Education Unbound
Government subsidies can only cater to a minority of colleges and universities ... IIT Bombay has a budget of Rs 120 crore a year, of which Rs 100 crore comes from the central government. With 5,000 students, this means a subsidy of Rs 2 lakh per student per year. This is not sustainable and is the key reason why the government system has not expanded. The private sector has to step in, and it has.
Education Unbound
Rahul Bajaj
30 July 2009
The demand for quality education is intense and students and parents are going to great lengths to access it. The problems are on the supply side. With Kapil Sibal as the new human resources development minister, perhaps winds of change will blow.
We need to free education from the licence-permit raj. Let colleges set their own fees and salaries, curriculum and exams and expansion plans. The current system obstructs the ethical and promotes the unethical through over-regulation. We also need to substantially increase vocational training. Industry has to step forward to create a market for the vocationally trained. However, the government's rigid labour policy is hindering this by discouraging employment-creation in the organised sector.
Our higher education system consists of four kinds of institutions: centrally run institutions like IITs, IIMs, etc; state-run universities; grant colleges run by private institutions; and unaided institutions. Unaided institutions are largely affiliated to universities or are deemed universities or private universities. The majority of students in the country are now in unaided private institutions. This fact needs to be emphasised.
The crux of the matter is that the government system, including aided colleges, has so much subsidy that it can only cater to a minority. IIT Bombay has a budget of Rs 120 crore a year, of which Rs 100 crore comes from the central government. With 5,000 students, this means a subsidy of Rs 2 lakh per student per year. This is not sustainable and is the key reason why the government system has not expanded. The private sector has to step in, and it has.
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