Shikshajaal:21 - the education network for the 21st century

Affordability and Quality

Students located in remote and economically backward regions of the world are in critical need of good education and yet they are precisely the ones who cannot afford it. Since direct aid is both inefficient and inadequate, Shikshajaal:21 blends cutting edge technology and modern management techniques to  address this challenging goal.


Shikshajaal:21 believes that educational services at the K12 level cannot be delivered through fully automated channels because kids would not have the interest or the ability to learn on their own. Human teachers, empowered with tools and technology, are essential. However, competent and motivated teachers are rare in the regions of the world that we wish to target. So the model  uses technology as a “force multiplier” that enables a large number of ordinary people – teaching assistants –  to deliver high quality education to a dispersed student population.


The components of the Shikshajaal:21 architecture  are now described in terms of the physical infrastructure, human resources, software environment, management structure and financial model.

Physical Infrastructure

Since the school is the primary touch point between a K12 student and the world of knowledge, we need to have as many of these as possible built and rolled out quickly. To ensure speed, we need a standard, minimalist design whose major components can be pre-fabricated on an assembly line – like Liberty Ships of WWII – located centrally in each country or region and then shipped to its destination for final assembly.


Such a school would contain 10 classrooms to accommodate 12 classes  of 50 students each in two shifts,  have high bandwidth wireless internet connectivity with local WiFi, be powered by solar energy with battery and grid backup, have a rugged net-book for each student and a large display, either projection or LCD, in every classroom. In addition there should be a kitchen + cafeteria to lure poor students with mid-day meals – that have proved to be highly successful in reducing the drop out rates in India. Schools in affluent areas of the world may have more facilities than the minimalist set defined here.


The planning for the fabrication and logistics should be such that it should be possible to  commission two schools every week , on average, after the initial gestation period, so as to have, in a country like India, a new school in every parliamentary constituency  within a span of 5 years. This roll-out will be planned and managed by the Country Shikshajaal  organisation described later.

Human Resources

Each school should have a manager, a supervisor for all non-academic activities including physical maintenance and kitchen, and eight teaching assistants – three for science, three for humanities and two for languages – who should be able to facilitate learning based on the teaching software – which could be on-line, electronic or even physical – that will be created and distributed.


A central facility would have a pool of quality teachers who will work with experts to design and create teaching material in the appropriate  language and customised to local requirements.  This material will be designed as per global standards and on the technology platforms described in the next section. This central facility would also serve as a train-the-trainer hub for the teaching assistants to ensure quality and consistency across all schools across the country or the region. The recruitment and training of this cadre of  teaching assistants will be executed centrally by the Country Shikshajaal organisation described later.

Software Environment

Key to the success of the scheme is the premise that a cadre of teaching assistants armed and assisted with high quality, multi-media teaching aids will be able to deliver an educational experience of very high quality.


Teaching material could be developed in two possible formats : print-on-demand textbooks printed on inexpensive, recycled paper and on-line multimedia – slide shows, movies, interactive animations. The on-line content would be hosted on central web servers that would be accessible  with web browsers.  Some of the course ware would be tailored for  individual student browsers while others could be used on the teaching assistant's machine and shown on the blackboard style  large display available in each classroom.


While the exact software platform to be used can be decided later, and it would change and evolve with time in any case, the general construct would be based on the principle of Web 2.0 and its focus on user generated multi-media content, somewhat similar to an Orkut style social network. Specific applications can then be bolted on using the Open Social ( or similar open ) APIs to deliver virtually any kind of educational or collaborative functionality.


Simulation software will  be a key component of the repertoire.  Beginning with traditional models of science laboratories and experiments , newer platforms based on maps, games and 3D Virtual worlds would be introduced so that students can explore remote regions with reality based applications like Google Earth, participate immersively,  in Second Life type simulations of  ancient Egypt or Mughal India or attend readings and enactments of great literature. Students would also be encouraged to escape from their physical classroom, as avatars, and participate along with avatars of students from other schools across the world in virtual events of their specific choice – for example a lecture on Vikings that is otherwise not on the curriculum for students in India. Social networking with MMORPG and 3D Virtual Worlds will lead to a new level of globalisation of young and inquisitive minds – the kind that happens with physical country visits.


