Page 50 - March EW PDF 24

Cover Story

No. of new higher education institutions

IITs IIMs Universities Colleges AIIMS

23 22
20 1168 45,473
16
13 723 7
36,634

2014 2021 2014 2021 2013-14 2021-22 2013-14 2021-22 2013-14 2023-24

Source: www.narendramodi.in & All India Survey on Higher Education 2021-22

for increasing female enrolment in spite being announced in consecutive a mere 4.69 percent of the total work-
higher education by 25 percent in the Union budget speeches from 2019 to force in India is formally skilled (cf. 24
past decade. Overall, since 2014, the 2021. Ditto the HECI Bill is yet to be percent in China, 75 percent in Ger-
number of students enrolled in HEIs tabled in Parliament. many and 96 percent in South Korea).
has risen from 34.5 million to 43 mil- Therefore, the efforts and schemes of
lion in 2024, she said. SKILLS EDUCATION the Skill India Mission need to be qua-
Higher education downsides. drupled in mission mode.
NEP 2020 mandates an alphabet soup CCORDING TO PM Modi,
of new regulators. It decrees establish- A “India has the potential
ment of a Higher Education Commis- to become one of the larg- Dipstick survey
sion of India (HECI) as “an umbrella est providers of skilled
institution” with four verticals — Na- workforce in the world” and his gov- EW conducted a dipstick survey
tional Higher Education Regulatory ernment has taken multiple initiatives among selected K-12 and higher edu-
Council, National Accreditation Coun- to bridge the skills deficit in India. cation leaders asking them to rate the
cil, Higher Education Grants Council Modi government’s skills edu- record of the BJP government during
and General Education Council. It cation initiatives (2014-24). In the past decade in critical educa-
also recommends selection of indi- 2015, the government launched the tion sectors and issues on a 10-point
viduals of “unimpeachable integrity” Skill India Mission to focus on skill- scale. Their feedback:
to regulate education in a “light but ing, re-skilling, and up-skilling indi- Early childhood education
tight manner”. But as a spate of scams viduals through short-term and long-
including the recent NAAC accredita- term training programmes. Under 7
tion scandal indicate, these individu- the mission several schemes have Primary-secondary education
als don’t exist and/or are likely to been launched including the Prad-
misuse their power in office. Tight and han Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, 6.8
strangulating government regulation Jan Shikshan Sansthan, National Ap- Higher education
of education — including HEIs — is a prenticeship Promotion Scheme, and
continuing bugbear. Craftsmen Training Scheme through 7
Another area of disillusionment is Industrial Training Institutes. As
the rising number of faculty vacancies of February 2024, the government Skills education
in public HEIs countrywide. Answer- claims that the mission has trained 14 7.5
ing a question in Parliament (Decem- million youth, upskilled and reskilled Ease of Doing Education in India
ber 2022), Union education minister 5.4 million.
Dharmendra Pradhan revealed that Skills education lapses. The In- 5.6
40 percent of teaching posts in IITs, dia Skills Report 2024 published by Liberalisation/deregulation
31 percent in IIMs and 30 percent in Wheebox in association with several
Central universities are vacant. agencies including AICTE, CII and As- 5.2
Moreover, the National Research sociation of Indian Universities, says
Foundation (NRF), proposed by NEP that 48.75 percent of college/univer- Increasing public spending on education
to 6 percent of GDP
2020 to incentivise interdisciplinary sity graduates are unemployable. An-
research, has not materialised de- other report by TeamLease says that 4.8

50 EDUCATIONWORLD MARCH 2024