Income Sharing Agreement and Higher Education System of India.
Is Income Sharing Agreement a Capsule to Rescue Higher
Education of India?
Shashank Vikram Pratap Singh
Ph.D. Scholar
Department of Commerce
Delhi School of Economics
University of Delhi
Etymologically speaking the word ‘education’ is derived from the
Latin word ‘educere’ meaning ‘to raise’ and ‘to bring up’. Two influential Sanskrit word-
Shiksha and Vidya are considered equivalent to term education. The
importance and power of Vidya has epenthetically talked and imbibed in Indian civilization
much before the intellectual dawn in rest of the world. Epochal and sanctified
writing of Vedas & Upanishads is the classical
example of our advancement and superiority in the nitty-gritty of Shiksha and
Vidya. In the Rigveda &Upanishad the term has been seen with the
perspective of salvation -“Education is that whose end product is
salvation.” Meaning hereby, education is means for ultimate end of life,
that is- to be happy. Here is what written in Indian Epics- Vidya
Dadatee Vinayam, Vinayaadh Yaatee Patrataam. Patratwata dhamanpraptnoti danat
dharmam tatah Sukham; that
means, knowledge gives discipline, from discipline comes worthiness, from
worthiness one gets wealth, from wealth one does good deeds, from that comes
joy. It is equally applicable for the sustainable progress of a nation which is
quite evident from the countries having high quality of human capital. USA has
only 330 million population but crowned to have, eight out of top ten universities,
the largest Nobel laureates (385), eight out of top ten companies in terms of
market capitalization (excluding Aramco), the largest economy ($20 trillion) and one of
the most innovative nation (just behind Switzerland and Sweden) in the world. A
nation having decent demographic dividend but lacks in required skill among
people, prove to be disastrous. Our Sanskrit text beautifully explain this
problem as- Yesham Na Vidya Na Tapo Na Danam, gyanam Na Sheelam Na Guno Na
Dharmahh; Te Martyaloke Bhuvi Bhaarbhootaa, Manushya rupena Mrugaascharant-
means a person without Vidya is a burden on the earth and just like animals in
the form of human being. India having the largest young and quality Vidya Veeheen
population posing big challenges for
excellent sustainable progress, if not addressed seriously.
The rich tradition of education in India is as old as
the human civilization. Gurukulas and Guru-Shishya Parampara developed way back
some thousands of years ago. Imparting Vedic education within the system of
Gurukulas made India once Vishwa Guru. But Macaulay’ controversial writings and
approaches wiped out the traditional and ancient teaching and learning process
and we have reached at a point where it has become like an event management. From
primary to higher education system is going in very painful and troubling
situation. Despite being the third largest education system in the world, most
of its outcome is worse than world average. According to HRD Ministry Report 2019;
there are 933 universities, 39931 colleges and 10725 standalone institutions in
India. Out of these Universities there are 548 General, 142 Technical, 63
Agriculture & Allied, 58 Medical, 23 Law, 13 Sanskrit, 9 language and rest
106 universities are of other categories. Interestingly 60.53 percent colleges
are located in rural area. Only 2.5 percent colleges run Ph.D. program and 34.9
percent colleges run post-graduation level program. The outcome of these
fascinating number is- GER in higher education is 26.3 percent which is slightly
lower than the world average of 27 percent and around 55 percent less than US
(85%) and 20 percent less than China. More than 70 percent of India’s young population
between the age of 18-23 years old, have not yet enrolled for higher education.This is an outcome of India’s effort
being made since last more than seventy years. The political dividend from this
sector is not short term, that’s the reason why political parties in democratically
governed nation less enthusiastic to make investment in this sector. Total
government expenditure on education sector from 1950 to till now have increased
from 0.64 percent of GDP to 4.6 percent, (2019-20) and at the same time size of economy
has increased from around $35 billion to $2726 billion.
