Foreign universities are now increasingly looking forward to partnerships with Indian universities specifically institutes of higher learning and research with a view to expand their programmes and outreach.
Recently, during the Belgian King Albert II?s visit, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, signed a contract with the Universite? libre de Bruxelles for cooperation in micro-finance research. Additionally, the Universite? catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve signed a MoU with The Energy Research Institute (TERI) so as to collaborate on projects related to energy, climate change, environment and sustainable development.
Last week, a large delegation visited India from the university of Cologne, Germany led by its mayor Fritz Schramma. The university rector, Axel Freimuth and his team went around the country seeking partnerships with the university of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, IIM Ahmedabad, University of Pondicherry, IIM Bangalore and the National Law School, Bangalore.
Keeping in view the prevailing situation, Ficci-Ernst & Young study has said, ?despite government initiatives, there exists a significant gap in the demand for higher education and the supply of infrastructure facilities. The government needs to step not only through improvised regulatory framework but through a different form of strategy?public-private partnership (PPP).?
According to the study, higher education institutions (HEIs) can operate as a not-for-profit basis like as a trust or a society. Few HEIs that operate as a company registered under Section 25 of the Companies Act are not recognised by the UGC and AICTE. The participation by the private sector in HEIs has been on the rise in recent years but the scale of demand and opportunity has led to signification lapses in quality and governance. Hence an effective PPP model backed by appropriate regulation can resolve the issue. The proposed regulatory framework should also facilitate the entry of foreign institutions.
With a view to take this concept further the apex industry body, Ficci along with the Canadian government has planned a two-day higher education summit in Delhi. University of Waterloo, Association of Community Colleges of Canada and representatives from a number of universities and colleges of Canada are expected to participate.
The higher education summit is slated to be inaugurated by the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia. The valedictory address on November 26 will be given by the President and CEO of Asia Pacific Foundation, Paul Evans. Apart from Canada delegated from 10 countries including UK, US, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Mauritius, Belarus, Kenya, Rwanda, Gabon are expected to participate.
According to the FICCI-Ernst & Young study entitled ? Leveraging Partnership in India’s Education Sector ? with a total eligible population for education at 460 million, only about 63% are studying in India. This percentage is very low when compared to other BRIC countries like Brazil and Russia where 88% and 89% of the eligible population are studying. The report draws attention to India’s low GER of 11% in higher education as compared to about 60% in the US and Canada and around 21% on an average in BRIC countries. The higher educational infrastructure in India can enroll only about 8% of the college-age students
The report highlights that while public expenditure on education has increased, the percentage share of GDP spent on higher education has come down from 0.77% in 1991 to an estimated 0.7% in 2008. The share of expenditure on higher education as a percentage of total education expense has remained stagnant at around 13% for the past three years. Further, Indian higher education system suffers from imbalanced reach of education institutions across the country which in turm impacts the GER. For instance, the rural areas which represents over 65% of the total population have just 20% of the total professional colleges.
However, India’s higher education system has seen immense growth since Independence (1947) ? from only 20 universities and 500 colleges in 1947-48, there were more than 400 universities and over 20,000 colleges with an enrolment of around 14 million students at the beginning of the academic year 2007-08. In addition, there are a number of All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) approved technical institutions. As on August 31, 2007 there existed around 7,000 technical institutions that collectively had an intake of about 1.3 million.
Approximately 58% of all higher education institutions are located in six states namely Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. However, GER across states and union territories range from 4% in Arunachal Pradesh to about 26% in Chandigarh.
Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are the preferred states to establish private institutions with approximately 60% of the private medical colleges located in these states. Maharashtra and Karnataka account for almost 50% of the all hotel management institutes, while the other two states have about half of the country’s nursing colleges.
