Education articles

The Asian Development Bank noted in January 2008 that education in India was lagging seriously behind its rapid economic growth with only 12,000 training and vocational institutes, compared to half a million in China.

 Short-term turbulences aside (just as we are witnessing now), India has entered an era of high economic growth. As we enter the last quarter of FY 2008, the fourth consecutive fiscal when India has witnessed over 8% growth, we find India's manpower shortages aggravate even further. Just as growth has been multi-sectoral, so have the manpower deficiencies.

 There is a growing demand that the government should increase the outlays on education and do other things to motivate and encourage education. It is true that for India to have consistent rate of growth; Greater levels of R&D, combined with extensive investment in workforce can make a significant contribution. Part of the solution lies in forging strong partnerships between the private sector and the academia. They should be developed in tandem with the government to ensure that courses like computer science are nurtured and developed as a discipline in schools.

 In India; on the one hand, you have world-class institutions of higher education such as IITs and IITMs and on the other hand, we have mushrooming private institutions/universities which function more as coaching centers, rather than as centers of achieving innovative excellence. Lack of university capacity has resulted in a lower proportion of youth ages 17 to 23 enrolled in higher education in India than in China, the Philippines or Malaysia. This could have an impact on the IT industry, unless immediately rectified.

 There is scarcity of skilled manpower in every industry, from good carpenters and plumbers to factory workers, doctors and scientists. The banking industry, which employs 900,000 people, is expected to add 600,000 more over the next three to four years. Similarly, the IT and ITeS industry will need around 850,000 additional skilled manpower by 2010. And, the retail industry will need nearly 2.5 million skilled professionals by 2012. Not only are jobs within India on the rise, the developed world too is facing manpower shortages, which are expected to rise to 40 million by 2020. This shortfall can be met by India, where both educated unemployment and the number of people joining the workforce are on the rise. In short, the opportunities before India are huge, provided our education sector gears up to take these on. Manpower shortages are both quantitative and qualitative in nature.India needs more universities. While Japan has 4,000 universities for its 127 million people and the US has 3,650 universities for its 301 million, India has only 348 universities for its 1.2 billion people.

 The Economic Survey released by the Government of India on 28th February 2008 is significant for what it does not say, than what it does. The Survey glosses over the UPA government's failure to keep its common minimum program pledge of raising public expenditure on education to 6% of GDP. Public spend on education as a percentage of GDP has slipped below the high of 2.9 % achieved by the NDA government in 2002-03. For the first time, the government has acknowledged that the 86th Constitutional amendment - mankind education a fundamental right for all 6 to 14 year olds-has not been enforced because the enabling Right to Education Act is yet to be enacted. The Survey is also silent on the number of school dropouts, learning outcomes and low enrollment rates for higher education. These issues are part of the reality check that the Survey provides. In the Union Budget 2008, the Government has allocated Rs. 34,400 crores for education. It also announced its decision to establish one Central University in each of the hitherto uncovered states in the country. Besides, three new IITs are proposed to be set up in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan. Two Schools of Planning and Architecture will come up at Bhopal and Vijayawada.

 The government through the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the flagship project of the HRD ministry, is geared towards achieving useful and relevant elementary education for all children by 2010. This movement is showing results. The number of out-of-school children in the 6-14 years age group has dropped from 13.4 million in 2005 to 7.06 million in March-end 2006. In the Union Budget 2008; the project received an allocation of Rs. 13,100 crores which would be spent in enhancing retention, a shift from the earlier focus on access and infrastructure.

 India needs ‘curricular reforms'.

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