Morsels and chunks from FICCI's summit on Private Higher Education - Opportunities and Challenges

FICCI conducted The Higher Education Summit & Exhibition - "Private Higher Education: Opportunities and Challenges" on March 23-24, 2006 in New Delhi. News reports have thrown up quite a few interesting morsels and chunks.

First the morsels.

• From The Financial Express:

  Deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, pointed out the need for a substantial rise in the public expenditure in higher education in India. He felt that the improvement in the higher education system could only be achieved through a balanced partnership between the public and private sector. This, in turn, called for increased private-sector participation along with a significant upgrading in the public education infrastructure, he added. Mr Ahluwalia said the prevailing dysfunctionality of the incentive mechanism in the higher education system was a serious cause for concern.

  Montek Ahluwalia is echoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's views on the need for private investment in higher education.

• From the U21Global press release:
  

  U21Global, a Singapore-based online graduate school of management was granted the associate membership of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). In addition, Mukesh Aghi, CEO, U21Global, will join FICCI's education committee as member and will work with the other members on potential liaisons and tie ups between private higher education institutions and government bodies in India to help meet the rapidly diversifying needs of the growing Indian economy.

  It is interesting to note that foreign educational institutions are now beginning to participate in the lobbying for liberalising private investment in higher education.

• In the run-up to the FICCI's education summit, FICCI conducted a survey called "Developing an understanding of private higher education in India: A Stakeholder Perspective". Some excerpts from The Tribune and Business Standard:
  
  1. The survey was carried out between December 2005 and January 2006 and 4,000 stakeholders including students, parents, faculty, recruiters and promoters across 11 cities countrywide were interviewed.
     
  2. 70% students of private Higher Education Institutes (HEI) have sought government intervention in monitoring and accreditation of such institutes
     
  3. 55% of students interviewed said they felt such institutions charged exorbitant fees and 50 per cent said they selected courses based on employment potential, which, the report said, reflected a "negative impact on the research contributions at the HEIs".
     
  4. Promoters of self-financing private higher education institutes recognised the need for meeting regulatory requirements and getting affiliation and recognition. The prime challenge perceived by them was the uncertainty and the complexity of government regulatory environment, whereas, the least-challenging issue was financing the institute
     
  5. Promoters of such institutes supported a single-window approval system which, they said, would remove prevalant confusion due to multiplicity of regulating agencies such as the UGC, AICTE, MCI etc.

  Both the students and the private institutions are unhappy with the way the State is regulating the private institutions. Far better regulation is needed and the State does not seem to be in a position to provide it - this is going to be a major challenge. FICCI is attempting to address this by proposing self-regulation.
  

• Mr. Saroj Kumar Poddar, President, FICCI, in his address stated that the education sector in India continues to be constrained by strong entry barriers, poor regulatory framework, resource crunch and the inability to cater to the industry demands. To ensure financial sustainability along with equity in higher educational institutions in India, Mr. Poddar, suggested a framework wherein the Government could buy the desired number of seats in the public as well the private institutes, with the rest of the seats sold at prices that would make institutions viable. Mr. Poddar announced that a Higher Education Network (FICCI - HEN) would be launched by FICCI to promote disclosure and accountability through self-regulation. "A number of leading private sector educational institutions have joined FICCI-HEN and we would work with the government to promote good practices by Higher education service providers", said Mr. Poddar (From the FICCI press release)

  FICCI's proposal for the Government to "buy" a desired number of seats in both public as well as private institutes is a radical one, which is likely to face strong resistance from the Government circles. FICCI's idea of self-regulation, led by disclosure norms and accountability, by an industry-driven body, rather than the Government is a very good one. The UGC's draft rules for disclosure norms could provide a good starting point.

Now for the chunks.

• Lawrence H. Summers, President of Harvard University, in his speech at the summit (full transcript available) made some interesting points. He talked about five lessons for India from the American experience in higher education - the importance of competition, flexibility, the authority of ideas, generous philanthropy, and combining research with undergraduate study. He also suggested that there was a major opportunity for India in exporting education. Some excerpts from his speech.
  
  • First, the most important guarantor of both quality and adequate investments in American higher education is competition. All of us in American higher education, particularly at the highest levels, see ourselves as engaged in a brutal competition. If there is a single reason why American education has excelled, it is the brutal competition for students, for faculty, for grant funds, that drives American institutions forward....And we regard it all as good. Not as something to be discouraged, not as something to be managed, but something to be seen and treated as a spur forward....At the federal level in the U.S. we rely primarily on direct federal support for students who can then take that support to the institutions they choose who then compete to attract the best students....We allocate federal financial aid funds in the way that we allocate federal research funds - on the basis of competition and peer review, not on other bases. And these judgments support the competition and drive our excellence."
    
  • American higher education depends on flexibility and the capacity to respond. Unlike what takes place in the primary and secondary level, there is in the U.S. no standard for what constitutes a necessary curriculum. No mandate as to how the academic calendar is to be organized. No set of requirements for what a university must provide.... Success depends on flexibility. That means for example that at Harvard and other great universities there are no fixed salary scales. When an extraordinary professor gets an extraordinary opportunity, we are in a position to change her salary. People of different ages or in different fields, because of conditions in the marketplace, have salaries that can differ by a factor of two or three. Students who want to change their curriculum or forge a major that cuts across two different fields are permitted to do so. The emphasis is on flexibility.
    
