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| Saturday, Sep 02, 2006
Increase budgetary spend on higher education: UGC chairman
"This is necessary if the nation is to keep pace with global targets"
- Only 12 to 13 per cent of youth in the age group of 18 to 23 years have access to higher education
- Disparities still exist in providing equal opportunities for the socially disadvantaged
Chennai:An increased share of the gross domestic product should be made available in the Eleventh Five
Year Plan to develop infrastructure for higher education if the country is to keep pace with global targets in education, University Grants Commission Chairman Sukhadeo Thorat said here on Friday.
Only 12 to 13 percent of Indian youth in the age group of 18 to 23 years could access higher education
while the world average was 23 percent, he said while delivering the Fourth ONGC Endowment Lecture on `Higher Education in India: Emerging issues related to access, inclusiveness and quality' organised by the University of Madras. At present, only around four percent of the GDP was being spent on higher education.
Higher education in the country was governed by five basic principles — enhanced access, equal opportunities, relevance,
quality and social consciousness. Though there was a substantial increase in the number of universities in the country from 20 in 1947 to 343 in 2005 and a proportionate increase in the number of colleges from 500 in 1947 to 17,625 at present, the gross enrolment ratio of eligible youth was only 12 to 13 percent.
Disparities still existed in providing equal opportunities for the socially disadvantaged such as the SC/STs, rural poor,
women and religious minorities, Mr. Thorat said. Despite the UGC setting parameters to assess and measure the quality of higher
education — the 2(f) status for granting temporary affiliation to institutions and the 12(b) status for securing permanent affiliation — only 6,000 of the 14,000 colleges that came under the Commission's jurisdiction had made the mark under each category. Even among the 6,000, only 2,700 had secured accreditation from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council.
Also, a distinction needed to be made between quality and excellence. Of the 280 universities in the country under
the Commission's purview, only nine qualified for the `University with the potential for excellence' concept developed by the UGC. Out of the 6,000 colleges recognised by the Commission, only 100 made the `excellence' mark.
A fresh look was needed at policy making for making education more inclusive and higher education institutions that had been left
out of the quality assessment loop must be brought into it. The UGC had undertaken a study of quality assessment in 14,000 colleges
and would provide inputs for policy framing based on that, Mr. Thorat further said.
The ONGC was committed to promoting education, health care and entrepreneurship among the community, C.S. Jain, its Executive Director,
ONGC, Chennai, said. It was the first corporate to implement the Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) scheme in Tripura
and had also selected a rural centre near Mannargudi in Tamil Nadu for the scheme.
The UGC helped co-ordinate a Rs.125 crore grant from the Centre during the university's 150th year celebrations,
Madras University Vice-Chancellor. S.P. Thyagarajan said.
Courtesy: The Hindu
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