India has the greatest number of universities?

“India has made a huge progress in terms of increasing primary education attendance rate and expanding literacy to approximately two thirds of the population.^[1] India’s improved education system is often cited as one of the main contributors to the economic rise of India.^[2] Much of the progress in education has been credited to various private institutions.^[3] The private education market in India is estimated to be worth $40 billion in 2008 and will increase to $68 billion by 2012.^[3] However, India continues to face challenges. Despite growing investment in education, 40% of the population is illiterate and only 15% of the students reach high school.^[4] As of 2008, India’s post-secondary high schools offer only enough seats for 7% of India’s college-age population, 25% of teaching positions nationwide are vacant, and 57% of college professors lack either a master’s or PhD degree.^[5] As of 2007, there are 1522 degree-granting engineering colleges in India with an annual student intake of 582,000^[6], plus 1,244 polytechnics with an annual intake of 265,000. However, these institutions face shortage of faculty and concerns have been raised over the quality of education.^[7]”

From this we can see that obviously India is facing an extremely large problem. Out of all the millions of students attending secondary school all over India, there is only place for 7% of them in the universities/colleges. Futhermore, only 75% of the teaching positions in India institutes are occupied, and out of those seats occupied, only 43% of the professors have a masters, or PhD degree under their belt. This obviously translates to an extremely grave situation for the India education system.

According to Ask.com, India has the highest number of universities in the world, with a staggering 8,407! Click here to see the article. In second place, comes the United States with 5,758 universities. That means India has 46% more universities than the United States, and YET India does not have enough places to seat all the youth who are graduating from secondary school. This is extremely troubling, because if this doesn’t change soon, all the graduates from secondary school will have to wait to get placement in universities (when I say wait, I mean wait prolonged periods of time such as one year, maybe even two), and we’ll get stuck in the same rut as before — children won’t being going to school because it won’t be worth it. The reason will be why go to school when you can’t get into college? Whatever the outlook, this situation needs to be rectified immediately.

According to one of my readers who left a comment on my blog, even more educational institutes are popping up all over the place: “Education is truly indispensible in today’s economy centric world, and the new vistas that modern education is opening up are quite enthralling. With a scope to forge a promising career in fields like Sound Engineering, Gemmology or Radio Jockeying, a number of institutes are popping up all around the country to guide aspirants of these vocations. One of the premiere institutes that has come up in pune is SeamEdu, India’s first and only creativersity, with eminent founders like educationist Dr. Arun Nigavekar. To get an overview of newage career options, you can log on [here to see details] ” – Vishakha.

Additionally, as if the lack of universities in India, and the lack of professors having degrees, the deep-rooted traditions are also posing a problem. The value of education for a common man is zero, because he does not see tangible benefits resulting from it. Traditionally, women are not supposed to go to school; they are supposed to stay at home and make food, and take care of the children etc… Because of this deep-seated tradition, only 30% of the schools in Bihar, India have women’s bathrooms. The rest do not have female bathrooms. Again, schools in Bihar have an even worse problem — 70% of teachers are actually absent all the time. So this problem of a lack of universities is exacerbated by the lack of commitment from the teachers, and by the deep-seated traditions that have been India for the past 2,000 years.

While this lack of higher institutions is definitely a problem, we have a much bigger problem on our hand namely dealing with the overall standard of education being provided. For the most part, I feel that the education levels are way too low across the board, to seriously compete with the levels that are seen all around the world. The level of education provided to our youth needs to get a little better before we start growing the number of schools to accommodate all the youth seeking an education. This links back to my “Eureka Moment” blog post where I said we do not want educated drones. This still stands true. Our curriculum needs to rise to higher standards, and has to foster a sense of thinking-outside-the-box for the youth.

The TeachIndia initiative is doing this, but true change has to come from the top, down. The government — namely the Education Ministry — has to decide to make radical and solid changes. Only then will the change have a positive impact. TeachIndia is only ancillary, and true change can only come from the top, however the TeachIndia initiative is still a inspiration and motivator to the entire education system all over India.

In order for change to actually be effective, the government needs to make sure that the standards are enforced in all the schools – this isn’t too much of a problem, because 80% of the schools all over India are run by the government. It’s the other 20% of schools that might pose a problem. This 20% are private schools, quite a few of which are illegally operated. Studies showed that 27% of India’s children attended private schools because it was figured that they provided a superior education to the more-expensive government schools. However, there is a counter-argument that states the private schools are in fact not as good as the government schools and are the same price, if not more expensive. I am inclined to believe that government schools, on average, are slightly worse than private schools. It stands to reason; salaries are better in the private system, hence better teachers are attracted to those jobs. I know for a fact that some of the best schools in India, are in fact private ones, but on the flip side, some of the best universities are government owned/operated. The point is that government schools need to improve, and illegal private schools need to be shut down. Currently, private schools are making all the money, while the government schools are going for a toss! This needs to change – if it changes, education can reach a higher standard (because of the imposed and enforced government regulations). This alleviates the problem of having illegal private schools.

On a good note, the government is planning on opening several more universities, and expanding the current ones to accommodate more youth. If this is successfully achieved, India can become a hotbed for potential employers to pick up educated employees (this is turn will send the Indian economy through the roof, and into the stratosphere!)

A new mister for Human Resource Development was appointed this year – Mr. Kapil Sibal. I suspect his appointment was a direct result of the problems in education coming to prominence via campaigns such as Teach India. His agenda aims to establish a common Indian education board to do away with all the options facing India parents. This will help increase the value for high school education. Additionally he proposes a bill so that individuals and not-for-profit organizations may set up educational institutions. The changes are radical and I suspect that they will shake up the rigid education system seen in India today, to concentrate on collaboration and synergy. Evidence of this change can be highlighted by the number of new institutions in India.

Under Kapil Sibal, some serious changes will be enacted to allow the greater number of youth to complete a college education, despite all the several setbacks.

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