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| PPP model will boost education infra: Report | |
| BS Reporter / New Delhi November 26, 2008, 0:49 IST | |
Public-Private Partnership (PPP) models are imperative for the expansion and accessibility of higher education infrastructure in India, says a Ficci-Ernst & Young report titled ‘Leveraging Partnerships in India’s Education Sector’.
The report states that without adequate funding from the government, public institutions find it difficult to develop infrastructure to enhance student intake and expand enrollment. “It is important to incentivise higher education if we want to take it to the next step ...Despite having the talent we are unable to attract the same to teaching and promote research,” said Amit Mitra, FICCI secretary general at the FICCI Higher Education Summit 2008.
The report also draws attention to India’s low Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) of almost 11 per cent in higher education as compared to about 60 per cent in the US and Canada and around 21 per cent (average) in BRIC countries. The higher educational infrastructure in India can enroll only 7-8 per cent of the college-age students of the country. “Public resources can be leveraged through land grants to attract not-for-profit private investment,” said Mitra.
The report highlights that while public expenditure on education has increased, the percentage share of GDP spent on higher education has come down from 0.77 per cent in 1991 to an estimated 0.7 per cent in 2008. The share of expenditure spent on higher education as a percentage of total education expense has remained stagnant at around 13 per cent for the past three years.
Further, the Indian higher education system suffers from imbalanced reach of education institutions across the country which in turn impacts the GER. For instance, the rural areas of the country, which represent about 65 per cent of the total population, have just 20 per cent of the total professional colleges.
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