices - so they would be willing to pay a small additional fee to get the confidence and comfort provided by a rating by a reputed, independent third party like CRISIL, ICRA or CARE.

GS Sahni, the Director General of Shipping, made the case for ratings very well,

With maritime studies like marine engineering and nautical technology costing as high as Rs 1.5 to 2 lakh per annum, it is imperative that the paying guardian and students were adequately satisfied by the quality of education, DG (Shipping) G S Sahni said. The ratings would enable them assess an institute, he said. Sahni said that improving quality of education at MTIs topped his agenda as India was increasingly viewed as a major contributor of trained manpower to the global shipping industry. ''Our annual turnover of trained manpower is 5,000. We need to increase this by at least threefold,'' he said.

An article in Outlook (September 19, 2005) quotes Gurcharan Das,

Still, experts feel that the AICTE or the UGC regime is not working in practice. A better solution would be to force all institutions (including those affiliated with the various universities) to disclose all relevant information. Then an independent rating agency like CRISIL could publicly rate them on the basis of different parameters. "The best model is that of the directorate-general of shipping which has put in place a world-class system for maritime education. It has asked three independent rating agencies—CRISIL, ICRA and CARE—to grade both public and private institutes (and their courses) and post the results on their websites. We should have a similar system for technical education," says Das.

As Das puts it: "When you buy a car or a TV, you scan the market for the best deal. Why not for higher education? If students do so, the rotten colleges will either improve or competitive forces will force them to shut down."

The AICTE is already working with CRISIL, ICRA and CARE to introduce ratings for technical education.

Deccan Herald (July 24, 2005) had earlier reported that,

The National Board of Accreditation (NBA), established by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE),, at its meeting on July 20, had decided to outsource the process of accreditation by three independent credit agencies, namely Crisil, ICRA and CARE, for professionalism and transparency. Dr Dholakia allayed fears of fudging by these rating agencies as their own reputation was involved in it and they are known to withstand such pressures too. The objective is to let the students and parents know that they are joining an accredited institution. At present, only 10 per cent of the programme covered under the AICTE is accredited, which included undergraduate and post-graduate diplomas and degrees in engineering, architecture, town planning, hotel management, pharmacy, and applied arts and crafts.

Dr Dholakia, who is also Director of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), said the Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs) and IIMs are out of bound since they were established much before NBA came into existence under Section 10(U) of the AICTE Act in 1987.

I wonder why the IITs and IIMs are fighting shy of getting themselves rated and hiding behind the fact that the NBA's jurisdiction does not extend to them. The should rather be proactive, lead the way to set the benchmarks, and get themselves rated despite it not being mandatory to do so. What are they worried about?