All courseware should be developed on the lines of free and open source software and be available under Creative Commons for modification, localisation and language translation.   
Students from Class VI – XII can be formally evaluated with on-line examinations that would their test skills of analysis – through on-line games and puzzles, and of synthesis – through project reports, term papers and  time bound essay style answers to questions that can be automatically scanned for plagiarism and then reviewed by a pool of distributed examiners.

Management Structure

Technology changes but institutions survive on the strength of management structure that governs them. Shikshajaal:21 would have a three-tier management structure that would be layered as follows

• A private global organisation,  Shikshajaal Global, structured as widely-held public limited company,  with no individual,  organisation or government holding more than 1% of the equity. It should be incorporated in one of the global financial centres.
• This organisation would be responsible for defining and ensuring global standards in technology, governance, course material, pedagogy and financial audit.
• A national level organisation, Country Shikshajaal, structured as a public limited company with 26% equity held by Shikshajaal Global,  24% held by the national government in lieu of the free-hold land donated to build the schools and the other 50% held by the national public.
• This organisation would be responsible for the management of the central facilities,  building the schools, development of the course ware, training of the teachers and would ensure quality and consistency of teaching and evaluation at the local school level.
• Each school will be operated as a franchisee of  the Country Shikshajaal by a local entrepreneur who will lease the physical facility of the school from Country Shikshajaal, hire staff  and operate it on a management contract at a specified return on investment. After a specified period of time, the local entrepreneur, if found adequate would be allowed to buy out the facility at a mutually  negotiated price and operate the school on his own, for profit.

Financial Model

Initial capital for this enterprise will be raised at both global and national levels through a variety of channels. Shikshajaal Global will negotiate with both national and multilateral aid agencies to secure low cost finance and after appropriate due diligence deploy the same as either equity or  debt in the various Country Shikshajaal organisations.


Country Shikshajaal  organisations will, in addition to the equity and debt injected by Shikshajaal Global, raise additional funds locally through a variety of low cost instruments like Government backed sovereign bonds and other special instruments  – like the popular tax-free Infrastructure Bonds in India. This debt and equity will be serviced by the levy of a franchisee fee payable,  by each operational school, for each student.


Each school in turn will meet its operational cost and pay its franchisee fee by money raised as tuition fee from the students. No school will be free but a part of the tuition fee – ranging from 0% to 95%, depending on the socio-economic indicators of the locality and the economic status of the student – will be subsidised through a cess levied on municipal, state or central government taxes or even by international aid agencies, if necessary. This subsidy would be transferred to Country Shikshajaal on a per student basis. Hence society will pay for the education of its children both individually and collectively through the route of taxation.


Operational costs will be also be met by donations, of  cash or equipment,  or  labour donated in the creation of  open source learning material. The schools themselves can generate revenue by renting out their premises, on holidays and after school hours, for community and social events.
But the biggest contribution to operational cost will come through advertisements placed inside educational content – both on-line as well as printed textbooks. If the entire free-to-air television industry can be profitably supported by advertisements placed by producers of FMCG and lifestyle products, then there is no reason why a part of this huge ad-spend, cannot be redirected – in a controlled and responsible manner – towards defraying the costs of education. The on-line advertisement model pioneered by Hotmail, Google and others can be used to generate significant revenue.

The ascent of man

A key indicator of social progress is the increase in the operational efficiency  of civic mechanisms  as  evident in advances of technology – from wheel and fire to cars and electricity – and a parallel evolution of institutions – from tribes and guilds to democracy  and multinational corporates.



Shikshajaal:21 is a unique public private partnership education model that simultaneously addresses both these issues.  It uses modern management techniques and funding models to build a platform on which  a whole range of  educational technology can be deployed to create a flexible and efficient delivery mechanism. This will ensure that the money that society in general, and governments in particular, invest in education is spent in a manner that squeezes out inefficiency,  reduces the possibility of  corruption and delivers a service that meets or exceeds expectations.

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[ written for the The Economist-Innocentive Ideation Challenge ]

CBSE XII as Common Entrance Examination

In an earlier post on de-stressing higher education, I had argued about the irrelevance of the JEE / AIEEE as instruments of selection for entrance to higher education and the Damodar Acharya committee has recommended that the JEE should be scrapped. This is good. But the proposal to replace the same with a SAT style aptitude test is not a good solution either.

These aptitude tests -- earlier referred to as IQ tests -- have been found to be rather flawed because they seem to measure one aspect of what is known as "intelligence" or "aptitude" and would again be another strain on the students. Instead, let us focus on one examination and let that be the CBSE XII.