  • "Universities must be places based on the authority of ideas, rather than the idea of authority." Summers relates a story of a freshman student (in a seminar on globalisation that Summers taught at Harvard) "who has been here for all of five weeks would tell the guy who had the title 'President' - who had been in charge of this stuff for his country - that he was all wrong and that he had thought about it and that is what he concluded. And that nobody would regard it as a big deal. And that is something that is absolutely central to the success of academic life. There is no question that should be impossible to ask, no subject that should be beyond the scope of inquiry, no issue that should be regarded as finally settled, and no one who should be above or beyond debate. That is a culture, that is an approach, that is a view that is very difficult to maintain in any institution, anywhere. And yet for the most creative ideas to come out, for students to be best trained, it is something that is absolutely essential. And it is something that we fight at Harvard to preserve."
    
  • For all of this to work, there must be generous philanthropy. Our ability to maintain an institution like Harvard, the United States' ability to maintain a system of private higher education, depends on philanthropy. It depends on wealthy individuals who recognize their obligation to an institution that gave them their start, or to giving something back to society, or to promoting a cause that they believe in. It depends on a government's set of policies, ranging from tax deductions to an attitude taken by public officials that celebrates and welcomes, and is unthreatened by, individual generosity. It depends on harnessing the fact that people like to be recognized for their success - by being prepared to name professorships and scholarships and buildings for those who provide generosity.... That is a challenge for would-be philanthropists in this country, where I note the number of those included in Forbes magazine's list of billionaires has increased substantially in recent years, but it is also a broader challenge for institutions to learn to work with philanthropists.
    
  • Successful universities focus on research and on professional education as well as on undergraduate study. Some of the greatest contributions that American universities have made are in the upgrading of the medical profession and in the training of the legal profession. They increasingly, and this is something that I put great emphasis on during my time at Harvard, strengthen the contribution that universities make to professions that are absolutely central to our global system, but that do not involve the largest financial rewards for those who go into them

  • I would suggest that there is a major opportunity here for (exporting) Indian higher education. Potential benefits to the Indian economy of developing it as an export are obvious. But there are more fundamental benefits as well. First, if my own experience is any guide, foreigners that come and spend any time in India will want to come back. They will tell their friends about the beauty of India and the warmth of India's people and many will decide to come back later in life and to visit. Second, foreigners who study here will inevitably make long-lasting connections with their India counterparts. They will forge lifelong relationships that over time will change the attitudes of our nation and other nations towards India.

    I can tell you that no small part of the influence and strength that the United States has in conducting its global policies over the last few years has derived from the thinking about America that has come from those who spent six months or a year or two years in American universities. It is something that any rising super power should consider.

    Third, there are remarkable economic opportunities in this country, and those who come here and study them will see those opportunities and be more likely to exploit them to their benefit, and, I would suggest, to the benefit of the Indian economy. There will be those I am sure who will respond to this suggestion by saying that India's universities are already full and that there is not enough university capacity in India even to serve those in India who need higher education without setting aside spaces for foreigners. There are those who will argue that at a time when many thousands of Indians are traveling to the United States, should we be trying to keep them in India rather than recruit foreign students? My response is a simple one and it is the basis of economics. By attracting tuition dollars and euros, by attracting the money that foreign students will inevitably spend on housing and other living expenses, Indian institutions can potentially develop a new and reliable stream of revenue that will support their domestic expansion and enable them to teach more rather than fewer Indian students. I have no doubt that by welcoming more students from abroad, India can accommodate more students from home.
    

  
   
  
  
• Prof. N. R. Madhava Menon, Director, National Judicial Academy, Bhopal in his speech, provided a legal perspective on private funding of higher education in India and an example of a highly successful private initiative in legal education in India. This private institution was set up by no less an organisation than the Bar Council of India, which is the professional council responsible for regulating legal education in India!

  Prof. Madhava Menon lists the relevant constitutional provisions that which will determine the parameters of a new regulatory regime.
  

  1. Right to Equality (Article 14, 15, 16)
     
  2. Right to Education (Article 21 - A)
     
  3. Cultural and Educational Rights of Minorities (Article 30)
     
  4. Directive Principles of State Policy (Articles 38, 39, 41, 46)
     
  5. Rights to Property (Article 300-A)
     
  6. Entries in List I of Seventh Schedule (Item 65, 66)
     
  7. Entries in List III of Seventh Schedule (Item 25, 26)
  He suggests that there are at least four different sets of regulatory arrangements that are likely to operate in private higher education in future.
  
  1. State imposed regulations: This will largely be in relation to admissions, fees, subsidies, competition, fairness and other public policy issues.
     
  2. Professional/Discipline-induced regulations: This will be in relation to eligibility, curriculum and licensing requirements as determined
     
  3. Regulations arising out of market compulsions: The market will be a powerful regulator in a liberalized regime in future where the consumers stand to benefit in cost and quality if competition is maintained.
     
