Financial innovation, ICT can turn around higher education sector: Ficci

Financial innovation, innovative use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), reinvigorating research, thrust on vocational education and training (VET) and a regulatory framework comprise the five critical areas that can prove to be ‘game changers’ for the higher education sector, suggests a new report on higher education by Ficci and Ernst & Young.

It reasons that the Indian higher education sector, which has grown both in size and student enrolment, has many structural shortcomings which impedes its growth. For instance, despite having more higher education institutions than any other country in the world, India’s Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) at 12 per cent is almost half that of China’s GER and lower than many developing countries. Moreover, inequity is also pervasive in the system with GERs of women and backward classes lesser than the national average, points out the report titled ‘Making Indian higher education system future ready’.

Financial innovation is necessary, according to the report, since India's per-capita spends on higher education are very low, leading to significant paucity of funds for expansion and quality enhancement besides poor coverage of scholarships and student loan schemes to support needy students and enable tuition fee rationalisation. These can be overcome by encouraging private sector investments, performance-based funding by the government and creation of a strong education financing mechanism, states the report.

Another game changer is the use of ICT that faces the issue of poor quality of digital content, especially in regional languages and can be resolved by developing mechanisms for development and free distribution of high quality content across languages.

For the poor standard of research across Indian higher education institutes and lack of qualified faculty, limited funding for research as well as poor linkages between academic institutions and industry/government R&D labs, the report recommends creation of an enabling environment in terms of lesser teaching hours for researchers, greater budgets and access to better infrastructure. “Increase the number and quality of doctoral students through the launch of innovative programmes, provision of attractive fellowships and enhanced industry collaboration,” the report reasons.

The fourth game changer is of VET that faces the key challenge of low penetration due to limited relevance and poor outcomes besides multiple regulatory bodies and lack of linkage of VET with the mainstream education system, says the report for which it recommends greater industry involvement and mobility between VET and mainstream education through a system of credit transfer. Another recommendation for VET pertains to supporting private sector vocational education through accreditation and recognition mechanisms.

Regulatory framework is the final game changer that is ailing from limited transparency, low autonomy and poor quality control systems besides multiplicity of regulators with overlapping roles for which the report recommends: “Create a single independent agency for regulating higher education and simplify the regulatory framework and reduce entry barriers for reputed players, by facilitating entry of high- quality foreign universities and private universities through the PPP mode.”