Indianization, especially in education sector is no more remained in India
and westernized wind of globalization have dominated the teaching learning
process. But the irony is, we have not changed our selves the way it should be
with respect to the rest of the world. As s result there is huge imbalance between inclusion and
excellency caused to mammoth mismatch between demand and supply of skillful labour
forces. HRD Ministry Report 2019, reveal that 23.3 lakh degree awarded to B.A.
student followed by B.Sc.(11.6 lakh) and B.com (9.6 lakh) and 40,813 to Ph.D.
students in the year 2018. Large number of populations getting education still
not get equipped enough to be observed productively in the workforce. In the
era of technology driven globalization majority of Indian universities are
not imparting the requisite skill among the students. According to India Skills
Report 2018 (Wheebox) only 4.7 percent of India’s workforce is formally trained
compared with Germany’s 75 percent and Korea’s 96 percent. In the latest Human
Capital Index, India ranked 115th position and its index score is
even below than the average score of South Asia. The world ranking of our
universities are most factual argument to depict the miserable condition of our
higher education system. In the latest QS university ranking[1] only
three institution made in top 200 (IIT-B,
152 rank, IIT-D 182 IISc 184) and only seven
universities have been ranked in the top 400 universities, out of these, six
are Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). The quality of education in
traditional based university is biggest concern these days. Many universities
and colleges have very disturbing student/faculty ratio. Even if the ratio is
considerably good, somewhere the quality of delivery in the class room is
highly questionable and unsatisfactory. It’s not only because some of the
teachers are not competent enough and entered into the system because of good
bonhomie, system too have made them to do so. Here maximum current generation
teachers are so called accidental teacher. They start their higher study
by seeing the dream of cracking UPSC or some other government job and thus
complete their graduation and post-graduation and in fact Ph.D. just to pursue their
dream (not for becoming a teacher or academician). Once they fail to get their
dream, they think to crack NET and then enter into teaching line. If the
academics become an optional and secondary choice for the young brilliant minds
then the quality of delivery has to be compromised. Here is what TRS Subramanian
wrote in the draft report of NEP- “Quality of many universities and college and
the standard of education they provide are far from satisfactory.” Problem of
academic leadership at the top level is also non avoidable with reference to quality of
education. Vice-Chancellor provide the academic leadership and administrative
skill for successful progression of any university. What if the leadership is
not competent enough? Here is what Madras High Court stated; “the heads of
universities and the most visible symbols of the university system are these
days appointed not because they are distinguished academicians, but because
they have the right political connections in the Ministry of Human Resources
Development in the case of central universities, or appropriate political or
caste affiliation in the concern state- in many cases they pay huge amount of
money.”
The common issues exist in the university system is
the lack of accountability across India. Although free flow working environment
in higher education system is also equally important but not at the cost of
quality and performance. There is lack of strict performance-based appraisal
system. Although monitoring and governing such system itself is tedious task.
Self-interlocking system seems to be more suitable in such kind of system. Thus,
the current scenario reminds me the Nobel prize winning economic professor,
Milton Friedman’s 1955 essay the role of
government in education where he
argued for equity investment in an individual’s future earning prospect. It is
called Income Sharing Agreement (ISA). It’s basically an education
financing mode for needy and competent students. It is a substitute of
education loan-based financing system. So, there are three parties involved in
it; students, educational institution and financing institution. If a student wants
to enroll in demanding and valuable skill imparting course in an institution
and find himself/herself unable to pay
the required sum of money/fee (usually students do not have collateral) then institution step in and act as a bridge
between student and lender and arrange fund for the same. Institution does so
only at the condition that after getting job and prespecified salary student has
to share a portion of monthly income with institution to pay back the loan. It’s
important to note here is that ISA operationalized if and only if student earn
a prespecified amount or more after completion of course. If student earn less
than prespecified amount then he does not pay anything back. Same as the case
with not finding a job. So, in one way the
new innovative ways of financing reduce the burden of students which used to
happen in case of education loan and at the same time will solve the problem of
social economic skewness in higher education. Apart from that, it is an
outcome-based teaching learning process.
At the end, institution have to impart
the necessary skill and up to the need of market to ensure students placements
otherwise their funding get loosed without a single rupee return. So, this is a
self-interlocking system which seems quite interesting and need of hour
specially in country like India.
Some of Startups like AttainU, InterviewBit, Pesto
Tech, AltCampus are offering ISA model in India. Lambda School successfully
implemented in US and now planning to set its second largest setup in India.
This model is basically criticized on the ground of indentured servitude. But
under this model students have no legal obligation to work in a particular
industry and its illegal for lender to force students to choose certain
career.
[1] QS ranking is
based on academic reputation (40%) (based on teaching and research and teaching
and research depends on quality of faculty and students), employer reputation
(10%), faculty student ratio (20%), citation per faculty (20%), and
international faculty/international student (10%).
Comments
Post a Comment