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WITH just one institution, IIT Bombay, making it to the list of the top 150 universities world-wide, and that too barely, it is clear that India’s ambitions of becoming a knowledge superpower remain a distant dream. When the UPA regime decided on education, and in particular higher education, as a priority in the Eleventh Five Year Plan, many cheered. The escalated fund allocation was long overdue. Even more welcome was the replacement of the octogenerarian Arjun Singh as the HRD minister. With Kapil Sibal being propelled into the ‘hot seat’, one felt that both the empty ideological battles over the colour of textbooks as also the politics of patronage and appointments would now be set aside in favour of much needed reforms. More than a year into the UPA-II regime, the mood among the academics is distinctly sour.

It is not as if the HRD ministry under Kapil Sibal is comatose; if anything, it is hyper-active, proposing a flurry of bills ranging from setting up a National Commission for Higher Education and Research; legislation governing the entry and operation of foreign education providers; a bill for private education providers; for instituting educational tribunals; setting up national innovation universities – and the list goes on. Seen in conjunction with the earlier expansion in the number of central universities, IIMs, IITs, National Law Schools and so on, the higher education sector is clearly being readied for a major overhaul. So why the distinct lack of cheer?

Is it because the proposed legislations have not been sufficiently well-formulated and are being rushed through without ensuring proper consultation and the requisite buy-in from diverse stake-holders? It is instructive that the Educational Tribunals Bill, though cleared by the Lok Sabha, faced determined opposition in the Upper House, including from members of the ruling party. Eventually, it had to be withdrawn for needed revisions, some of which had been suggested by the Select Committee but disregarded. The Foreign Educational Providers Bill, as also the one on the proposed National Commission for Higher Education and Research, both central to the emerging imagination, are facing strident criticism from multiple quarters, delaying the draft legislation for introduction in Parliament.

More substantively, the feeling is that the ministry – despite the reports of the National Knowledge Commission and the Yashpal Committee – has still to present a convincing case laying out its analysis of the key infirmities afflicting our higher education institutions and how the proposed legislations and institutional architecture would help improve the situation. Merely reiterating that we need to rapidly increase the gross enrolment ratio in higher education from the current low of around nine per cent to at least fifteen, or invite greater private participation, hardly illumines.

For instance, we know that each of our quality public institutions faces a serve faculty crunch, despite sanctioned posts. While the enhanced pay and perks under the Sixth Pay Commission should help, there are many unresolved questions related to autonomy of functioning, intake of students, modes and rules governing hiring and evaluation which continue to deter potential applicants. The fear is that while we busy ourselves with announcing new institutions, the existing ones may well decay and fade out.

Similarly, we still do not have reasoned and data-based analysis, not anecdotal evidence, of what ails our current set of regulators – be it the UGC, AICTE, MCI and so on. Will replacing them with another super regulator – The National Higher Education and Research Authority – help? Or will we create yet another centralized entity that may soon go the way of existing institutions?

Unfortunately, the little debate that we have so far seen on these proposed changes has focused more on the kinds of personnel – their qualification, status, emoluments, modes of selection and so on – who will run the new institutions. Already, we are witnessing fights over jurisdiction and territoriality – who will control what. Nothing really enough on the proposed rules and regulations governing their functioning.

In all this heat and fury, there is little understanding of the emerging needs and demands of the potential entrants into the domain of higher education. Of how technology is changing modes of teaching, learning and research. And, most worryingly, about the proliferation of new private educational providers who, irrespective of quality, are positioning themselves to meet the new demands.

It is time that the HRD Ministry came out with a proper position paper on its plans, so that instead of the sniping that we are being subjected to, we can engage in a meaningful debate.

Harsh Sethi