A game-changer for higher education

A game-changer for higher education

What has happened?

The Union Cabinet’s decision recently to not only continue with the Rashtriya UchchatarShiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) — ‘a Centrally sponsored scheme launched in 2013 to provide strategic funding to eligible State higher educational institutions’ — but also give it due importance augurs well for the system of higher education in India. That the government is backing the scheme speaks volumes about the robustness and relevance of the scheme.

The Problem: No funding for State Institutions

• About 150 Centrally-funded institutions (less than 6% of students study in them) get almost the entire funding by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).
• To make things worse, investment by State governments has been also dwindling each year as higher education is a low-priority area.

RUSA to the rescue

The scheme is largely based on the conditional release of funds linked to reforms in the key areas of governance, learning-teaching outcomes, reaching out to the unreached and infrastructure support

• Process driven scheme: RUSA is a process-driven scheme and Its design and conceptualisation were finalised through extensive consultations with all key stakeholders, especially State governments
• Preparatory grants : They were released to States to have the required systems, processes, and the technical support in place
• Extensive stakeholder consultations: All the State Higher Education Perspective Plans for five/10 years have been prepared after extensive stakeholder consultations
• Performance linked funding: Since funding is conditional to performance, it is critical to have a robust monitoring and evaluation system in place.
• Tools to monitor performance
• Geo-tagging, introduction of a public financial management system, a fund tracker and reform tracker system and regular video conferences have proved effective tools, since 2015

Governance Reform under RUSA

Governance reform is central to the scheme

Creation of SHECs: State Higher Education Councils (SHECs) which have eminent academics, industrialists and other experts have been created, playing a major role, from an academic and professional point of view, in the formulation of medium- and long-term State perspective plans.

State’s recommendation in selection of Vice-Chancellors: In order to avoid arbitrariness, a State, for example, has to also give its commitment to creating a search-cum-select committee in the selection of vice-chancellors

Reforming Affiliation system: Reduction in the number of colleges affiliated per university by creating cluster universities and promoting autonomous colleges

Lifting ban on recruitments: An important precondition is the filling up of faculty positions and lifting the ban on recruitment (as in some States).

Reform in learning-teaching outcomes

• To improve learning-teaching outcomes, there is an effort towards improving pedagogy by capacity-building of faculty, selecting teachers in a transparent manner, adopting accreditation as a mandatory quality-assurance framework, implementing a semester system, and involving academics of repute and distinction in decision-making processes.

Visible change

An independent performance review (of four years) of the scheme was done by IIT Bombay in 2017

Findings of the performance review

It concluded that the funding linked to reforms has had a visible impact on higher education.

• GER improved
  • Before: When RUSA began, the gross enrolment ratio (GER) was 19.4%, faculty vacancies were at a high level of 60%, and a large number of universities were bloated with a teacher-student ratio of 1:24
  • Now: GER is 25.2%, faculty vacancies are down to 35%, the ban on faculty recruitment by States has been lifted, and and the teacher-student ratio is now 1:20
• SHECs and governance reforms visible

Several universities in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have been right-sized, and critical governance reforms such as the formation of the SHEC and merit-based appointments of vice-chancellors in Odisha, Goa, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu are visible

• Improvement in accredited institutions

There has been an improvement in the number of institutions accredited and their scores. In 2012, 106 State universities and 4,684 colleges were accredited. By 2017, an additional 145 State universities and 5,445 Colleges were accredited.

Potential of RUSA

It has not only reprioritised the country’s needs, from funding just a few premier institutions to reaching out to institutions at the bottom of the pyramid, but has also changed the way regulators need to function

Letting go of government control is the key

The litmus test of RUSA will be in how impartially the scheme is administered by the MHRD and the degree to which State governments allow the SHEC to function. Letting go of the governmental stranglehold over universities is linked to this.