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With a host of universities and an army of colleges, India has one of the strongest
education bases in the world. But with only one in every 10 arts graduates considered
employable, undergraduate education remains a tough challenge. For the multitude of
students queuing up for We, as a nation, are never quite short of numbers. Talk population or colleges, we have a glut of both. The trouble arises only when we are required to translate that quantitative edge into quality. It’s then that the challenge of output generation starts to baffle us, especially so when that challenge concerns our ever-expanding higher education sector. Picture this — from 20 universities and 500 colleges at the time of Independence, India has grown into one of the world’s largest higher education bases, housing more than 500 universities and 25,000 colleges today. The XIth Plan, which ends next year, committed record resources to the sector — nine times more than ever before. Of these, 38 per cent were dedicated to technical education alone.
But where are we in terms of our balance sheet, which is every investor’s concern. Globally, we are nowhere in the reckoning as a higher education destination, with only our seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), offering primarily undergraduate degrees (along with postgraduate and doctoral) in engineering, finding a place among the top 300. Even the best Indian institute — IIT, Bombay is ranked 187th in the Global QS Rankings 2010. IIT Delhi follows closely at 202, while the rest of the five IITs just about secure their berth in the top 300 global institutions’ list which the US’ Harvard and MIT lead as usual. As far as the universities go, none figured among the top 200. Some face saving is done by the University of Delhi which, despite its tremendous affiliation burden (it affiliates 72 colleges offering UG and PG courses) attained 371st position in the world rankings last year. So what makes DU and its affiliates special? Former Vice-Chancellor of the University Deepak Paintal, offers an answer: "It is what they bring to the table in terms of the courses being taught; their research facility and output and infrastructure; the flexibility of their course structures and the level of challenge the teachers throw at students —meaning, are they tasking them enough with assignments, are they assessing them comprehensively and whether the institution’s examinations are rote-based or creative." The IITs, according
to Paintal, are the only Indian institutes that meet global standards.
Come to think of it, India has 88 centrally-funded science and
technical institutions (among them 15 IITs, 20 National Institutes of
Technology, 10 Indian Institutes of Information Technology, 5 Indian
Institutes of Science Education and Research) for students passing
Plus II. And though the past five years have seen a surge in the
number of All India Council for Technical Education-approved colleges
(from 4,320 in 2005 to 7,361 in 2010 with the student intake
correspondingly rising from 6.77 lakh to 14.08 lakh), the quest for
quality continues to be led by the IITs and the NITs, thanks to their
fine The rest of the technical colleges are grappling with quality issues — something revealed quite starkly by a recent NASSCOM-Mc Kinsey Survey which said only one of every four engineering students in India and one in every 10 humanities students was employable. Prof B.B. Bhattacharya, former Vice-Chancellor of the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi is not surprised. As member of the Government-appointed committee on college education reforms, he and his fellow VCs advised the HRD Ministry to change the entire undergraduate course structure and transform it into a field of serious study by making it a four-year programme allowing students’ dual honours degrees in two subjects of their choice. "It’s time we focus on undergraduate study as an area of specialisation. The US does just that with its four-year specialised UG teaching module which is employable in itself. We still follow the liberal arts education pattern the British prescribed, the one that stressed character building over finesse. Not every student needs to do a post-graduation, which should be left to those interested in research. The others, who want jobs after college, can take up the four-year UG programme which allows them the freedom to opt for subjects the way MIT and Harvard in the US allow. They allow tremendous freedom to mix-and-match subjects, for example, students can study medicine and engineering together," he says, rejecting the three-year UG + two-year PG model as unfruitful; he adds it is too rigid to deliver in the changing times. That’s not to say that colleges have not experimented for the better. In fact, most of DU’s global reputation rests on the excellence of its finest institutions like St Stephen’s, LSR, Jesus and Mary, Indraprastha for Women, Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Janaki Devi Memorial, Kamla Nehru, Guru Nanak Dev and Hindu College (better known for the arts). Among the science colleges of DU, India’s best ranked varsity, are Acharya Narayan Dev College, Miranda House, Lady Irwin and DDU College. But it is the University’s economic and commerce graduates who draw the greatest industry attention. Here, Sri Ram College for Commerce (SRCC), LSR, Hans Raj and Shaheed Bhagat Singh, set the tone with their PhD faculties and relevant syllabi. It was an SRCC graduate who bagged the highest package in Delhi in 2011 when Deutsche Bank offered him Rs 39 lakh a year for a London posting. "It is discipline and extra-curricular edge that makes a college and its student special. While bulk colleges are happy being teaching colleges, a few like SRCC, Stephen’s and LSR go beyond and allow the student to flourish both academically and otherwise," says Prof Subroto Mukherjee of DU. For the vast number of
students in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal and J&K, choices offered by
a number of government and private universities, are further
compounded by several universities going in for foreign collaboration.
Fresh courses are added, expanding the horizon for the students. Also,
course combinations, never before available , are made possible to
pursue a path of excellence.
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