Page 51 - EducationWorld January 2023

the Delhi-based Jamboree Education trywide — issued a guideline permit-
Pvt. Ltd (estb.1993), one of the coun- ting well-reputed, high-performing
try’s largest test prep companies for colleges granted academic autonomy
foreign universities, identifies too-few (by UGC) to introduce new employ-
globally comparable domestic HEIs, ment-oriented study programmes
for which admission competition is with substantial freedom to prescribe
too intense and conducive conditions syllabuses, design curriculums, recruit
in the academy and liberalisation of faculty and levy market-determined
post-graduation work rules in West- tuition fees.
ern countries as the prime attractions This liberalisation firman of UGC
of study abroad. An alumnus of IIT- is a divinely inspired initiative which
Delhi, Gupta is highly knowledgeable has the potential to transform over
about the higher education scenario 1,000 autonomous colleges affiliated
in India and abroad. Jamboree Edu- with state government universities,
cation trains 20,000 students per says Balkishan Sharma, a Mumbai-
year for admission into universities based visionary education consultant
abroad. who has pioneered introduction of
“ WITHIN INDIA’S FAST- Sharma: divinely inspired initiative degree programmes in a rising num-
contemporary, employment-oriented
expanding middle class,
ber of autonomous undergraduate col-
high-quality education is
tion entrepreneurs (edupreneurs) and
“For several decades, undergrad
a common aspiration. And of intelligent lawyers, private educa- leges countrywide.
the plain truth is that acceptable state governments discovered that ed- colleges affiliated with state universi-
quality education is a big issue with ucation is a ‘concurrent’ subject under ties have been offering generalist arts,
India’s HEIs and universities. Only a the Constitution, i.e, the Central and science, commerce and engineering
few dozen offer globally benchmarked state governments can enact educa- programmes, which, although they
education for 160 million children and tion legislation. With states confront- provide students basic knowledge of
youth in the 10-19 age group. Against ed with a ballooning problem of youth literature, the humanities, science and
this backdrop, the emergence of a unemployment, beginning to compete engineering, don’t ready them for em-
substantial number of private uni- furiously to attract investment in in- ployment. After UGC issued the new
versities has prevented a crisis in In- dustry and business, especially in the liberalisation guidelines to autono-
dian higher education. The best new new age ICT (information commu- mous colleges five years ago, several
millennium private universities offer nication technologies) sector, ready autonomous colleges have introduced
globally comparable faculty, study availability of well-educated human well-designed degree programmes
programmes and infrastructure, and resources has become a necessary such as BBA (bachelor of business ad-
have completely transformed India’s precondition. ministration) which offer marketing,
higher education landscape. We need With poorly educated graduates of sports and events management and
at least 200 more of them,” says Gup- colleges affiliated with over 460 state entrepreneurship as majors. In the
ta, an early co-promoter of the highly government universities increasingly science stream, they offer integrative
ranked liberal arts Ashoka University, being rejected by industry, in 2017, nutrition and dietetics and in engi-
Sonipat (estb.2014) and science and under pressure from state govern- neering, majors in AI (artificial intelli-
technology focused Plaksha Univer- ments the Delhi-based UGC (Uni- gence) and data science. These degree
sity, Mohali (2021). versity Grants Commission) — the programmes designed by experienced
Even if somewhat belatedly, ac- apex administrative body supervising academics working in close collabo-
celerating winds of change are blow- non-technical higher education coun- ration with industry leaders, prepare
ing over post-independence India’s employment-ready graduates who are
higher education sector ruined by Decades of under- quickly snapped up by industry. Now
continuous control-and-command with the new National Education Poli-
exercised by the omniscient neta-babu investment and over- cy (NEP) 2020 committed to granting
brotherhood comprising ill-educated subsidisation has diluted autonomy to all undergrad colleges in
politicians and IAS generalists who a phased manner, they will be able to
insist on supervising and monitoring the quality of education introduce jobs-oriented study pro-
even highest qualified academics and in the country’s once grammes and compete with private
educationists. Fortuitously in the new hallowed universities universities. This is a very welcome
millennium, a latter-day triumvirate development,” says Sharma, a highly

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