Why do I say this ? Because the cost and effort involved in managing the logistics of two nationwide examinations is better utilised in making sure that one examination is managed better. Second,  by making the process more broad based, we will be able to iron out the vagaries and uncertainties of performance delivered by a student on just one day.

Of course it may be argued that students who appear in non-CBSE boards would be at a disadvantage but strictly speaking they are already inconvenienced by having to take their own board examination plus the SAT-style aptitude test. However the CBSE XII would be closer in syllabus to any other board examination than any new SAT style aptitude test. So yes, CBSE students may be at an advantage but no, the advantage would not be any worse than the present situation where students are forced to take JEE / AIEEE / VITEE / State JEE / BITSAT and a whole slew of other examinations.

Ideally speaking all students should take just one examination at the end of class XII but given the diversity of opinion in India and the argumentative nature of the population this may take some time but the CBSE XII could be a good first step in this direction.

Looking ahead, a possible and feasible road map could be as follows

1. The percentile marks in the CBSE XII should be selection criteria for all Central universities like IIT, NIT etc.  All students will have to take at best one and at worst two examinations for all central colleges

2. At some point in time, State government and private engineering colleges will see the benefit of using CBSE XII as an entrance examination.

3. After some more time -- and subject to some honest political soul searching -- state level boards may agree to merge their XII exam with the CBSE XII. This may be facilitated if states can be given a position of authority within the CBSE hierarchy.

4. This road map will be greatly facilitated if the CBSE XII can be conducted multiple times in the same year so that students can take the examination at leisure and in comfort. Calculation of percentile in the CBSE XII can be done on the basis of multi year population -- this has been done successfully in GRE / GMAT for years -- and this will ensure greater reliability and stability of scores.

The only resistance to this approach would be from those who administer this plethora of tests. There is significant money that is spent in conducing these national level examinations and a good part of the money that is spent ends up -- legitimately or otherwise -- in people's pockets. A slowdown in this money flow may be unfortunate reason why a single CBSE XII may opposed by the nation's education system.

Education Delivery Model : Encouraging Creation, not Consumption of Knowledge

"You can lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make it drink"

In the context of enhancing the delivery capabilities of the education system, we should perhaps rephrase the statement as "You should lead a horse to the water, but desist from spoon feeding it"

As it is, those who manage to get into IIT -- either at the UG or the PG level -- have their originality and creativity ironed out of them, or at least significantly degraded, by the coaching classes that tutor them for the entrance examination. To compensate for this, teachers in IIT must go the extra mile to erase the effect of cramming and learning by rote -- the hall mark of a successful coaching class -- and awaken in their students a sense of wonder about the world of knowledge and instill in them the confidence of stepping out of their zone of comfort and address intellectual challenges of the highest degree.

What this could mean in practice is a reduction in the importance of the text book and examinations as tools and the progressive usage of the world wide web, as well as the library, as a way to not just gather facts but also publish analyses and interpretations into the public domain.

The Indian education system is perpetually dominated by the grim dark clouds of an examination -- right from kindergarten, all the way through X, XII, JEE, CAT, mid terms, end terms and comprehensives -- and a person's "success" is measured by marks obtained at every step of the way. Here the definition of success is debatable but instead of splitting hairs on this let us explore what all we can do.

Obviously, this lethal cocktail of text books and examinations cannot be done away with completely -- the system would collapse into an unstructured academic anarchy -- but four specific ideas could be introduced.

1. Students should be encouraged to locate multiple sources of information, preferably newer sources of information, well beyond what is written in a text book, if at all there is one that is prescribed. Ideally this would be websites, blogs, discussion forums and scholarly archives. Library books and journals are also equal candidates
2. Students should be encouraged to "publish" not just in peer-reviewed journals -- which may call for effort not normally expected in a normal UG or PG course -- but on their own blogs and in case studies, term papers and working papers that are uploaded in web2.0 communities. The ability to collect ones thoughts --and the facts that have been picked up through the process described in point 1, synthesize them into a unique point of view and articulate that in a cogent and understandable manner is an essential foundation for future research leading to traditional publications in refereed journals.
3. Collaborative learning should be the key because the image of the "mad" scientist working alone in his den-like-laboratory has either become dated or was never quite correct. Modern science and technology calls for significant collaboration within and across communities -- department, institutes and even countries and this collaborative approach should be woven into the fabric of our delivery process in the form of cross-functional teams. These should be tasked to not only identify problems and evolve solutions and but should also participate in the evaluation and if possible implementation of the idea.
4. Failures should be tolerated as these are the pillars of success. The person who has never made a mistake is perhaps the same person who has never done anything new in this life and the society for which we wish to prepare our students does not need such people! Experimentation should be encouraged, recklessness should be cautioned against but failures should be seen, not as objects of ridicule but as a learning opportunity. Practically this means rewarding not just results but also activity.

