They argue that the government, on its own, may lack the funds to set up IITs. Moreover, once under government control, IITs face limitations- notably, in respect of salary structures. The solution? The government provides some of the funds. The private partners brings in funds and manages the institution.
In an era of public-private partnerships (PPP), it is worth extending the PPP approach to starting new IITs. Private sector dynamism and long-term social commitment of the government can come together to create quality institutes. A modified BOT (build-operate-transfer) model can be applied here.
The government can specify norms for an IIT and its support for the project. These norms can include autonomy, selection process for students and faculty, reservations, governance structures, and conditions for financial support, such as what it will provide per student and per faculty. It can also specify norms for giving the landand its share of the initial capital for a new IIT.
With these guidelines in place, the government can invite respected individuals and business houses for a partnership to start a new IIT. The project can be executed by the partner, who, apart from bringing his share of the initial capital, can go on to provide ongoing support to the new IIT. This would be in addition to the government lending support as per its norms.
The official salary scale of the IIT faculty can remain the government-approved scale, this coming from government grant. However, the private partner can provide additional compensation to the faculty, pegging this to market levels.
The private player can also provide funds to invite faculty from abroad, something that is difficult to do from government funds. In general, funds provided by the private partner can be used for activities that cannot be undertaken with government money....
Since the new institution is an IIT, it would be eligible for research grants and partnership programmes. A fully private university in India will find it almost impossible to support research, as can be seen in most existing private institutes, including well-funded ones. With research funding available from regular funding sources as well as multilateral agencies, an exciting environment can be created, particularly with leadership support from the private sector.
Sounds attractive. If we can have PPPs in infrastructure, why not in education?
I have serious reservations:
- The private partner, presumably, will be some corporation or business house. I am not aware of any top notch educational institution that is managed by a corporation. In the US, corporations and businessmen give generously to universities. But they don't ask that they should run the institution.
- We keep talking of a role for the private sector in education. The one place where this has been a success is the US. And in the US, the entities that run top universities are private but non-profit. Here in India, privately run engineering, medical and business schools are all commercial ventures, many of them focused on making a fast buck. The whole culture of non-profits funded by philanthropy is peculiar to the US. It is not commonly found elsewhere.
- If Indian businessmen were interested in creating a non-profit in education, we would have had a credible institution by now. In engineering, there is no private institution that matches the IITs' reputation- BITS, Pilani comes closest. In the medical field, AIIMS has no peers. And in management, once you exit the IIM system, you descend quickly into mediocrity. How come private management has not created a single institution of higher education of any class? That is at least partly because educational excellence and a commercial orientation do not go together. Either the state subsidises excellence or private philanthropy does. There is always an element of subsidy in academic excellence.
- What about fees? The authors concede this could be a problem area. Given the profit orientation of private parties in education, we will have a situation where the government puts in money and provides land only for private parties to rake in huge surpluses through the high fees that the IIT brand can command.
- Governance of the PPP could pose major problems. Now we have the government as monitor. With all its drawbacks, such monitoring has created institutions of repute such as IITs and IIMs. The culture of freedom and egalitarianism that is the trademark of a great educational institution- will it survive under the auspices of a business house? I doubt it.
Granted, both the IITs and IIMs need to move on to the next level. But state sponsorship need not be an impediment. There are great names in US education that are state-run: the university of Californio, the University of Texas and Ohio state university. At the IITs and IIMs, it would be much easier to make the incremental changes needed under state control than through a wholesale shift to private control.
Let me emphasise one more thing: we can loosen state controls on these institutions by all means but we must be careful to put in alternative governance mechanisms. Leaving matters to faculty is not the route to take.
5 comments:
Dear Professor,
I agree with most of your observations. However, If we look at the foundation of the IITs and IIM grads, it is quite likely that they would have done their schooling at a private institute. It makes me wonder how come private education is vastly successful till High school but not so successful afterwards.
I would presume that it is because of the abundance of qualifed teachers till school level education. Private schools often tend to pay much higher than the public schools and hence were able to attract better teachers in turn attracting brighter students. However, to teach at professional level in engineering, medical or management schools, one must have atleast a doctorate (most of the times) and there is scarcity of qualified personnel.
With schools like BITS and ISB proving that private insitutions can be commericially viable without compromising on quality of education, it is only a matter of time before more such insitutions excel.
Regards,
Your student.
You raise a very important question: if the private sector in India does well at the level of primary and secondary education, why not in higher education? I will try to address this question.
You are saying that private schools are able to attact better staff than pubic schools because the former can pay better. This is emphatically not the case. Following the Fifth Pay Commission, teachers in public schools are, in general, better paid. Moreover, if private schools can attract better faculty, why not private colleges? So the answer must lie somewhere else.
One reason why public schools turn out to be inferior may be that they are overwhelmingly in the regional languages, not in English. This is because of state governments insisting that basic education be in the state language. Since people want English education, they turn to private schools. Moreover, the better teachers would also prefer to teach in English. Hence, private schools end up attracting both better students and faculty. Incidentally, Kendriya Vidyalay, which is centrally-run and uses English, has a high standing, which bears out my contention.
Higher education, especially technical education, is in English in public colleges. Hence, the private sector's advantage over the public sector vanishes.
Secondly, fees at the school-level are more market-determined than those at the college level. Hence, running schools is commercially attractive for the private sector: they can easily recoup their investment.
Given that the fee structure at the college level is basically set by the public sector institutions, it is not worthwhile for the private sector to make big investments. The public sector, especially the IITs and IIMs, can make the necessary investments precisely because they are state subsidised. This is what I meant when I said in my post that, without an element of subsidy- whether from the state or from private philanthropy- we cannot have great higher education institutions. Since the tradition of such philanthropy is missing in India, PPPs for IITs are not such a great idea.
By the way, if you are a student at IIMA, you are welcome to come by.
-TTR
In regards to your reservations (3rd bullet):
What is your opinion of XLRI and even XIM Bhubaneswar. I think both are run by private non-profits.
I am far removed from the ground, but wonder what a student will prefer between IIM Kozhikode, IIM Indore and XLRI.
In Engineering IIIT Hyderabad (a ppp) is possibly better than both IIT Roorkee and IIT Guwahati in the disciplines it covers.
Chitta, If it's true that XIM (B) and XLRI are run as non-profits, that bears out my contention. Only the private, non-profit educational institution can compete with the IITs and IIMs. Alas, such entities are all too rare in this country. As you know, higher education is a big commercial racket.
-TTR
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