PROFESSOR M.M. ANSARI, former Interlocutor for Jammu and Kashmir, member University Grants Commission(UGC), and Central Information Commissioner, was Director of Distance Education Council, IG National Open University and Hamdard University; Senior Economist, FICCI; Director (Research), AIU; Fellow, NUEPA, and Consultant, Planning Commission of India. Prof. Ansari is an economist and education specialist. He was member of international teams for accomplishment of Education Sector Reform Project, Government of Mauritius, the World Bank; Bihar Education Project, UNICEF; and Human Resource Development in Federated States of Micronesia, Asian Development Bank. In an interview with MOHD NAUSHAD KHAN, he wondered why this university (Jamia Millia Islamia) can’t establish its campuses in Muslim concentrated districts of India to spread quality education among Muslims.
Recently India opened its door to foreign universities and now Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) has announced to open its branches abroad.How would you like to respond to this development?
It is NOT for the first time that India has allowed foreign universities to operate in India. In the past also, UGC issued guidelines for establishing campuses by the highly rated foreign universities for offering various courses with collaborative arrangements with Indian universities.
There are however no takers. Reason!
Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in India operate on ‘not-for-profit’ basis, which means that HEIs should not commercialise their educational and research activities. The Central and state universities fall in this category. Interestingly, almost all the Private HEIs, over 350, and thousands of colleges in India are established by top politicians, industrial and business houses. These HEIs are treated as commercial ventures in the garb of promoting educational philanthropic activities. They are managed by the family of investors.
Such institutions resort to ‘financial and accounting gimmicks’ for generating profits/ surpluses that are internally utilised for expansion of their activities. The promoters of private institutions, being influential persons/ groups, easily circumvent educational and fiscal norms and guidelines to their advantage. As against this, foreign universities financed by the taxpayers and investors of the countries of their origin are neither interested in doing educational charity in India nor are they allowed to ‘earn profits’ for repatriation to home countries. There are no specific laws for such foreign institutions to generate profits for payments to their investors in the form of dividends.
Therefore, the recent announcement by UGC for inviting foreign HEIs to operate in India, without guarantee to make profits for repatriation to home country, is merely a populist announcement. In this regard, UGC has not learnt any lesson from its failings in the past. Unless India has a declared policy to allow for both operation of “For-Profit” HEIs as business corporations and repatriation of profits to home countries, it is unlikely that reputed foreign universities will come to India. Most European countries, USA, China, UAE and others allow for managing HEIs on ‘for-profit’ basis as a large part of entrepreneurial education, training and research have high commercial value.
As regards JMI’s intentions to open campuses abroad, it must be welcomed. A moot question however is: Where are resources to invest in education in other countries? The university is almost entirely dependent on UGC for funding of its various programmes. Due to paucity of funds, the university has not upgraded educational infrastructure to promote quality of teaching and research to the levels obtaining in the best universities of the world. Nearly 30 percent of faculty positions are vacant, which adversely affects learning attainments of its students. And the mandate of resolving the crisis of educational backwardness among minorities is unfulfilled. Why can’t this university (JMI) establish its campuses in Muslim concentrated districts of India to spread quality education among Muslims, whose leadership established this university?
What should be the focus of minority institutions with regard to higher education in order to keep pace with other reputed institutions of higher learning in India?
In the globalised economic environment that is impacted by new knowledge and technologies, HEIs of all types and levels ought to focus on providing entrepreneurial education and training to empower the working population to effectively function in knowledge economy. Growing mismatch between education and jobs, as evident from widespread educated unemployment must be abridged.
Technical and vocational education must therefore be imparted to increase employability and assured higher earnings in modern businesses to improve economic conditions of minorities. R&D activities, including extension services are at the low ebb for different reasons such as lack of finance and competent faculty. To cope with the challenge of improving their response to emerging societal needs, institutions must change the way they function today and adopt the best practices in teaching and research.
Keeping in mind the growth of higher education nationally and internationally, what according to you are the challenges before minority institutions?
The challenge of competing with the best performing educational institutions of the country or the world is daunting. First, NEP 2020 does not make any distinction between a minority and non-minority institution, which suggests that minority institutions will have to struggle hard to mobilise financial and administrative support to cater to the specific needs of educationally backward minority groups. Unlike separate budgetary provisions for meeting socioeconomic needs of SC/ST communities and their institutions, there is no such provision for financing minority institutions except AMU and JMI, which are centrally funded institutions that partially meet the educational needs of Muslims.
Second, minority institutions are allowed to operate on self-financing basis. Since the students from the minority community largely come from educationally and economically backward families, they are unable to pay for high costs of education due to which quality of relevant education is compromised. Availability of students’ scholarships and grants are not available commensurate with requirements for supporting needy aspirants of education. Minority institutions and students are thus put to disadvantage.
If we go by the statistics of Sachar Commission Report and other indicators, Muslims are far behind other communities. What according to you are the reasons and the way forward?
Participation of Muslims at all levels of education has gradually increased. Today almost all the boys and girls are attending schools which are why enrolment ratio is 100%. Participation at secondary level has also increased though drop-out rates are also high as for other economically poor sections of society. Enrolment ratio at higher education level is 16 to 18% for Muslims as against national average of 28%.
Clearly, as compared to national average, Muslims lag behind in education by ten years or so. Of the various reasons for educational backwardness of Muslims, political disempowerment, economic and social marginalisation are chiefly responsible for poverty and educational deprivation. Whereas Dalits from other religious groups avail the benefits of reservation policy in education and jobs, Dalit Muslims are barred due to promulgation of Presidential order of 1950. Equality of opportunity is deliberately denied by the State to poorest of the poor among Muslims.
Muslims have to fend for themselves. With an overall improvement in national educational progress and increased economic opportunities, it is expected that education among Muslims will also gradually improve. The policy planners must realise that the state’s discriminatory policy as above will impinge upon human capital formation among 15% of the total population, which in turn may retard economic development of the country.
It appears that educational awareness among Muslims has increased in the recent years. Are you satisfied with the progress or it is too little too late?
The participation of Muslims at all levels has been increasing. Slow pace of improvement is attributable to lack of government support to minority students and institutions. Even the poorest among Muslims are legally barred as per Presidential order of 1950 from availing the benefits of education and jobs under reservation policy. Over 50% of Muslim population is reasonably well educated and compare favourably with the rest of Indian population yet they are poorly represented in government jobs. They are not selected even for lower-level jobs like Army Jawan, police constables, peons, clerical jobs, etc. which affects their morale, economic statuses and faith in democratic governance.
Today when you look at higher education in India, what makes you happy and what troubles you the most?
HEIs are responsible for preparing a cadre of manpower for promoting and managing economy and the society as well as for supporting lower levels of education in terms of curriculum development and teachers training. While there is commendable progress in expansion and diversification of higher education systems, performance and accountability of the system is much less than desired, which is why there is massive unemployment among university graduates and a large section of people from traditionally backward communities are yet to benefit from the system.
HEIs must focus on improving quality of relevant education and research while ensuring equality of opportunities for all. Lack of adequate financial support from the government commensurate with requirements for quality teaching and research is the major obstacle for development of HEIs. Of late, there is increased privatisation and commercialisation of education, which is tending to compromise quality of education and perpetuating educational disparities across the socioeconomic groups.