Consumption of knowledge should be replaced by creation of knowledge

From V-Schools to B-Schools : A Research Agenda

With an obsession with placements, Business schools in India -- IIMs not excluded -- have degenerated into thinly disguised placement agencies or at best glorified vocational schools. The compartmentalisation of B-school curriculum into the four principal management functions, namely Finance, Marketing, Human Resources and Systems and Operations reflects this mindset. These are the four principal kinds of tasks that a manager is expected to perform and B-schools pat themselves on the back if they can teach these four skills to the satisfaction of the recruiting companies. [ Though in reality, companies that hire from B-Schools do not seem to care for even this skill ...] Unfortunately, this puts B-schools in the category of vocational schools or V-schools

If we draw an analogy with engineering schools, this approach would mean that students are taught workshop practice -- chipping, fitting, foundry, welding -- assembling circuit boards or laying out wires for electrical circuits ! But an engineering school teaches much more ! From mechanics, through thermodynamics, control systems, logic gates all the way up to engineering mathematics and algorithms. This is the kind of knowledge that separates an engineer from a technician and by extension the kind of approach that separates an IIT from an ITI !!

So if we wish to move from an ITI to an IIT, a V-School to a B-School, what is it that that should be on the curriculum ? One approach would be replace the current four areas with four other more fundamental ones : Leadership, Mathematics, Psychology and Technology.



But before we adopt this approach we need to understand how these four things map into and support the more traditional areas. To do so, let us dig deeper into what is meant by these four areas.

Leadership in the context of B-schools consists of Entrepreneurship -- which could be traditional entrepreneurship as in setting up new businesses but should also extend to entrepreneurship within a firm, or intrapreneurship, where each business unit operates on its own risk-reward model. However this entrepreneurship should be tempered with Ethical behaviour and a strong focus on Equity -- that ensures that the rights of all stakeholders are adequately protected. So Leadership can be defined in terms of Ethics, Equity and Entrepreneurship.

Managing a business calls for both analytical -- or left brain, and emotional -- or right brain, skills. That is why managers are expected to have both IQ as well as EQ. Mathematics in general, represents the core analytical ability and in a B-school context can be translated into modelling techniques that apply to financial models, optimisation models that lead to operational efficiency and models that apply to marketing and sales. On the right brain side, where one has to deal with human beings, the core skill is Psychology that can be used to understand Consumer Behaviour, Organisational ( and employee ) Behaviour and of helps us to understand the laws that lead to the resolution of disputes.

But in today's business environment, the biggest driver is the development and deployment of new technology. What are the key technologies that a B-school should focus on ? Ever since the discovery of fire, Energy is recognised as the key to growth. Food security and health issues force us to focus on the Life Sciences in general and Bio science and bio engineering in particular and Habitat requirements lead us to seek breakthroughs in Materials and Manufacturing. The last, but not the least, that ties all this together is Communication and Collaboration technology that has traditionally been referred to as Information Systems.



This sixteen areas (a) Leadership, Ethics, Equity, Entrepreneurship (b) Mathematical Modelling, Financial Models, Operational and Optimisation Models, Marketing Models (c) Psychology, Consumer Behaviour, Organisational Behaviour, Dispute Resolution and (d) Communication and Collaboration, Life Sciences, Materials & Manufacturing and Energy could represent the core set of knowledge that any Manager ( as opposed to a supervisor ) should possess or build upon. With this model, it is not at all difficult to accommodate all the four traditional disciplines, namely Finance, Marketing, HR and Operations, quite easily within one or more of these sixteen areas.

Interestingly enough, these 16 areas can be grouped into a traditional Magic Quadrant where the left half represents left brain activities and right half represents right brain activities and as we move from bottom to top we move from specific topics to more general ones.