  4. Self-imposed regulations: In the changed context, service providers will be persuaded to build brands for educational excellence and towards this a series of regulatory steps and self-discipline may have to be cultivated including ethics for organization, administration and delivery of services.
  Prof. Madhava Menon asks why India is not a desired higher education destination for foreign students and says "The politics and economics of higher education coupled with unprincipled interventions from State agencies have eroded the dynamism and competitiveness of governing structures of educational institutions. For several decades curriculum remained unrevised. Teaching was geared more to examinations rather than to acquisition of knowledge. The public discourse on higher education has been dominated to the exclusion of all other aspects by considerations of equity, equality and social justice. The post TMA Pai debate (2002(8) SCC 481) hijacked the educational agenda to the differing approaches of the Judiciary and Parliament on the nature and scope of State authority to regulate admissions through reservations (apparently for less meritorious students identified by state) and to decide the fee structure of private unaided educational institutions."

  He goes on to describe his experience of being associated with the successful experiment of the National Law School of India University at Bangalore, which in his words accommodates access with quality as well as autonomy with accountability.

  University education in law is regulated by multiple agencies including U.G.C., The Bar Council, the Government and the respective university authorities. For a variety of reasons the quality of so-called legal education in the 1970s was found to be utterly poor despite the regulators and the regulations. Several attempts at curriculum reform and stricter controls by the Bar Councils yielded no substantial results in terms of quality, professionalism and competitiveness. It was a state of equality in mediocrity! To redeem the situation the Bar Council of India itself decided to establish a model law school in the private sector or joint sector to act as a pace-setter for legal education reforms. A self-financing, privately managed law University, independent of government control, the first of its kind in the country got established in 1986 in Bangalore under the name of National Law School of India University. Today there are seven such Law Universities in as many states and three more are about to get started in the coming academic year. Everyone concerned with law education applaud the initiative which changed the course of higher education in law, making it internationally competitive and socially relevant attracting the attention of industry, government and the public in the legal sectors.

  I had the good fortune of being associated with this reform movement in higher education for the last 25 years. It has influenced curriculum development even outside the National Law Schools and compelled the private un-aided institutions to improve quality of the education and training they offer. The scheme does honour the State's reservation policy though it would not allow the admissions to be regulated by the State. It assiduously maintains its autonomy in academic and governance matters and some of them are tying up with foreign Universities on their own terms. The experiment is now two decades old and worth looking into when models are being considered for regulating private higher education in the liberalized regime.

  He concludes on a very positive note, but with a caveat on the State's role.
  

  one can confidently say that private higher education has a great future in the Indian Scenario. PHE will bring in competitive merit and force periodical changes in curriculum, pedagogy, examination and governance across the entire educational sector. However, the State will have to negotiate equality and equity through a fair, transparent-participatory regulatory system which will be driven more by consumer interests rather than administrative exigencies and political considerations.

  
  

• Dr. S.Venkateswaran, Vice-Chancellor, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, (BITS) Pilani, Rajasthan in his speech, takes a refreshingly different view of higher education, striking a few notes very similar to Lawrence Summers. He provides a lot of food for thought and pointers to what can be done. The BITS Pilani model needs to be studies to see if it could serve as a model for more such institutions.

  The universities may have to develop an attitude by which students will be treated as clients with continuously changing needs and ambitions. Teachers and scientists may have to work more to satisfy the wishes of the students and society than their own personal and individual urges and impulses. The curriculum would require constant change. The traditional functions of the university namely, creation, preservation and dissemination of knowledge is taken over by others outside the university system as well. Actually, more technologies are created, preserved and propagated by other systems, outside the university. In order to cope with this, university curriculum may have to be guided more by the external impulses rather than internal impulses.

  It will not be possible for the university system to function in isolation. It will be difficult for the higher education system to continue to have the philosophy that education is for the sake of education. One may have to embrace the philosophy that education is for economic advantage. BITS, Pilani has embraced this philosophy since its inception and has done several innovations.

  Dr. Venkateswaran makes some very interesting points about the BITS model, of which a few are excerpted below

  • All admissions are made on an all India basis and are purely based on merit. There is no quota like state quota, management quota, NRI quota, etc.
  • Admissions are done through a computer-based online test spread over two months at various centers across the country with the flexibility for the candidate to have a choice of place of examination as well as time and date of examination. This year about sixty-eight thousand (68000) students have registered for this test for a total number of 1400 seats (800 at Pilani campus and 600 at Goa campus).
  • The overwhelming demand of highly meritorious students seeking admission to the Institute prompted the Institute to open campuses outside Pilani. At present the Institute has a campus is Dubai where the current strength in 950 students. The Institute has opened a campus in Goa where the strength is 1200 and will become 2500 in steady state. The Goa campus is constructed in an area of about 188 acres. The Institute has already invested about 130 crore rupees in this project. The Institute is planning to have a campus in Hyderabad. The government of Andhra Pradesh has already allotted 200 acres land for the campus there and the project cost of around 160 crore rupees is already being planned. There are pending requests from Singapore, Vietnam and Mauritius to open campuses there.