Paucity of Public Funds and Growth of Professional Colleges in India
Indian higher education has undergone a metamorphosis in the last several years. The right to education is a fundamental right in India. Education falls under the Concurrent list of the Indian Constitution. In 1997 the Indian Government, in its proposals for subsidies, accorded higher education the status of a ‘non – merit’ good while elementary education remained a ‘merit good’. The Ministry of Finance, Government of India thus reclassified higher education as a ‘merit-2-good’ which need not be subsidized by the state as a ‘merit good’. One of the major hurdles confronting our system is that of scarcity of finance. Beginning with the Kothari Commission all the succeeding Committees have emphasized the need for increasing the budgetary allocation for higher education. However, in the light of increasing demand and competitiveness more specifically after 1991, public funding is becoming difficult and this has led to growing privatization in the education sector. The spurt in Privatization is more clearly reflected in the Professional sector, where India has witnessed the growth of Professional Colleges, (namely engineering, medicine and management.). They have their own merits and demerits. While India boasts of a few high quality institutions some are very backward. They have to be regulated if India has to make her mark as a knowledge hub in the near future.