A typical B-School curriculum consists of 32 courses spread across 4 semesters. 16 of these courses could come from these areas while the other 16 could be distributed across specific electives that delve deeper into one or more of these areas.

In an era when a B-school is judged on the basis of its Industry interface and in its ability to turn our "industry ready" managers, this model may be questioned and criticised on being too theoretical and divorced from what the industry needs. However let us understand that just as industry needs both engineers and technicians for engineering functions, it also need supervisors and managers for business functions. IITs provide engineers, ITIs provide technicians. Similarly high end B-schools should build Managers who can provide leadership in thought and action -- not supervisors who know how to calculate loan EMIs.

B-Schools and the Placement Syndrome

Why do students queue up to get into B-Schools, especially the more well known ones ? And why are some B-Schools more well known than the others ? Both questions are in fact two sides of a more fundamental question - what value does a B-School bring to the table ? and the answer to both questions can be found in the placement history of B-Schools in general and specific schools in particular.

Students join B-Schools because they believe -- and in many cases, quite rightly, that it is a ticket to a high paying job and some B-Schools are more well known than others because their students end up with more, better or higher-paying jobs.

But why blame B-Schools for this trend. In the 70s, 80s and even as late as the 90s when unemployment was the dominant feature of the economic landscape of India, students would throng the gates of the Engineering schools because because that was seen as the most sure shot ticket to a good job. Students who had neither the inclination nor the aptitude for engineering scrambled to become engineers because of the job prospects. Today, when other opportunities exist in the field of finance, retail, media, life sciences, entertainment, the collective memory of the Indian psyche still drives students to engineering -- but the craze could be ebbing somewhat.

But the craze for a badge from a B-School continues unabated and to keep up with this demand we have an increase in the supply of B-School seats, both at private schools as well as at public sector schools like the IIMs and IIT, plus of course the corresponding expansion in the ancillary industry of CAT-coaching classes.

Which brings us back to the question ... what role does a B-School play ? or rather let us ask a related question : what role should a B-School play ?

Does a B-School add value to a student ? Is he or she taught anything that is of use to the company that hires the student. Any B-School would like to believe that it is adding a lot of value to the student in terms of knowledge and capability but a quiet and anonymous questionnaire among students might reveal some startling facts. Quite a few students tend to have a very poor view of most of their teachers and view the fact that they have to sit through their classes as the price they must pay for getting that ticket to that great job !

So is the view in many of the companies that recruit these B-School students. But if they do not really care for what is taught in B-Schools why do they pay higher salaries to these students ? One widely accepted answer is that these B-Schools provide a good screening tool ! Students who have managed to crack the CAT, JMAT, XAT or similar tests -- whether by aptitude or by hard work -- are just the kind of people who are likely to thrive and prosper in the corporate world. Thus the B-School is not a place that adds value to a student but an effective screening tool that makes the job of selecting employees easier !

Thus from both perspectives -- that of the student and of the recruiter -- the B-School is nothing but a placement agency, but is that what it should be ? Placements are important no doubt but should B-Schools not raise themselves above this mundane role of screening-and-placing students and consider something more substantial for themselves ? For example should B-Schools not play a role in creating new knowledge ? in terms of business models, best practices and in terms of new technology. Should they not establish themselves as centres of thought leadership and guide the national debate on economic and social matters ?

Unfortunately, each and every B-School in India today, including the best known ones, have reduced themselves themselves to the level of placement agencies. At best some of them have managed to elevate themselves to the level of teaching shops -- that teach some tools of the trade, like linear programming and balance sheets.

What is really missing is the big leap of imagination, of innovation, of ideas. Is it not the time for some of the B-Schools to step forward and plug this gap ? And strangely enough once this happens, once we take our eyes off placement and salaries and focus on genuine thought leadership, placements and salaries will fall in place, on their own -- and not be the tail that wagged the dog !

Modelling Education Reforms on the Financial Sector

Pratap Bhanu Mehta's article in the Indian Express on the devil being in the detail of educational reforms is very interesting. It makes us look around for successful models and one that strikes the eye is obviously the Stock Exchange mechanism -- that is perhaps one of the most successful model that has emerged from Indian reform process. To see if this model can be used as a reference, let us see some of the regulatory issues that a "company" needs to address before it can transact business and earn money.

