‘We have provided a common platform for exchange of ideas’
says Sushma Berlia, President, EPSI
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You are a prominent name in the education sector. And now you are a founding member of EPSI. What do you feel about EPSI?

Emergence of new world economic order has brought in a complete transformation in the entire economic and social scenario around us. However, there has hardly been any change in the education sector in India. Also, the gap between demand and access to quality education and supply and availability of the same is ever rising in the absence of a clear-cut, comprehensive policy framework for the education sector.

It is wonderful that like-minded people have got together to form Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI) as a catalyst platform for all the stakeholders, academia, both public and private, industry and the government. The objective is to encourage a constructive and pro-active exchange of ideas and promote accelerated growth of education in India.

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What are your views about education in general?

We are at a very critical stage in the education sector. The last comprehensive policy on education came in 1986. That was formulated to address the issues and concerns of a pre-liberalisation period. Times have drastically changed since then. However, as I said earlier, there has hardly been any change in the education sector over such a long period. Here, I would like to clarify that I am not saying that education institutions, both existing as well as those that have come up more recently, have not done anything worthwhile. What I mean is that the education system that is in place is not relevant to the current requirements.

According to UNDP, prerequisites for any developing country to grow economically include 15 per cent of natural resources, 20 per cent infrastructure and 65 per cent human resources. That sustainable economic development with equitable justice requires access to good quality education for human resource development.

Not only this, social development of any country presupposes that education should provide trained, qualified manpower even in the health sector. Education thus is a basic ingredient for having healthy and skilled manpower for industrial development.

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How do you foresee the future of education?

I believe that the government is aware and concerned about the requirements of the education sector. But, it is constrained by the financial resources for developing a viable and implementable policy framework for such a huge population. In our country, there has been a huge debate over whether education is a public or private good. I truly feel that this debate got over long back. I don’t know why we are still stuck in it. We are a country of one billion plus people. Surely, the proportion of resources that need to be devoted to education is mind-blowing. It is difficult for the government to fulfill the needs and aspirations of all those who desire access to quality education.

Assume that the government has to provide education for all. The current budget envisages Rs 18,000 crore, out of which Rs 12,000 crore is for the primary and secondary sector. It is pittance given the mammoth demand for education. Moreover, substantial portion of this outlay goes in meeting salary and wages, leaving very little for the sector, leave alone any desired improvement.

For children between 6-14 years, for whom education is a fundamental right, the government needs to spend about Rs 85,000 crore. We are not talking about the higher studies here. The government expects States to share 50 per cent of this expense. States on the other hand have expressed their inability to do so. So, what is a plausible solution out of this morass.

There are four basic requirements of a good education system – Access, Equity, Quality and Relevance. These are interwoven and needs to be incorporated together. It becomes the fundamental duty of the government to have enabling provisions to provide access to all those who desire to be educated. If the government is not able to do so, it should allow the private sector to come in and provide a system where all these basics are met. Private sector is already there, but what it needs is the recognition of its role and a uniform and consistent policy framework that allows it to play its role in a proper manner.

In contrast, the present system has given rise to anarchy. Though, with liberalisation and introduction of economic reforms, licence and permit raj has been abolished for the industrial sector, it is very much in place in the education sector. Multiplicity of agencies and quota systems are adversely affecting the quality and availability of education.

Further, the accreditation system is to ensure certain basic quality in the education imparted. There are only two agencies, UGC and AICTE to do the job. Despite the lacunae, these two agencies are not able to deal with the accreditation requirements. There are reportedly 300 universities and 15,000-18,000 colleges that need constant monitoring for accreditation. It is not feasible for these two agencies to do justice. Moreover, you can’t have an accreditation agency which is also an arm of the regulator.

Then there are questions of fee determination structure. I feel we should get out of the fee determination structure if we want to create world class educational institutions. Mushrooming of coaching centres is both undesirable and expensive than the proper education institutions. Also, students go abroad because they do not find good quality and value for money institutes in India. All this can change and we don’t have to reinvent the system. What we can do is to suitably modify and adopt the systems prevalent in some developed countries. We should adopt a system which is easy to administer. One such system is Higher Education System of Australia.

Another important dimension of a viable education system is relevance to the present time and requirement of a growing economy. Industry is crying for trained skilled manpower, whereas number of unemployed is increasing as the present system is not suitable and relevant to the needs of the developing industry sector.
There should be a partnership between research, academia and the industry sector. If the economy grows at 8 per cent or more, trained and skilled manpower may become a constraint. Industry is concerned about it. There are a number of small agencies, government, research and industry which have been thinking on these lines. Unfortunately, earlier there was no common platform for meaningful exchange of ideas. With EPSI, a major step forward has been taken in this direction.

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How do you feel EPSI will change the face of education in India?

EPSI has been conceived as an agency which is an interactive board for all the stakeholders and not only for people from the education sector. As we believe that education encompasses the whole society, we have provided for a common platform for exchange of ideas between all those who are concerned with the state of education in the country and want to do something for the sector.

EPSI’s USP lies in not looking at the education in isolation. EPSI today is uniquely placed to bring all these people together and facilitate meaningful exchange of views and present viable and feasible action-plan to the policy makers and thus facilitate desirable policy change.