"Obsolete and rigid regulations are harming the higher education"

Krishna Lavu, Member, Board of Management, VIGNAN’s University, speaks on actual challenges the New Education Policy needs to address to provide quality education...

Q. The government of India is working on the New Education Policy which is likely to come out soon. What are your expectations?
A. The Union Government has been working to bring the New Education Policy for the education sector for quite some time, as the previous government was also doing something in this regard. Then it was again picked up by Smriti Irani when she was the HRD Minister. Later another Committee was constituted under Dr. K Kasturirangan which is to give its draft report. We are hopeful that the new policy addresses the actual problems that are there on the ground instead of just tinkering here and there.
The problem with regulations is that they are too rigid and are also not updated. Take for example the AICTE had this absurd rule of the faculty-student ratio of 1:15. On one side, they were given approval for opening of new colleges, while on the other they knew how many M.Tech and Ph.D. candidates were coming out. For years, it continued with the same formula and only recently they have changed it to 1:20. So, these are the things that need some kind of flexibility when the education scenario is such that we have to not only improve our GER but also provide quality education to our youth.

Q. You talked about flexibility in the regulatory framework. Could you elaborate on it?
A. We need flexibility in the way the regulatory bodies handle higher education institutions, they need to give more autonomy to us. If we take the example of engineering education, we keep hearing from the industry that a large number of graduates are unemployable. A major reason has been that the institutes lack the freedom to design their curriculum based on the needs of the industry. In case of medical education, there is so much of hypocrisy because on one side, there is so much of money one has to invest in establishing a medical college with all the facilities and hospital and on the other hand, it is the government which says that you cannot charge the fee more than a particular amount. The regulatory framework should help not harass.

Q. Many of the engineering colleges have closed down in past few years or  seats are vacant. How do you look at this problem?
A. This is an alarming scenario, but this was expected to happen as the regulatory bodies allowed them to open in large numbers. The regulating bodies should have ensured that once an institute is allowed to open they should not close down as it hampers the development of human resources. It should sit with the colleges and see which all courses are not getting traction from students as well as the industry and close only those courses and not all. There should also be flexibility in terms of appointment of faculty as many of these institutions are located in remote and rural areas. This will not only solve the faculty shortage issue at institutions but will also give students access to quality education in that area.