Make quality the king

Quantity and quality of human resources determine the growth graph of a country. India has the numbers in terms of institutes and a young population. The gap is in the quality of higher education available.

Aditi Tandon

After a long phase of unbridled expansion from 2006 onwards, country’s predominantly privately run technical education sector is finally hitting a plateau. For the second consecutive year — 2013 and 2014 — the annual growth rate of the sector has posted a decline, exhibiting welcome trends towards the consolidation of the existing institutions and stress on their academic accountability.

The foundation of a future committed to quality of technical education was laid on January 12, 2012 at a crucial meeting of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) - the apex regulator for the sector in India. The meeting decided not to approve any new institutions from academic year 2014-15 and focus on improving the ones that existed already.

The trend was quickly visible on the ground. For the first time in years, annual additions to technical institutions offering undergraduate courses in India declined significantly from 266 in 2010-11 to just 14 in 2013-14. The decline became more perceptible when compared to the single year addition of 859 UG technical colleges in 2008-2009 - the year that witnessed the highest-ever growth of technical education in India.

 “The idea behind the decision at AICTE was to encourage institutions to improve their existing capacities at instruction, teaching, research and collaborations,” says former AICTE chairman SS Mantha. As of today, the country has 4,599 AICTE-approved technical institutions offering undergraduate courses in engineering/technology; pharmacy, architecture and hotel management, and 7,929 institutions offering postgraduate courses in management, computer administration, engineering, pharmacy, architecture and town-planning.

The infrastructure is vast compared to what the country had in 2006 when the government first started focusing on the expansion of institutions with the idea of improving enrolments in higher education which were 10 per cent then as against 20 per cent today.

Back in 2006 there were 2,322 UG technical colleges in India. The country has since doubled its institutional framework in technical education posting a 50 per cent increase in the number of UG technical colleges. The growth of institutions offering PG courses hasn't matched up to those offering UG programmes increasing by 28 pc since 2006 when the number of PG technical institutions was 5,735.

Skewed stats

An analysis of government data shows that the maximum expansion happened at two levels — UG technical institutions and among the larger UG institutions those offering engineering courses.

Picture this — out of 4,599 UG technical institutions in India, 3,384 (73 pc) are engineering and technology colleges followed by 1,029 offering pharmacy; 105 architecture and 81 hotel management courses. At the postgraduate level, however, management remains the preferred stream among students with 42 pc (3,364 out of 7,929) of the existing institutions offering management degrees followed by 2,132 offering engineering; 1,567 offering MCA; 841 pharmacy and only 25 for courses in architecture.

Statistics clearly bear out two important trends about India's technical education sector. One, there is a heavy tendency among students to opt for undergraduate professional courses, that too engineering and technology, resulting in the evident glut in this stream as and a shortage in the others such as pharmacy and town planning. Two, response to PG education remains dry in India as is evident from the fact that the growth in PG technical institutions since 2006 has been half of that in UG technical institutions. The result — continuing dearth of PhDs in India, which is, in turn, causing a serious crisis of teaching quality especially in  the non-centrally funded technical institutions which are under the AICTE ambit. Central technical institutions like IITs, NITs etc are autonomous as these were set up by Acts of Parliament.

Pangs of faculty crunch

A.K Nassa, Member Secretary, National Board of Accreditation, the apex body for accreditation of AICTE-approved institutions and programmes, admits that the shortage of qualified faculty is the biggest challenge for India’s higher education sector. He even points out a shocking trend where several private technical institutions are getting professors with PhDs in non-technical streams to teach students enrolled in technical courses.

 “In higher educational institutions, faculty with PhD is preferred. But in India the production of PhDs remains very low. This gap leads to low quality of education as institutions work with lesser qualified faculty who have the necessary degrees but in non-relevant areas - for instance having a PhD in sciences or arts to satisfy the PhD requirement for faculty and then having this faculty teach technical courses,” Nassa says.

While academic experts welcome the growth of technical education sector in India, they say they are worried about the poor quality of graduates and PGs coming out of such institutions. NBA's latest statistics show only 319 out of 4,599 UG technical institutions in India are accredited which is 7 pc of the existing institutions. At the level of programme accreditation, the scenario is ever worse with just 1,118 programmes currently accredited as against a couple of thousands being offered.

The UGC and AICTE had, through notified regulations in 2013, mandated accreditation of all higher educational institutions. But there is lack of interest and drive even after the Ministry of HRD shifted from a voluntary to a mandatory accreditation regime to improve the quality of education.

Experts acknowledge the challenges of quality while admitting to the criticality of setting up new institutions of higher learning. “We have set ourselves a target of achieving 30 pc gross enrolment ratio in higher education by 2020. For this, new institutions are needed. But accreditation is equally necessary to ensure that we are producing educated, employable graduates. Unfortunately, private colleges continue to play more of a commercial than an academic role with most of their faculty being low quality and education sub standard, except in few top institutions which take quality seriously,” says AS Narang, Prof of Political Science at IGNOU.

Employability concerns

While reforms in UGC and AICTE will solve only part of the problem, the larger question is the widening gap between education and employability. As of today, about 89 pc of India’s 15-59 year olds have no skills training at all. Of the 11 pc who have had some training, only 1.3 pc have received formal vocational training. 

The country's current capacity to train is a fraction of the 12.8 million new entrants into the workforce every year.

FICCI, which works with the government on skill enhancement, estimates that India has the highest potential among all nations to meet the skill gap of the world with its large and young English-speaking population but it needs clearer policies to get there.

FICCI's overview of India's skill development sector says, "The world shortage of skilled manpower will stand at around 56.5 million by 2020. India, with its target of skilling 500 million by 2020, can not only meet its labour shortage but also cater to the world markets. The challenge is to erase the skills set versus job requirement gap considering 65 pc of India's population is below 35 years of age and needs to be productively engaged in the economy. Industry-academic collaboration is critical to address the challenge."

But the industry-university linkages in India remain weak as ever though attempts are now being made to boost the same and the Narendra Modi Government driving skilling through a dedicated ministry. In fact, the policy stress on skilling is very recent with the National Skilling Policy being drafted only six years back in 2009 with the aim of imparting skills to 500 million by 2020. The target is far-far away.

Nassa of NBA puts the lack of industry-academic interaction as the second biggest challenge for India's higher education and skilling sectors after the shortage of qualified faculty.

 "In general in India, executives in industry are reluctant to interact with university scientists who have spent a few years in the industry. This has led to the faculty in general having no industrial exposure. Further, departments of most universities and institutions lack suitable mechanisms for collaboration with the industry and feel constrained to accept industry contracts with time-bound results. This causes our industry to chronically depend on foreign collaborations for research. Domestic institutions suffer in such a scenario which can change through bold reforms," Nassa says.