Education is the most promising answer to many problems such as poverty, hunger, inequality and oppression for future generation of children. Education changes the level of an individual forever and makes the person economically independent. Moreover, education also determines the economic development of any nation. Hence, every classroom of a country determines the economic growth of its nation, which in turn determines the quality of education provided in the country. In order to achieve 9% growth rate per year, it is necessary to put in place the enabling factors, of which the quality of higher education is very important. On an average, India has spent 3-7% of its GDP annually on education since 1950. However, our students are far behind where they should be. Even though, education has received a good amount of attention, its quality continues to be a serious problem.
There is a strong relationship between good education and the attainment of work force. India has a large number of low-to – medium skilled workers than highly skilled workers. There are 350 million people across India who are now part of the adult work force and have a little or no education. This shows that education has only failed.
Regarding the university education in India, only 10% has the access to education beyond higher secondary education. As far as the higher education is concerned, a huge disparity exists with regard to gender, socio- economic status, geographical reasons, and religious groups.
South India stands first in offering higher education including technical education and education in English medium. Moreover, south India has the highest portion of higher education in the private sector at about 42%. The northeast has the lowest higher education in the private sector and they are almost entirely dependent on government run or aided institutions.
The gross enrolment in higher education is 12.7% in the age group of 18-23 years in India; and it is much lower than that of USA, Canada, China, Japan, and other developed countries. Out of this, 8-10% of the graduates get employment. Our system of education is such that it is devoid of practical work to meet the demands of the industries. Seven IIT’s and a few IIM’s are not enough to face the requirements of the entire country.
The number of universities in India in 1947 was 22, which has now risen to 620 while the number of colleges, which was 700 then, has now risen to 45000 with the number of students rising from 1.05 lakhs to 20 million. In spite of the remarkable progress during these years, the country could provide higher education only to 12.7% of the students in the eligible group of 18-23 years. In the age group 22-35 years, over 15% in the northern region and 13% in the southern region have access to higher education.
The cheapest place to study is the government institutions with an annual expenditure ranging from less than Rs 1000 to around Rs 1500 except in north and south India where the average is above Rs 2000. Private and private aided institutions are costlier than the government institutions. Due to the cost deferential, quality of education is poor; and the poor and the deprived often receive low quality education. Higher education has the potential to increase the productivity and economic value of the individual and at the national level.
There is lack of good colleges and job opportunities in central and northeast region due to which a lot of good students are deprived of quality education. Quality education can only bring about an increase in growth rate to 9% from 5% in 2012 – 2013. Employment generation is another factor that can increase the GDP to the desired amount. Unfortunately, our educational institutions fail to generate qualified candidates due to which there exists unemployment and underemployment in our country.
In some institutes, degrees are sold for money. Even Ph.D’s are awarded by accepting money. This depreciates the quality and value of research. Research culture is very much lacking in India. “We have only 119 researchers in research and development per million people, as compared to 715 in China and 468 in the US. Out of the total students strength of 71,000 in NITS, there are only 4000 Ph.D students. In IIT’s there are only around 3,000 Ph.D students in the total student strength of 60,000”.Mukerji. Two recent surveys conducted by reputed international organizations have brought out the difference in the standard of education between institution in India and abroad. None of the Indian universities find any place in the top 200 institutions in the world. Hence, it is imperative to inculcate research culture in students from the school level and interests towards science should be created among children. Students should be allowed to think freely and creativity should be developed in students. Students should be encouraged to explore things of their own. Mushrooming of universities and colleges should not be allowed to become money earning machines, rather they should provide higher education to every students and these institutions should not make any compromise on the quality of education. At present education is provided to merely 7.3% of the eligible population of the country.
Another factor that acts as a hindrance to the students to pursue higher education is heavy fee. Action should be taken on the colleges and universities that collect heavy fees and select unqualified teachers. Vacant posts in institutions should be filled based on merit to provide quality education. Vacant posts can be filled through recruitment by the State Public Service Commission. In foreign countries, professors are assessed on various parameters including student’s feedback, quality journals published etc. In India, after a certain number of years, one gets promoted to the next post. This affects the quality of research and development and other activities.
Some of the other problems in institutions are poor infrastructure, quality of the syllabus, inadequate and poor maintenance of libraries, laboratories etc. Affiliation should be given to institutions only if they have well equipped libraries, laboratories, and adequate infrastructural facilities. Regular revision of syllabus in State University is another important step that has to be taken in order to be up to date. Courses should be skilled based and proper communication skill should be developed in students. Courses should be market oriented in order to increase the employability. Currently the employability is less than 5% in regular courses. However, for the regular courses it is better than other courses.
The quality higher education depends on the quality of schooling. There exists a wide disparity between schools in the public and private on the one hand and average and below average on the other. There is difference in marking system also. This leads to variations in quality of students who pass out from the higher secondary schools. Hence the under graduate course are designed at the sub standard level to meet even the less capable students. The result is standard of higher education is mediocre. Most of the students who come from schools with poor background find it difficult to cope up with high standard syllabus. Hence, in order to accommodate even the less capable students, under graduate teaching starts at sub standard level. Moreover, teachers predict the pattern of questions in the examination for the students. Students mug up the answers, write the examinations, and get good marks with less knowledge about the subject. In this situation students fail in competitive examinations even though they have good marks in the university examinations. This leads to either under employment or unemployment in the country. Even if they get job, the quality of the work will be very poor.
“While material conditions of university teachers have considerably improved, quality and quantity of their inputs into teaching and research is a concern” Ansari. This is another major problem of higher education system in India. Teacher’s performance appraisal is either lacking or inadequate. Government has been continuously striving to improve the quality of higher education in the country through schemes and programmes. The National Accredition Regulatory Authority For Higher Education Institutions bill to ensure an independent quality assurance mechanism was introduced in parliament on may 2010. In spite of all these measures, higher education in India lack quality education to meet the challenges of the day.
Steps should be taken to see that the institutions are following quantitative expansion with qualitative improvement to ensure equity, which is the need of the hour. Teachers, scholars and intellectuals should come forward to dedicate their knowledge for the progress of the nation. Compared to other countries ours is trailing behind in progress rate for which steps should be taken to improve the quality from the grass root level in every front. If the quality of students, faculty and teaching, research and assessment standard are not implemented, the current generation may become a liability to the nation instead of the useful and responsible citizen of tomorrow.