The University Education Commission (UEC), 1948-49, set up immediately after India attained Independence, had laid the foundation for an institutional mechanism in the form of the University Grants Commission (UGC) to oversee the development of higher education in the country. Over the years, the UGC has grown and evolved in the midst of the emerging concerns crucial to the future of Indian higher education. During this period, the UGC has been increasingly noticed both for its good work and achievements and also its limitations to address the total spectrum of higher education. Expression of its limitation is actually a pointer to the high expectations of the leadership role of the UGC in bringing about qualitative transformation in higher education in the national perspective. The new National Education Policy (NEP) has recommended the replacement of the UGC by an umbrella institution, the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) with its four verticals namely the National Higher Educational Council (NHERC), General Education Council (GEC), National Accreditation Council (NAC), and Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC).
It is understood, from those who have been intimately associated with the formulation of the NEP 2020 and are now playing the key role in its implementation, that action has been initiated for the establishment of the HECI. Exercise of such a scale requires clarity of vision and actions or steps to take to make the vision happen. The present article attempts to outline the vision and the agenda for action for the proposed HECI.
The vision of the HECI should be to expand the frontiers of knowledge and widening the human resource base to enable youth to realise their fullest potential and to appreciate and create a culturally diverse, peaceful and inclusive society. The HECI should play a key role in the overall development of higher education besides acting as a national ‘think tank’ demonstrating the culture and capability to promote organised and purposeful debates in a professional way about the problems, concerns, issues which afflict and hamper sound development of higher education. The HECI should play a pro-active role in undertaking academic initiatives through continued involvement of the best talent in the country for insightful discourse on issues in higher education. Its ‘think tank’ role should result in periodic development of the ‘State of Higher Education Reports’ to be submitted to Parliament to apprise the nation of the current realities and possible mid-course corrections. It should not wait for policy legislations towards reform but provide seamless continuity with the envisioned reforms from time to time.
The HECI should take necessary measures to strengthen the concept of a university as an institution of multi-and-interdisciplinary learning and attempt to correct the current trends of establishing single faculty universities. It should not only provide the youth with equal opportunities in accessing quality higher education but also create favourable conditions for achieving success. This, of course, would necessitate due focus on access, equity, inclusion and excellence. Further, the HECI should initiate appropriate measures for the institutionalisation of education which is rooted in the culture and life of the people with provision for international competitiveness.
The HECI should prepare at least a five-year transformative action plan for higher education. The agenda for action against each thrust area should also identify the tasks which may be converted into short term, medium term and long term programmes of action. It should envision new responsibilities in areas encompassing all aspects of higher education. It should engage itself with priority concerns in higher education. It should consider establishing ‘think-tanks’ within the university system for continuous discourse on higher education and promote policy research. It should also institutionalise collection, analysis and authentication of data bases in higher education for the purposes of keeping a tab on the general health of the higher education system in the country.
The HECI should accord top priority to addressing the issue of faculty shortage and attracting talent to higher education. It should facilitate the development of area studies, languages, humanities, fine arts and sports as integral parts of higher education. It should design programmes for development of skilled human resources by giving vocational orientation to higher education. It should also sensitise the university system to enhance its obligation towards school education with a focus on improving the quality of teachers. It should design innovative financing mechanisms for better delivery.
The HECI should work towards a more coordinated and holistic approach towards inclusive and qualitative expansion of higher education. The three challenges of higher education—expansion, equity and excellence—should be addressed in an integrated manner to realise the actual aims of university education. Because a single-minded pursuit of expansion can turn into chasing often meaningless statistics, an exclusive focus on equity can compromise quality, and a dogged pursuit of quality can confine only to a few islands of excellence. These concerns will have to be addressed in an integrated perspective.
Access to higher educational opportunities continues to bear the stamp of multiple dimensions of inequalities that characterize our society based on gender, caste, religion, class, locality and disability. Social group-wise data from All India Survey on Higher Education, 2018-19, confirms that participation rates of the disadvantaged social groups is substantially low. Of the total enrolment in higher education, 36.3% belongs to Other Backward Classes (OBCs), 14.9% to Scheduled Castes (SCs), 5.5% to Scheduled Tribes (STs), 5.2% to Muslims and 2.3% to other minority communities. The complexity of the situation acquires more seriousness when a student suffers the stress of more than one disadvantage. In order to redress these identifiable inequalities, HECI will have to work out more serious measures than what are available in the existing system of higher education.
The HECI will have to develop concrete action plans to bridge the social and gender gaps that exist across the states and different domains of study. It will have to revamp all the scholarship schemes to accommodate emerging concerns and enhance the level of student support to meet out their post-admission requirements. In addition, it will have to promote teaching and learning and knowledge resources in Indian languages, besides focusing on the development of e-courseware in four quadrants and that too in the form of structured modules to ensure widespread access to quality instructional materials.
The challenge of keeping pace with the proposed expansion is not just about enhancing enrolments but also directing them in the right streams and sectors, consciously realising that they would come from hitherto marginalised sections of the society and the backward regions. Redressing multiple and graded inequalities is not just about increasing the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) amongst the disadvantaged groups, but also enhancing their presence in the centres of excellence. This will not be possible unless the system takes care of their post-admission needs and redesign courses to take into account their requirements and knowledge. The challenge of excellence is also not just about placing a few institutions and individuals at par with given international norms of quality, it has also to be viewed in terms of expanding the pool of institutions and scholars who can aspire and have the potential to achieve excellence.
The challenge of meeting the growth in enrolment is compounded by the fact that the existing capacity is distributed unevenly. The regional distribution of institutions is highly skewed across and within states. Enrolment in public institutions is concentrated in conventional disciplines, while private self-financing institutions are essentially catering to market-oriented courses. Given the need to push expansion at higher rate and to initiate special measures for enhancing the intake in backward regions and from amongst disadvantage social groups, there would be a need to plan for about two million additional students each year by the end 2030 to attain the goal of 50% GER as envisaged in the NEP.
The HECI should provide immediate attention to consolidation and better utilisation of existing infrastructure to make potential use of the residual capacity of existing institutions. This would require incentivisation of existing institutions to increase their student intake capacity. In addition, new institutions will have to be created at a large scale, and communities and the private sector will also have to be provided a significant role to meet the institutional deficit. It is vital that this expansion should be inclusive and in areas where institutional density is lower than the national average. Care will have to be taken to focus on select streams and programmes where the current capacity is particularly low instead of spreading additional capacity across the board. Efforts will have to be made to evolve suitable modules of collaboration where public resources can be synergised with private philanthropy. A key measure of inclusive expansion will require a significant increase in vocational education through new polytechnics, community colleges and within the existing institutions. Diffusion of boundaries of face to face, open and distance learning and online delivery will have to be made to provide better opportunities for access, equity and quality education for the youth.
There are a number of other crucial aspects especially about the deepening of excellence and the ability to deal with contemporary issues that may be attempted in the ensuing piece due to constraints of space.
The writer is former Chairman, UGC. The views expressed are personal.