Warning: Long and serious post Following Energy, the next sector I would like to highlight as the key sector of priority for our next Government is Education. With more than half of our population in the age group of below 30, the significance of this sector need not be emphasised more, yet is often neglected or abused for petty political purposes. The average spend of the Government in the last 10 years in this sector was less than 4% of the GDP and what is worrisome is the capex is even lesser at a fourth of that. We have about 250 million students in schools and some 27 million students in some sort of higher education and we have about 1.4 million schools and about 36000 colleges. The higher education market is estimated to be about USD 110 billion as of FY 2014-15 and poised to grow at about 15% per year. This is considering the overall literacy is still at about 75% and the female literacy much lower than that at about 60% or lesser. The above numbers should help one appreciate the scale and size of what lies in store when we talk of this, but the real issues are more basic and have been plaguing us for many decades. The demand supply gap is so huge in the sector for a society marooned by self-imposed limited choices of professional courses that are further constrained due to reservations and quotas, the higher education has become extremely competitive and highly privileged for most students that either you score so high to be in the race or have deep pockets to fund for capitation fees. On the other hand, the primary education continues to be pathetic especially in rural areas with hardly any good schools, let alone the facilities, faculties, and the number of tragic stories we hear about noon-meal poisoning, and such. Those who dwell in the cities have a completely different problem to deal with in terms of fighting for the admission in the right school and the means to fund for it. This is where the Public Private Partnership can do a lot more to improve both the standards and scale of this sector. Some of our big corporate chieftains who wail about lack of Harvard type institutions in the country can do a lot more in working along with the Government to fund for new universities and institutions of world class that would help retain many of our brilliant research scholars and students and more importantly give ample opportunities to students of merit who are less privileged. If there is one Super 30 kind of initiative that is successful in Bihar, I am sure we can have many more such initiatives if the right support is given through such a Public Private Partnership. Secondly, IT and Telecom can play a huge role both in primary and higher education through distant learning programs/virtual classrooms thus spreading the reach of knowledge to a wider section and to the remote areas of the country making it both affordable and accessible. The MIT kind of initiative for open classrooms through the net can be initiated by premium institutions like IITs and IIMs for the benefit of many. Rather than doing it just for a feel good factor or as a service, there should be a proper accreditation and assessment process for such online education so that they too are recognised at par, which can bridge the demand supply gap to a large extent. Thirdly, both the quality and quantity of faculty are dismal right across the spectrum. The main reason for that is insufficient and pathetic remuneration. Unless the pay structure is revamped substantially, we will not get the right talent and if this is corrected, I am sure both in terms of employment opportunities and attracting good talent, this sector could play a big role. Even many who are fed up doing monotonous corporate or government jobs would leave and join this sector. I have failed to understand why is it so difficult for a teacher to get even a fraction of the pay that many of his or her students earn subsequently in their careers. Lastly, we can attract significant FDI into this sector if proper reforms and policies are in place and can get top ranked Universities and Schools to set up shops here and help do exchange programs. Given the scope and the growth potential, this could be a very attractive sector for bringing in some valuable capital from all over the world to address many of the above problems. I have been quite impressed by Modis vision for education and skill development in many of his speeches and also what he claims to have done in Gujarat (like Boiler inspection course and all) and I sincerely hope he walks the talk if he gets to head the next government in the Centre and puts at least some of his vision in place, rather than wasting time in (correcting history in text books like if Rani Lakshmi Bai indeed used hookah or not and such) what is generally alleged as saffronising our education. Boosting economy could be an immediate priority. Boosting education could help sustain it in future.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 15:20:16 +0000
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