Modi Government’s Quest For Building 20 Oases Of Excellence In UGC’s Regulatory Desert

In his 2016 budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced his government’s intention to select 10 public and 10 private higher education institutions and enable a regulatory framework to develop them into world-class institutions of excellence (IoE), which feature frequently and prominently in top global rankings.

“lt is our commitment to empower higher educational institutions to help them become world-class teaching and research institutions. An enabling regulatory architecture will be provided to 10 public and 10 private institutions to emerge as world-class teaching and research institutions. This will enhance affordable access lo high quality education for ordinary lndians. A detailed scheme will be formulated,” Jaitley had promised two years ago.

The government’s plan is finally picking up pace. It has appointed an empowered expert committee (EEC) to finalise the names of 20 institutions that will be beneficiaries of government’s largesse. Former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami will be the chairperson. The other three members include University of Houston president Renu Khator, Harvard Business School professor Tarun Khanna, and Management Development Institute’s R Pritam Singh.

The government kickstarted the process of selecting 20 institutions last year in August. It issued various guidelines to be followed for both private and public institutions while applying for the IoE tag. In September, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) invited proposals from the institutions and set a deadline for 12 December. Last month, it was extended to 22 February. More than 100 institutions have already applied.

Why The Need For IoE Tag?

India’s higher education institutions have fared poorly in world rankings. The government ‘felt the need to create a distinct category of deemed to be universities, which shall be regulated differently from other deemed to be universities so as to evolve into institutions of world-class in a reasonable time period.’ But apart from the official line on creating a relaxed regulatory framework, it is also amply clear from the monetary incentives that the government considers lack of funding a major hindrance in Indian universities faring well in global competition.

As the 2018 Economic Survey noted, India’s “universities play a relatively small role in the research activities of the country. Universities in many countries play a critical role in both creating the talent pool for research as well generating high quality research output.” Compared to other countries, the private sector also plays minuscule role in funding research.

It is not surprising why the government feels the need to step on the accelerator on spending via the top 20 institutions that it will select.

Why The IoE Tag Matters?

Well for starters, there will be raining monies for the institutions that get picked. Every institute can get up to a maximum amount of Rs 1,000 crore for five years - Rs 200 crore per year - which translates to more than Rs 50 lakh a day in government funding over an above the profits (in case of private institutions) they are pocketing. Other avenues to raise money from the industry or alumni or other donors will remain open. But there are strings attached to the money given by the government: institutes can’t deploy it to purchase land or take it on lease.

There are other riders too. The funding is tied to the success of the institutions in achieving the milestones presented by them in their strategic plan on the basis of which they won the IoE tag. The plan must lay out a detailed 15-year strategic vision plan and a five-year rolling implementation plan, with clear annual milestones and action plans with identifiable outputs and outcomes and how it plans to meet the criteria for attaining the status of an IoE. The institutes shall be reviewed once in three years by the four member EEC. This monitoring and review shall continue ti‖ the institution gets into the top 100 in a world ranking of repute for two consecutive years or till 15 years, whichever is earlier. Every year, the institutes will have to report to the EEC on the progress made in realising the goals laid out in the implementation and strategic plan.

Apart from monetary component, these select institutions will enjoy wide ranging regulatory flexibility. They will no longer have to stick to syllabus structure mandated by University Grants Commission (UGC). Rather, they will enjoy complete autonomy in formulating curriculum and syllabus. Additionally, they will have the flexibility to decide on number of credit hours and years needed for completion of a degree. Moreever, they will also be free to offer courses within a programme as well as to offer degrees in newer areas, including inter-disciplinary ones - all by just sticking to the minimum prevailing standards. The IoE institutions can also make available as much as 20 per cent of the programme course online.

The 20 institutes can hire as much as 25 per cent of their total faculty strength from outside India, and that too on a contract basis. They can hire industry experts as faculty too who need not have the requisite higher academic qualifications otherwise mandated by the UGC. As far as admitting students is concerned, they can admit as additionally much as 30 per cent of the strength of admitted domestic students, i.e. if there are 100 seats available, the institute can make 30 additional seats available for foreign students. This way, the foreign students won’t eat into share of domestic ones. The institutes will be free to charge whatever fees they like from both the foreign and domestic students but they cannot turn away a domestic student who has been selected on the basis of merit. For this, the institutions will have to come up with scholarship programmes. There can be many ways by which the institutions can make sure that they don’t pick the needy students. The government may have to be more careful and make sure that the system is not gamed.

The Cost Of IoE Tag

The institutions vying for the IoE brand to be associated with their name will require bags full of cash and vast amount of financial and non-financial resources to be considered and then to remain in the list. According to the guidelines, the sponsoring organisation for greenfield institutions should have members whose total net worth is Rs 5,000 crore collectively. The same for the sponsoring organisation of existing institutions should be Rs 3,000 crore.

The IoE Deemed to be Universities should have an initial corpus fund of Rs 60 crore (for brownfield institutions) which would be increased at an annual uniform rate to Rs 150 crore in 10 years time and guaranteed pipeline of Rs 500 crore, along with a credible plan for additional Rs 500 crore. For greenfield institutions, all these conditions should be met apart from having an additional corpus of Rs 1,000 crore. The guidelines mandate that all the sources of funds be known and available for scrutiny by competent authorities.

Apart from cash, the faculty of these institutions should have a record of research publications, on an average, of at least one per faculty member each year in reputed peer-reviewed international journals. The IoE are expected to have laboratory facilities to undertake cutting-edge scientific research. They should not have faculty ratio of less than 1:20 and should develop teaching and research collaborations with a reasonable number of global universities figuring in the most reputed global rankings.

Despite heavy demands from the government, more than 100 institutions have applied so far. It shows that they think the rewards are worth much more than the requirements expected of them by the government.

How The Institutions Will Be Selected

The UGC has already appointed the four-member EEC on recommendation of the Centre and on approval by the Appointments Committee of Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Now, the EEC will scrutinise and appraise the proposals submitted by all the Institutions desirous of being declared as an IoE. They will monitor and review implementation plans presented by IoEs, make recommendations to the UGC for liquidation of funds of IoEs, verify compliance by IoE with the set standards, assess deviation from the goals if any, etc.

Now that the deadline is over for application and if it not further extended, the EEC will start examining the implementation and strategic plans submitted by various institutions. These include academic, research, networking, infrastructure development, administrative and governance plans apart from faculty hiring and student admission policies. The committee will send its recommendations to the UGC which will forward with some modification if needed to the MHRD. The final list of IoEs is expected to be out in the next six months. The new batches under the new umbrella of IoEs will thus start only from the next academic year, i.e. 2019-20.

The government believes that this policy of creating 20 oasis of excellence in UGC’s regulatory desert will yield rich dividends for the country. This may seem a half-hearted attempt to the votaries of complete overhaul of UGC. The government sympathisers would claim it has at least made a start. We will know in a decade or two. If the government succeeds, the country would indeed reap huge rewards. If it fails, we would’ve lost our demographic dividend edge.