Current policy requirements in general, including foreign universities bill, expect that education should continue to be a not-for-profit activity. Kapil Sibal had also clarified along these lines. On the other hand, corporate houses, education consulting firms and industry associations like FICCI and CII have been advocating for opening up education sector for for-profit channel.
The big question remains--is India ready for for-profit higher education? I believe yes it is, but with a cautiously optimistic note. The reasons are:
- India needs huge investments to achieve its goal of achieving GER of 30% by 2020. This could not be achieved by philanthropy or government investment alone. This means, private capital is required to expand the higher education sector.
- The menace of pseudo not-for-profit: The stipulations of not-for-profit character in higher education have resulted in many private institutions to fudge their accounting books to siphon off profits. Few others have created innovate structure where a for-profit education services arm provides auxiliary services to the not-for-profit college. Overall, this has created a unprofessional, unaccountable and corrupt system.
- Not-for-profit status does not implies quality: There are many "not-for-profit" institutions which provide poor quality of education. This is evident from the high rate of unemployability among students from these institutions.
However, we also need to be cautious on how for-profit players engage with higher education sector. For-profit does not ensures efficiency, as for-profit businesses fail too. The opportunity cost for a student enrolled in a failing institution or the one who is misled by the information provided by an institution, is very high. Even in the US, where nearly 1.3 million students are enrolled in more than 3,000 for-profit postsecondary institutions, the model is under government scrutiny. Recently, PBS ran an excellent, detailed story on the state of for-profit education in the US.
Overall, for-profit higher education in India is a necessity, which has to operate in a policy framework enabling innovation and expansion without the dilution of the quality of education or risk to students' interests.
What are your thoughts/comments?
Dr. Rahul Choudaha
6 comments:
I agree with the fundamental idea of "for-profit" education system experiment. We already have thousands of local "for-profit" institutes in India. Most of them are unable to provide good quality professional education. There is nothing wrong in trying a limited scale "for-profit" foreign university approach. Maybe allow 20 "for-profit" institutes to be set up in 10 different states, 2 per state (gives some competition), with a limit of 500 student per campus. This limited scale model can be tried to test the effectiveness and efficiency of the such a model. This also allows the local institutes to face some real competition and experience from well reputed "for-profit" foreign institutes.
nice posting thanks for sharing
see my article on for-profit format for higher education at http://nationalmanagementschool.blogspot.com/2010/11/for-profit-legal-structure-for-higher.html
comments are most welcome.
I celebrate eagerness and positive thinking, and it has crossed my mind several times to start a non-profit school in India (visiting the place has touched me deeply in different ways) however, it takes so much more than boarding chairs, staff, comittees, clients and executives .... I'm talking about volunteers. Unpaid volunteers. Lack of continuity of work. And schools supplies... E.S.I. wholesalers and exporters, professionals ...
Iphigeneia Mariou
bringing for profit institutions is a non sense thought ....if not for all then surely for the underprivileged....dr sanjay dabhade,pune.
Undoubtedly the current policy does not allow for profit education. But profit is made through fudging accounts! why not allow profit; just change the policy and instituionalise profit (not profiteering)with a robust regulatory mechanism? How long can we continue to fiddle with our higher education system with such a hypocracy
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