This presentation discusses various issues related to the regulation of higher education in the Indian context.

1. Higher Education
Regulation in India:
Problems and Prospects
ANUP K SINGH, PHD

2. New Realities
 Emergence of middle class with high aspirations for higher education
 Consequently, substantial increase in Graduate Enrolment Ratio
 Professional education increasing faster than arts, humanities and social
science education
 Post 1991, significant increase in private, self-financing institutions
 Most professional education takes place in private, self-financing institutions
than in government institutions
 ICT as a great enabler of learning
 Focus on employability
 Return on investment as a major concern for students and parents

3. Complexities of Higher Education
 Higher education leads to both public and private good; therefore, the government has an interest in
higher education both as the provider and as the regulator
 The government controls educational institutions tightly
 Information and power asymmetry between the providers and consumers
 No exit from educational service once a student has taken admission in a long term programme
 Profiteering by many private, self-financing institutions in spite of constitutional provision that education
is for charity
 Lurking suspicions of all private, self-financing institutions; real charitable institutions thus suffer
 Government’s expense on higher education not increasing; thus, it depends on private institutions to
achieve its social objectives
 Accreditation is made mandatory but requisite infrastructure is missing
 Difficulties in balancing access, equity and excellence
 Regional and state disparity in higher education

4. Monopolistic Competition in Higher
Education
 Product differentiation (Educational institutions differentiate partly on
curriculum, student experience, return on investment, etc.)
 Many firms (700 universities and over 36,000 colleges)
 No entry and exit cost in the long run
 Independent decision making (Universities and colleges hardly coordinate
among themselves; even if there are some associations, they are fragile)
 Some degree of market power (Ranking, accreditation and word of
mouth)
 Buyers and Sellers do not have perfect information (Imperfect Information)

5. Corruption in Education
 A large number of people perceive the educational sector as one of the most
corrupt sectors in India
 Bribe to provide license to establish an educational institution
 Capitation fees; high admission fees; under-payment to faculty and staff;
siphoning out money from the institutions; personal use of institutional resources;
sundry charges from students
 High on promise, low on performance
 Fake degrees; low academic rigour; non-adherence to regulatory norms and
standards
 Land grabbing; whitening of black money
 Regulatory bodies are seen lethargic, inefficient and unscrupulous

6. Governmental Control of Higher
Education
 Both central and state government control education
 Different state governments differ in their regulation and administration of higher
education
 There are multiple regulatory bodies, like UGC, AICTE, BCI, PCI, etc.
 Sometimes, there are conflict among them
 High control, low on support and facilitation
 Government acts as a protector of students and parents at the cost of being the
promoter of excellence in education
 State and national outlook; no aspiration to upgrade to international standards
 Lack of clarity to deal with new educational realities
 Educational regulations more driven by political exigencies than by high standards

7. Law and Higher Education
 The Constitution of the country allow impart of knowledge to the student
as an occupation; however, it does not allow profit creation
 Private institutions are allowed full autonomy; however, they are required
to follow merit in admission
 However, the State can provide for reservation in favour of financially or
socially backward sections of the society
 Each state is required to found a fee regulatory committee that will fix fee
for a period of three years for colleges

8. Contd…
 Private institutions are expected to conduct an admission test through their
association; the admission is to be supervised by a retired high court judge
 Most state governments have developed a common private university
act under which an institution can apply for the status of a university. The
act is generally restrictive and provides limited autonomy to the university
 However, the UGC demands that for a university to be recognised by it
has to be established by a separate Act rather than by a common Act. It
created a serious problem for many private universities
 The entry of foreign institutions is still a grey area

9. Suppliers of Higher Education
 Central government (Chiefly MHRD, other ministries, government
enterprises)
 State government (state universities, state colleges, grant-in-aid colleges)
 State private universities and colleges (Diversities among promoters,
varying from philanthropists to politicians to businessmen, to religious trust,
to minority organisations to state government enterprises)
 Deemed universities (government and private)
 Non-profit company (For example, Indian School of Business)
 For profit company (NIIT, School of Inspired Leadership)

10. Related Industries
 Coaching industry
 Admission agencies
 Admission portals
 Print media, including education magazines
 Ranking organisations
 Soft skill providers
 Testing industry
 Placement agencies

11. Market and Higher Education
 Market of higher education becoming mature. There is monopolistic competition in the
market
 Accreditation has failed to create awareness about quality institutions among various
stakeholders
 UGC and AICTE have made it mandatory for institutions to keep some vital information
on their websites
 Information about different institutions is available through ranking agencies
 There is more supply for many programmes than demand
 Therefore, the power of students and parents is not as low as it may seem
 Competition among institutions is heating up
 Several institutions are being closed, while new institutions are also being established

12. Regulation of Higher Education
 State governments directly monitor and control higher education institutions
through licensing, admission and fee regulations
 UGC and AICTE are two main regulatory bodies
 They are responsible for both assurance of standards and disbursement of
grants
 There are other professional bodies, controlling professional education like
MCI, PCI, BCI, etc. (These are purely regulatory bodies)
 Most of these bodies were established pre-90s; therefore, they are not fully
geared to address new educational realities and institutions
 A recent committee on higher education headed by Dr. Hari Gautam
recommended the scrapping of the UGC

13. Accreditation
 It is a mechanism of quality assurance
 Besides following higher education regulatory mechanisms, institutions
need to undergo accreditation
 Accreditation can be in terms of both accredited/not-accredited or
grading
 It should inform general public and different stakeholders about the
quality of an institution
 As India is a large country with over 36,000 colleges and 750 universities,
there is a need for several general and discipline-specific accreditation
agencies

14. Contd…
 Accreditation should focus on student learning and outcomes
 Outcome measures (Learning, employability, initial salary, exposure,
career progression, student satisfaction, soft skill development, etc.)
 It should also reflect Indian realities
 There should be strong mechanisms to ensure that accreditation agencies
do not indulge in malpractices
 It should focus on both assessment of quality and assessment for quality
 It should also work for upgradation of quality

15. Ranking of Institutions
 Ranking besides accreditation provides additional information about the
quality of institutions to students, parents and employers
 In the last two decades, the ranking of institutions have picked up
 The ranking of universities in India is recent and is in a nascent stage
 The rankings of business and engineering schools are most popular and
mature
 There is mushroom growth of ranking agencies; many of them are spurious
 There is a need for ranking of ranking agencies
 The Government of India is considering to rank institutions for public at
large

16. Regulatory Authority of Higher Education &
Research
 It may set norms and standards for different disciplines of higher
education, including government institutions, grant-in-aid institutions and
private institutions
 It may monitors adherence to those norms and standards by various
institutions
 It may penalise institutions for non-adherence and malpractices
 Another body may be responsible for funding and financial support to
institution
 The different regulatory bodies need to coordinate among themselves to
facilitate the functioning of institutions and universities. There may be a
body to coordinate them