Why Indian varsities are not in the world’s top list

The main problem in the pursuit of quality in higher education is due to the failure of the system to attract talented youth towards teaching in varsities.

Here is an abridged version of the paper submitted by Prof K Ramakrishna Reddy, Vice-Chancellor of Sri Krishnadevaraya University, on his foreign visit and presentation of a research paper in the prestigious international conference held in Korea recently

There are 634 Universities and University level institutions in India as on December 2011. More than 50 per cent of universities are spread across only in seven states and the remaining in other states. There were 695 colleges in 1950-51 and that strength increased to 33,023 in 2011. In case of Universities, there were 30 in 1950-51 which increased to 634 in 2011.

Student enrolment in higher education was around 3,97,000 in the year 1950-51 and has increased to 1,69,75,000 in 2010-11. This shows a tremendous increase in accessibility and spread of higher education in the last 6 decades in India. However, the quality of education remains an elusive goal in the face of the large numbers, rising enrolment, and rapid expansion.... During the last two decades, girls opting for engineering education has significantly increased in the Rayalaseema region, creating a big gap in science and arts courses. Students, in general, have been opting for management and engineering courses at graduate level.

This has led to lesser demand for Sciences and Social Sciences courses at graduate and postgraduate levels in the region, which again causes a lack of balance of perspective in our pursuit of holistic education. When I was a research student in Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Ananthapuramu, there were more than 200 well qualified strong academic and research based teaching faculty supported by well qualified administrative staff. In SK University, as in most other State universities, there was no recruitment of teaching faculty for more than 15 years. In the mean time, highly motivated qualified scholarly faculty started retiring from University service, leaving an unfilled gap behind.

The main problem in the pursuit of quality in higher education is due to the failure of the system to attract talented youth towards teaching in Universities. Services management has become a tough task throughout the world. Moreover, education services have thrown a number of challenges to policy makers and planners in modern societies. There is a greater demand for quality higher education in India as it is there in Rayalaseema. In all the Universities managing to attract good scholars has become a difficult task. Moreover, in-breeding in teaching appointments is also responsible for affecting standards in many universities. The decreasing standards in higher education are also because of the inability to give the right academic leadership.

The role of the Search Committee in spotting talented and honest leaders cannot be underestimated. In Rayalaseema region, the government has established six universities in four districts. There are 81 postgraduate colleges affiliated to these six universities. As per the government’s direction, the total seats available at PG level in Universities and PG Colleges have been divided into regular, payment, self-funding, sponsored and Non-Resident Indian (NRI) seat categories. Under all these categories there are about 13860 seats in all PG courses which includes Sciences, Social Sciences, Arts, Humanities, Management & Commerce. Among all courses offered by these universities there has been a shift of competition from one year to another mainly because of market forces. As market forces are highly uncertain and radically fluctuating, manpower planning through academic administration is becoming highly difficult task. For instance, there was a great demand for computer courses in the last 20 years. Suddenly the demand for these courses has gone down so much that the establishments offering computer courses have become liable assets

. Among postgraduate courses in Sciences, Arts, Humanities, Computers, Commerce and Management, there is high fluctuations in admissions in all the Rayalaseema universities. There is a drastic decline in admissions in both Science and Arts courses in all the universities, in spite of fee reimbursement by government, of AP. The credibility of many courses has gone down in all most all universities in this region as majority of students are opting technology oriented courses. The mad rush towards engineering courses caused a great vacuum in all these Universities. These fluctuations have been affecting investment in higher education and consequently the quality.