The Rediff Interview/Yoginder Alagh
'Subsidies for higher education should go only to deserving
poor students'
Before he migrated to the world of governance and politics, Minister of State for Power Professor Yoginder K Alagh oscillated between academics -- he was vice-chancellor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University among other things -- and the Planning Commission where he served a distinguished tenure.
Before he moved to the power ministry in last month's ministerial reshuffle, Professor Alagh was in charge of the ministry of planning and programme implementation. Vinod Behl spoke to Professor Alagh recently about the major initiatives planned for education in the 9th Plan. A particularly relevant conversation in the wake of Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram's recent threat to cut subsidies to higher education.
What is the focus on education in the 9th Plan, particularly
with regard to primary education?
Primary education is a target in the basic minimum services
programme of the 9th Plan. Most states
have focused on primary education in the first three years.
Last year, the additional money allocated was based on a formula
which gave greater weightage to poor states. But the prime minister
has directed that the money should now be given with the gap filling
formula. This formula is being worked out. So, there is much greater
resources being made available.
There are two other emphases. One is that special conditions in
some parts of the country have to be kept into account. There
are social obstacles in some of those districts where female literacy
is very low. That is why you have the Kasturba Gandhi Scheme this
year. There are special problems of a geographical nature in the
deserts and hills which have to be taken care of. Also, there is
a mention of the fact that problems of the North-East have to
be taken up separately.
Finally, there is this whole new concept of technology as an aid,
both for the training of teachers as well as effective teaching
material. The department of education has produced a training
programme which uses satellite and computers and even
mobile mechanisms
for training hundreds of thousands of primary school teachers in modern
methods in a low cost way.
Now we have a facility of direct to
home TV to be used for direct access to training centre from the
satellite. Insat 2D has enough transponder capability to be able
to meet the need. There is a plan to spend as much as Rs 1 billion per year.
What about the proposed increase of Rs 760 billion or 6% of GDP
by 2000 for education in the 9th Plan? How do you propose to
spend the money?
For primary education, as I said, the method of
spending will be based on basic minimum services. Shared setting
of targets directly at the local level, introducing technology
as a special component of plan, taking care of regional variations
and then joint monitoring of the project.
About higher education -- there is still ambiguity in the approach
paper which needs to be worked out. Then, there are special areas
like science education. In some areas there are good initiatives.
For example, we have introduced a scheme for scientific research.
Under the scheme, if a group of scientists want to do state-of-the-art
research costing millions, it could be funded through a special
corpus agreed to by the finance ministry.
But at the undergraduate level, we need a special effort
and we are looking up to the University Grants Commission to give
us some clues as to what needs to be done with regard to strategy. For example, at Pune
University, a group of scientists -- including the very distinguished
vice-chancellor, Professor Gowarikar -- have come out with a very interesting
integrated undergraduate science programme. They have involved
some local business groups and scientists of the Tata Institute of
Fundamental Research.
As per the new approach, the child will have to do some basics,
but then he'd do some integrated learning which is problem-oriented.
He'll learn modern material, biotechnology or computers etc, but
in relationship to problem solving. The child will have a lot
of choices.
In electronics, a lot of interesting planning is
being done. The department of electronics is talking of setting
up globally competitive training facilities in software, hardware
and communications areas. It is building existing institutions
-- whether it is the Institute of Computing Technologies or C-DoT -- using
the concept of virtual learning, using the concept of networking,
a far more aggressive programme of introducing computers in schools.
We are also talking about hardware compatibility in regional languages.
This is extremely important to meet the big demand for scientific
literature in regional languages. Even Bill Gates said the same
thing and even gave us a million dollars. I think we are on the
right track. But my concern is still for higher education
where the restructuring principle needs to be spelt in greater
detail. There has been some talk of a Private Universities Bill
but we have not worked out the kind of pattern we need. And without
that, putting in money becomes very difficult.
What about the proposal that academic standards should be uniform
all over the country?
We really do not want uniformity. What you really want is that
people should be able to experiment with some alternatives. Some
of the best universities will be able to raise money to keep high
academic standards. Like in JNU when I was the vice-chancellor,
we were getting about Rs 60 million by way of projects every year.
So, here comes the concept of linking research with funding agencies.
My real worry is about regional colleges and smaller universities
which may not get the required funding. In such colleges and universities,
if some initiatives are taken for modern education, we must evolve
a uniform policy or mechanism to provide funding to them.
There is a widespread fear that in the coming year, higher
education will become much more costlier and beyond the reach
of a large segment of society.
All over the world, higher education is supported by the State.
Even in America, where the fees are highest, these form less than
30 per cent of the total revenue of the university. In Europe,
the percentage is 10 to 12 per cent. So this notion that education has to
be self-financed is an absurd notion. All societies tend to support
higher education. But well-off people should be paying for education
as a service. Subsidies for higher education should go only
to deserving poor students.
One of the disturbing aspects of the 9th Plan with regard to primary
education has been a low enrolment rate and a high drop out
rate. Even the mid-day meal scheme introduced to reverse this
trend has been dropped by some states.
The mid-day meal scheme has been integrated with a revised public
distribution system on which a lot more emphasis is being put
this year. But in addition to this there is emphasis on training
and technology, use of modern methods including computers, distant
education and looking into the special needs of areas where there
is the problem of educating the girl child.
These are the kind of
special focuses which are being talked about in the 9th Plan for which additional funds have
been provided.
Is the new focus on primary education a part and parcel of
National Literacy Mission? Against a target of making
100 million people literate by 1997, the NLM has been able to make
only about 56 million people literate. What is being done to
meet the NLM's targets?
The initiatives in the Plan are integrated with the NLM. Now
there is a recognition that both formal and non-formal methods
should be used. Because if you take the drop out rate into account it is not
necessarily correct that the formal methods are expensive.
That is one of the lessons of the evaluation of the literacy programme.
The other thing is larger funding and special attention
to local problems.
During the 8th Plan, a major area of worry have been rising
unemployment. What is being done to tackle this problem, particularly
with regard to boosting vocational education to promote self-employment?
The unemployment rate has indeed gone up. The 1993-94 National
Sample Survey results show that the problem is aggravating faster
in rural areas compared to urban areas. The real answer to that
is far more widespread agricultural growth because without that
rural development can't be achieved. This in turn will take care
of widespread unemployment.
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