Thursday, October 03, 2013

Blog 4: India's Education, how can it be fixed?



India has a large amount of younger population, in reading the article, “Challenges and Solutions in Indian Higher Education”, we see that the population from 15 to 24 is approximately 234 million. Problems in India is with the steps they are taking in means of improvement in higher education. The article states that only one out of every seven children in India goes to college. India ranks very low in Universities not even mentioned in the top 200 universities and has a very low percentage for Gross Enrollment Ratios at about 13.8 percent in comparison to a global average of 26 percent. In order for India to reach 30 percent in the GER they would have to enroll 40 million students by the year of 2020, right now there are only 18.5 million enrolled.
 The big problem is there is not universities to house the students, India would need mass amounts of Universities, Technical schools and colleges in order to supply the target amount of students.  India has not seen the need for Universities/colleges until recently but this need will not be achieved under public government owned systems but only with the help of private sectors.  The issues with Universities and colleges in India is that they were created by those who did not have enough knowledge about education and were mainly business people these people did not know how to create an environment for education and with this they provided a service which attracted many students but left them with a unexceptional education. India has a great need for private universities but the legislation to create them is enabling meaning that many of the government bodies have differing mandates. There is not a State Private University act and the reason for this is because institutions are so tightly controlled, private universities have little room for improvement.
  The article then speaks of how there has been no reform in the education sector and how they have been trying to pass a bill for Foreign Education Providers that has been waiting for legislation for some time now. They are trying to set up campuses in India that are in the top 400 Universities and in September they tried to do this while operating independently without local partners but this did not pass through Parliament.  The Foreign Education Providers Bill was made to control and regulate foreign universities, and it would not be able to take profits out of the country and this would need permission from the University Grant Commission.  The bill was transposed in order to welcome foreign universities in. But even with the newly composed bill the fine print drove many away. The concept of a multitude of western universities lining up to take advantage of India’s $10 billion education market is skewed, as universities are not corporations and do not increase profits by expanding across the globe. Western universities have their own financial problems that have a higher priority.  
                First of all, I’d like to say that India has created many problems in their community with Education. From other classes I have learned that India doesn’t have a high literacy rates for girls or boys and this leads me to believe even the public owned schools for children don’t have high standards of education or enrollment is low. We see that enrollment in higher education is not very high in India and this is a problem. Also that the universities/colleges they do have don’t provide a “good education” and they don’t have room for the amount of students that need to be educated. There are many universities in the U.S. who want to help with private education but won’t because of the bill that does not allow foreign universities from taking profits out of India. This creates many issues because India is trapped until they can build and provide universities under private owned government.  The problem is there isn’t legislation that is allowing them to be created.  Some states within India have State Private University act, because the government in that area in being cooperative unlike in other areas where they try to control and regulate and where they don’t have the SPU act.  What does this mean for India’s future? It may mean that many of their youth won’t receive the needed education to come out of poverty which in India is very high.  Also, it’s not helping the country develop and become more educated because there isn’t enough enrollment in college.  Allowing foreign universities in would help better their education because there would be more qualified teachers and they would be able to draw in more students.

http://thediplomat.com/the-pulse/2013/10/02/challenges-and-solutions-in-indian-higher-education/
Name: Sarah Vestrat
Date: 10/3/2013
Time: 4:50 PM

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