The Rediff Interview/Yoginder Alagh

'Subsidies for higher education should go only to deserving poor students'

Before he migrated to the world of governance and politics, Minister of State for Power Professor Yoginder K Alagh oscillated between academics -- he was vice-chancellor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University among other things -- and the Planning Commission where he served a distinguished tenure.

Before he moved to the power ministry in last month's ministerial reshuffle, Professor Alagh was in charge of the ministry of planning and programme implementation. Vinod Behl spoke to Professor Alagh recently about the major initiatives planned for education in the 9th Plan. A particularly relevant conversation in the wake of Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram's recent threat to cut subsidies to higher education.

What is the focus on education in the 9th Plan, particularly with regard to primary education?

Primary education is a target in the basic minimum services programme of the 9th Plan. Most states have focused on primary education in the first three years.

Last year, the additional money allocated was based on a formula which gave greater weightage to poor states. But the prime minister has directed that the money should now be given with the gap filling formula. This formula is being worked out. So, there is much greater resources being made available.

There are two other emphases. One is that special conditions in some parts of the country have to be kept into account. There are social obstacles in some of those districts where female literacy is very low. That is why you have the Kasturba Gandhi Scheme this year. There are special problems of a geographical nature in the deserts and hills which have to be taken care of. Also, there is a mention of the fact that problems of the North-East have to be taken up separately.

Finally, there is this whole new concept of technology as an aid, both for the training of teachers as well as effective teaching material. The department of education has produced a training programme which uses satellite and computers and even mobile mechanisms for training hundreds of thousands of primary school teachers in modern methods in a low cost way.

Now we have a facility of direct to home TV to be used for direct access to training centre from the satellite. Insat 2D has enough transponder capability to be able to meet the need. There is a plan to spend as much as Rs 1 billion per year.

What about the proposed increase of Rs 760 billion or 6% of GDP by 2000 for education in the 9th Plan? How do you propose to spend the money?

For primary education, as I said, the method of spending will be based on basic minimum services. Shared setting of targets directly at the local level, introducing technology as a special component of plan, taking care of regional variations and then joint monitoring of the project.

About higher education -- there is still ambiguity in the approach paper which needs to be worked out. Then, there are special areas like science education. In some areas there are good initiatives. For example, we have introduced a scheme for scientific research. Under the scheme, if a group of scientists want to do state-of-the-art research costing millions, it could be funded through a special corpus agreed to by the finance ministry.

But at the undergraduate level, we need a special effort and we are looking up to the University Grants Commission to give us some clues as to what needs to be done with regard to strategy. For example, at Pune University, a group of scientists -- including the very distinguished vice-chancellor, Professor Gowarikar -- have come out with a very interesting integrated undergraduate science programme. They have involved some local business groups and scientists of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

As per the new approach, the child will have to do some basics, but then he'd do some integrated learning which is problem-oriented. He'll learn modern material, biotechnology or computers etc, but in relationship to problem solving. The child will have a lot of choices.

In electronics, a lot of interesting planning is being done. The department of electronics is talking of setting up globally competitive training facilities in software, hardware and communications areas. It is building existing institutions -- whether it is the Institute of Computing Technologies or C-DoT -- using the concept of virtual learning, using the concept of networking, a far more aggressive programme of introducing computers in schools.

We are also talking about hardware compatibility in regional languages. This is extremely important to meet the big demand for scientific literature in regional languages. Even Bill Gates said the same thing and even gave us a million dollars. I think we are on the right track. But my concern is still for higher education where the restructuring principle needs to be spelt in greater detail. There has been some talk of a Private Universities Bill but we have not worked out the kind of pattern we need. And without that, putting in money becomes very difficult.

What about the proposal that academic standards should be uniform all over the country?

We really do not want uniformity. What you really want is that people should be able to experiment with some alternatives. Some of the best universities will be able to raise money to keep high academic standards. Like in JNU when I was the vice-chancellor, we were getting about Rs 60 million by way of projects every year. So, here comes the concept of linking research with funding agencies.

My real worry is about regional colleges and smaller universities which may not get the required funding. In such colleges and universities, if some initiatives are taken for modern education, we must evolve a uniform policy or mechanism to provide funding to them.

There is a widespread fear that in the coming year, higher education will become much more costlier and beyond the reach of a large segment of society.

All over the world, higher education is supported by the State. Even in America, where the fees are highest, these form less than 30 per cent of the total revenue of the university. In Europe, the percentage is 10 to 12 per cent. So this notion that education has to be self-financed is an absurd notion. All societies tend to support higher education. But well-off people should be paying for education as a service. Subsidies for higher education should go only to deserving poor students.

One of the disturbing aspects of the 9th Plan with regard to primary education has been a low enrolment rate and a high drop out rate. Even the mid-day meal scheme introduced to reverse this trend has been dropped by some states.

The mid-day meal scheme has been integrated with a revised public distribution system on which a lot more emphasis is being put this year. But in addition to this there is emphasis on training and technology, use of modern methods including computers, distant education and looking into the special needs of areas where there is the problem of educating the girl child. These are the kind of special focuses which are being talked about in the 9th Plan for which additional funds have been provided.

Is the new focus on primary education a part and parcel of National Literacy Mission? Against a target of making 100 million people literate by 1997, the NLM has been able to make only about 56 million people literate. What is being done to meet the NLM's targets?

The initiatives in the Plan are integrated with the NLM. Now there is a recognition that both formal and non-formal methods should be used. Because if you take the drop out rate into account it is not necessarily correct that the formal methods are expensive. That is one of the lessons of the evaluation of the literacy programme. The other thing is larger funding and special attention to local problems.

During the 8th Plan, a major area of worry have been rising unemployment. What is being done to tackle this problem, particularly with regard to boosting vocational education to promote self-employment?

The unemployment rate has indeed gone up. The 1993-94 National Sample Survey results show that the problem is aggravating faster in rural areas compared to urban areas. The real answer to that is far more widespread agricultural growth because without that rural development can't be achieved. This in turn will take care of widespread unemployment.

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