As Govt fumbles on higher education, a lesson from Stanford

China has not just increased the numbers of students with higher education. It has also significantly reformed this sector.

The recently concluded pan-Asia conference organised by the Stanford Center for International Development, at Stanford University, provided an opportunity to dwell on the contrasts between India and China. Amongst the many sectors examined by participants, perhaps the most striking contrasts appear to lie in the higher education sector.

Details of the Chinese government’s policy towards higher education were provided by Dr Lan Xue, Professor and Executive Associate Dean of the School of Public Policy and Management in Tsinghua University. He started by noting the tremendous growth in the number of university entrants. Total university enrollment has increased from 3.41 million in 1998 to 7.19 million in 2001, and to 13.34 million in 2004, much higher than in India.

Comparable data for tertiary enrollment rates in India and China are available from the World Bank’s publication World Bank Indicators (reported by Prof Martin Carnoy of Stanford University in a paper). These data reveal that gross tertiary-level enrollment rates in China increased from only 3 per cent in 1985 to 16 per cent in 2003. In contrast, while India started at 6 per cent tertiary enrollment rate in 1985, this rose to only 12 per cent by 2003. Comparing India to Brazil, Russia and China, the so-called BRIC economies, the proportions of those in tertiary education is now by far the lowest in India.

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China has also significantly reformed the higher education sector. Prior to the 1980s, the Chinese higher education system was highly centralised. This was completely overhauled in 1985, following the end of the Cultural Revolution. The 1985 reform has been characterised as a move towards the ‘‘3 Ds’’ (decentralisation, depoliticisation, and diversity) and the ‘‘3 Cs’’ (commercialisation, competition, and cooperation). A considerable amount of administrative decentralisation was introduced, and curriculums were depoliticised. Diversity took the form of growth in the number of private universities. By 2000, there were 1,300 private universities, out of which 43 were authorised to grant degrees. But, diversity also meant exploring different channels for financing higher education. As a consequence, the percentage importance of government funding for universities has been declining steadily, with the share of tuitions and other sources of funds (including research grants) rising steadily.

Prof Carnoy noted the shift. While the system was initially financed primarily by direct government contributions (83 per cent of funding) and revenues from industries affiliated with universities (about 10 per cent of total funding), tuitions currently account for 30 per cent of total funding, with government contributions also being reduced to 30 per cent. Since the 1985 reform, university faculty members have worked aggressively to develop closer ties with industry, with approximately 80 per cent of university spending on applied research and development.

In China, R&D is conducted in universities, public research institutes (PRIs) and Enterprises primarily set up by State Owned Enterprises (SOEs).

Prof Carnoy noted that in India, too, the Government’s share in overall education expenditure has been declining steadily, from 80 per cent in 1983 to 67 per cent in 1999. This, however, reflects a reduction in the Government’s financial support for higher education. Expenditure on university and higher education as a percentage of total budgetary expenditure on education has fallen from 29.58 per cent in 1999-00 to 17.34 per cent in 2002-03. Correspondingly, expenditure on university and higher education as a percentage of total budgetary expenditure has declined from 0.71 per cent to 0.41 per cent.

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One area where India has been particularly lacking is in post-graduate education and research, even in the field of technical education. Dr Naushad Forbes, of Stanford University, noted that in 1990, the number of Ph.D. degrees in Science and Engineering in India equalled the total number of degrees granted in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Since then, the number of Ph.D. degrees in China in this field has shot up; the country is now second only to the US, up from essentially nothing in 1990.

The quality of technical research undertaken in India also requires significant improvement. In a paper presented at a conference in Thiruvananthapuram, December 2005, jointly organised by the Stanford Center for International Development, the Kerala Global Support Network and the Asian School of Business, Dr Forbes noted that the change in the share of US patents between 1982 and 1993 in India was only 2.45, as compared to 12.81 in Taiwan and 29.79 in South Korea. He attributed the slow progress in the quality of scientific research, in part, to the fact that a uniquely tiny share of R&D in the field of science and technology in India is conducted within the university system.

The writer is India Program Director, Stanford Centre for International Development SCID), Stanford University, California, USA