Higher education, lower development

Will the HRD ministry and Planning Commission correct the regional imbalance in higher education?

Education, especially higher education, seems to be in focus in the Eleventh Five Year Plan. Rightly so. The approach paper to the plan document says: 8220;Only about 8 per cent of the relevant age group of Indians go to university whereas in many developing countries, the figure is between 20 and 25 per cent. There is a need to undertake major expansion8230; New institutions must be set up, to provide easier access to students in educationally backward districts.8221; Similar sentiments were recently expressed by the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia when he agreed with Shekhar Gupta 8216;Walk the Talk8217;, IE, December 4 that higher education is a problem and went on to say, 8220;What has happened is we suddenly realised that if the economy is now growing at 8 per cent, and could grow at 9 per cent, the skills the economy needs will become a constraint.8221;

Against this backdrop, there have been reports that HRD Minister Arjun Singh has proposed the setting up of three new IITs, five IIMs, 20 Indian Institutes of Information Technology IIITs, three Indian Institutes of Science Educational and Research IISERs and four Schools of Planning and Architecture SPAs. Even if some of these get through to the Eleventh Plan, where will they be located? Currently the distribution of existing, centrally funded institutes is skewed. In the past, decisions regarding the location of these institutions seem to have been based on whether the state was politically influential or not.

Just refer to the list of such institutions in the Moily Committee report for confirmation of this: AP NIT, Hyderabad University U, Maulana Azad Urdu U, Arunachal none, Assam NIT, IIT, Assam U, Tezpur U, Bihar NIT, Chhattisgarh NIT, Delhi IIT, JNU, U Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia, SPA, Goa none, Gujarat IIM, NIT, Haryana NIT, HP NIT, J038;K NIT, Jharkhand NIT, NITTR, ISM, Karnataka NIT, IISc, IIM, Kerala NIT, IIM, MP IIM, NIT, NITTR, two IIITs, Maharashtra NIT, NITIE, IIT, MG Hindi U, Manipur Manipur U, Meghalaya NEHU, Mizoram Mizoram U, Nagaland Nagaland U, Orissa NIT, Punjab NIT, SLIET, Rajasthan NIT, Sikkim none, TN NIT, IIT, NITTR, Tripura NIT, Uttaranchal IIT, UP NIT, IIM, IIT, IIIT, BHU, Allahabad U, Ambedkar U, West Bengal NIT, IIT, IIM, Viswa Bharati, NITTR, Andaman and Nicobar Islands none, Chandigarh NITTR, Dadra and Nagar Haveli none, Daman and Diu none, Lakshadweep none and Puducherry Pondicherry U.

The sizes of the above states and UTs vary and institutions in some of them are local to a significant urban population in neighbouring states. For instance, institutions in Delhi are local to the people of UP and Haryana, and institutions in and around Chandigarh are local to a large populace of both Punjab and Haryana. The different institutes mentioned above have different budgets, with the IITs/IISc having the highest budgets. But the exact budget details are not easily available to make an accurate calculation of how much money the HRD ministry spends in various states. A rough calculation cited at equitableindia.org, based on the 2006-07 budget, shows Delhi Rs 183.08, West Bengal Rs 41.20 and Karnataka Rs 33.4 at the top with Orissa Rs 4.07, Rajasthan Rs 2.59, and Bihar Rs 1.87 at the bottom among the larger states. Not surprisingly as per the NSSO study of 2004-2005 Orissa is also at the bottom of most higher education parameters.

When this inequity is pointed out, some respond that locations of national institutes do not matter as any Indian is entitled to study anywhere in the country. What8217;s forgotten is that institutions like IITs are drivers of growth in the region where they are located and have programmes that benefit local people. It is very important, therefore, that centrally funded institutions be distributed in an equitable manner.

But whether this will be done is the big question. Given the dismal past record, there is need to be alertt. There may be an attempt to give an appearance of balance while some of the big-ticket items are once again located in the powerful states. The Planning Commission and HRD ministry must know the citizens, especially from the poorer states are watching.

The writer is professor, Arizona State University