Articles by Jandhyala B G Tilak

The BRIC member-countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - are experiencing a very high rate of growth in the demand for higher education. But they do not have the fiscal resources to meaningfully meet the key challenge of catering for the exploding demand without compromising on quality and equity. Each of them has adopted a stratified system of higher education - a few high-quality, elite institutions coexisting beside a large number of low-quality, mass institutions - to address the problems of access, quality, and equity, all at the same time. This paper focuses on this aspect of development of higher education, and examines its real effects on access, quality, equity and funding, and attempts to draw a comparative picture among the BRIC member-countries.

With the government's attention being riveted for decades on elementary or primary education, higher education was reduced to the role of playing second fi ddle. This has suddenly changed in recent years. Alongside, neo-liberal economic reforms have seen an expansion in the role of the private sector in education. Many of the recent initiatives in policy reforms mark a transition in the history of higher education in independent India - from a system embedded in welfare statism to a system partially based on quasimarket principles and fi nally to a system based on a neo-liberal market philosophy.

Although the Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Technical Educational Institutions, Medical Educational Institutions and Universities Bill 2010, which was introduced in Parliament recently, acknowledges the widespread prevalence of malpractices in our institutions of higher education, it is inadequate for tackling the host of corrupt and unfair practices.

The draft bill setting out the constitution, functions and powers of the National Commission for Higher Education and Research has proposed a body in which will be concentrated the powers to oversee higher education in all fields, and which will be overburdened with bureaucratic responsibilities. The NCHER is also likely to end any measure of autonomy with the state universities. The new commission, which is expected to replace the University Grants Commission, will possibly end up with exactly the same problems as the UGC.

The allocations to the education sector in the union budget for 2008-09 are substantially more than in 2007-08, but the hike is not as large as in previous years. The budget marks a shift in priorities in a number of areas. One, higher priority to secondary, technical and higher education, and less to elementary education. Two, a preference for expansion of elite over mass-based system. And, three, a preference for funding from cesses over allocations from the general budget.