Tell us about the scale of the challenge India faces when it comes to higher education.
Pramath Ranjan Sinha:
Let me give you some figures to set the context. The total population between the ages of 15 and 24 in India is 234 million. If India is to meet its 30 percent GER target by 2020, about 40 million students would be enrolled in the higher education system in 2020. Currently, around 18.5 million students are enrolled in the higher education sector. The problem is that as increasing numbers come out of the high school system, we just don’t have the capacity to absorb them into the college system. There is a massive mismatch in the supply-demand, of proportions that have never been seen anywhere or anytime in the world before.
For instance, to reach the target of the 30 percent GER, let alone aspire to developed nation standards, we need to create an additional capacity of about 25 million seats over the next decade. This requires an additional 10,510 technical institutions, 15,530 colleges and 521 universities! That’s the root cause of the problem – but, why did the problem happen?
The problem happened because for a long time we were happy with the public, government-owned system. Unfortunately, until a few years ago, India was in denial of the situation. While there was a government push to ramp up access in primary and secondary schooling, when it came to higher education, we were too focussed on the few good institutions we have, such as the IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) and the IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management) (none of which are in the QS Top 200, though).
It’s a step forward that at least now we recognise the scale of the challenge. But, there is no way such magnitude of scale can be achieved by the government. It will need the private sector’s active participation.
Educate, Empower, Elevate
Prof. Bholanath Dutta
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