There was a marked shift this time in the budget speech of the Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley in respect to the education sector particularly higher education. Instead of giving statistics on allocation for various schemes related to the higher education, some policy announcements were made. Since details are still awaited, we can make some interpretations based on some assumptions.
First and foremost is setting of a National Testing Agency (NTA) which has been entrusted to conduct all kinds of entrance examinations so far being handled by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). Establishment of NTA is a positive step which was much awaited. Both the CBSE and AICTE were handling some of the biggest entrance tests which were not core of their mandate. Because of too much involvement in conducting several national level entrance tests, these statutory bodies were drifting away from their vision related to school education and technical education.
There will be big expectations from NTA because entrance tests in India have been mired with lot of inefficiencies, failures and inertia to embrace technological changes. Worldwide TOFEL, GMAT, SET etc have been well recognized for their credibility to test millions of admission aspirants and providing their scores without any hiccups.
Second major announcement made by Jaitley, was reforms in the UGC and giving more autonomy to colleges. The basis of granting autonomy will be ranking of the colleges. There are more than 35000+ colleges and 330+ public universities which grant affiliation to these colleges. Some of these Universities have more than 1000 affiliated colleges with a total student population of 7-10 lakhs. In this scenario, it has been observed that good colleges suffer and poor quality colleges are in deep slumber. It is assumed this new scheme of autonomous colleges will not be similar to the old scheme of 90"s which could garner hardly 500+ autonomous colleges across the country. Here a suggestion can be given about eligibility for granting autonomy. It should be accreditation, not the ranking which is mostly done based on submission of data. In the case of accreditation, there is on-the-spot validation of data submitted by the college through an expert committee.
In the Union Budget, it has been also announced that 100 international skill centre will be established with courses in foreign languages. It is not clear in what respect these centres will be different from existing Skill Development Centres offering various skill based courses. Jaitley has also announced allocation of Rs.4,000 crore to launch skill acquisition and knowledge awareness. It will be better if both of these initiatives are linked with good schools and colleges in the country. They are well equipped to run these programmes. Starting new agencies will not be advisable.
The Budget speech also mentions leveraging of information technology for offering virtual learning on platform like SWAYAM. The utility of virtual learning is well accepted but it should be part of a blended-learning programme in which both online and off-line classes are conducted. This is needed in the context of our country where exclusive virtual learning cannot be successful.
Guest Author
The author is Alternate President, EPSI & Director, BIMTECH
