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India moots cess on firms using technical manpower

Ashok Tuteja in Paris

India proposes to promote privatisation of higher education in a big way and is also considering introducing 'radical changes' in the examination system.

According to the ''India Country Paper'' placed at the ongoing UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education, the contribution of the private sector to higher education had not been encouraging. ''In the global wave of privatisation and increasing financial stringency, privatisation of education, establishment of private institutions, in particular is being proposed.''

The report said the government wanted to encourage private initiatives in higher education but did not desire its commercialisation.

There was also a proposal to levy an educational cess on industries and other organisations which used technical manpower. The education cess was an education-specific tax to be levied from those who employed the educated manpower. The basic argument was that those who employed manpower with higher education should be required to share the cost of producing ''this highly skilled human capital'', the report added.

Union Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi said the report gave an idea of how India had been able to construct one of the largest systems of higher education.

Listing the vision and the tasks ahead, the report said radical changes were needed to be introduced in the system of examination.

Methods of testing had to be so devised that not only would tests be rigorous but they would also be so flexible and of varied nature so as to be appropriate to the demands of promoting various curricular and non-curricular abilities, physical fitness, artistic taste and value-organisation. In this context, a national testing service needed to be established.

The new testing system should facilitate delinking of degrees from jobs and curricular reform bringing in emphasis on multi-disciplinary courses.

The report noted that the world was entering into an information age and development in communication, information and technology would open up new and cost-effective approaches for improving the reach of higher education to the youth as well as to those who needed continuing education for meeting the demands of information explosion, fast-changing nature of occupations and life-long education.

It said India had already decided to launch 'Operation Knowledge' as part of the information technology action plan. This would mean not only continuous expansion and improvement of modern equipment but also a gigantic task to redesign teaching-learning materials in every discipline to the special demands of the new technologies and media of transmission and new teacher-pupil relations.

The 54-page report said special emphasis on value-oriented education would impart a new dimension to the role of the teacher.

India's present system of governance of higher education was undergoing increasing strain and sooner than later, major changes would have to affected not only to ensure greater autonomy and accountability but also to facilitate rapid changes in the very framework, directions and goals, it said.

UNI

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