At its minimum, a company must adhere to the conditions of the Companies Act and register itself with the Registrar of Companies. We note that the RoC does not really approve or reject the application on the basis of the quality of the companies products or that of its promoters. All that the RoC ensures is that the company meets certain basic disclosure norms in terms of ownership and financial issues. The focus is on accurate disclosure -- or transparency -- not on the actual facts and figures that are being disclosed.

As the company gets bigger and needs access to more funds, it seeks listing in a stock exchange. A stock exchange is not a monopoly government organisation -- it is run by its members as per rules that dictate a certain minimum level of financial competence and ensures a far more rigorous level of financial and administrative transparency. Once again, the focus is on transparency of the organisation, not on the quality of products or services offered. A stock exchange has two interesting aspects : first there can be more than one stock exchange, so there is no threat of a monopoly and second they are supervised by SEBI to ensure compliance with the laws of the land.

However the stock exchanges do not provide financial support to any company. That is done by individual investors in the capital market based on their personal or institutional perception of the company's performance.

So the three components of financial sector are (a) Registrar of Companies and the Companies Act (b) Listing in the Stock Exchange under SEBI supervision and (c) Funds from the Capital Markets. For foreign companies wanting to do business there is the fourth agency -- FIPB that has a wider mandate of protecting India's strategic interests.

Let us now map these components into the Education sector.

First the role of the Registrar of Companies can be performed very well by the AICTE -- provided we remove its authority to approve or accredit institutions. This authority used with malafide intentions has been the bane of education in India because it has kept out the best and allowed in the worst operators. The powers of the AICTE should be restrictively defined in a new Education Act and should be modelled on that of the RoC.

Any institution registered with the AICTE should be allowed to offer any educational services subject to the Consumer Protection legislation in the country. Consumers in India are quite conscious of their rights and if they have the choice -- as they now have in telecom or air travel, not to mention on soaps, shampoos or cars -- there is no fear that educational service providers will be able to cheat them. Let us have some respect for the Indian customer.

But if an institute wants to move into the next, higher league, we need a self-managed organisation like the industry association that will ensure discipline and transparency in its members. One or two leading institutes -- some from the government sector like IIT, IIM and some from the private sector like BITS, ISB -- can take the initiative to form these associations. Initially this might lead to multiple organisation -- like multiple stock exchanges -- but in the long run, through a natural process we might end up with two or three, similar to the BSE/NSE model that we have today. These associations would ensure transparency and consistency in the behaviour of its members and could be supervised by a government body like the AICTE. Institutes accredited through these associations would be ranked higher in the perception of students -- who are the customers of educational services.

Finally funds ! And this is where both the government and private organisations must step in with generous support -- but we must use a market driven approach. Both the government and the private sector should set up multiple funding organisations each with its own goals and objectives. The UGC is an obvious candidate but the Department of Space could provide separate funding for programs leading to astrophysics and the Department of Minority Affairs could have a separate funding for Muslims. Similarly Tata Steel could fund institutes operating within 50 kms of Jamshedpur and an NRI in California could fund institutions in his native Bankura district -- to each his own !

Whatever may be the source and intent for funds we need transparency on two fronts (a) the criteria for funding and (b) the actual distribution of funds in each year. Each funding agency could have its own criteria publicly available and any "registered" institute can in principle apply for funding provided it meets the requirements of the funding agencies. Agencies would distribute funds to eligible institutes based on their perception of how "good" the institute is -- in terms of how published criteria. This is where metrics like "student-teacher ratio", "placements", adherence to social goals in terms of gender and caste equity, quality of research, patents can be introduced. All funding agencies may not have the same set of criteria -- each should have the liberty to specify its requirements and institutes will have to compete for funds.

Some of the funding may be automatic and statutory – for example HRD funds to IITs and IIMs – while others may be discretionary based on the extent to which an institute meets the criteria. However all funding agencies , especially those based on tax payer's money, must make available to the public all information on funds disbursed to each institute AND the justification for the same in terms of the adherence to the funding criteria.

Potential students can study the pattern of fund disbursals and draw their own conclusions about how good or bad an institute is as perceived by funding experts who have voted with their purse ! In a sense, market forces will drive both funding and students to the best institutes in the country.

In fact honest competition is what is completely missing in the education sector and this has led to an immense complacency in the public sector education system in the country. What makes it worse is that public sector institutes are so dependent on the bureaucrats in the HRD ministry for money that they have no option but to toe the sarkari line. Both these issues can addressed through the structure that is proposed here.

And finally what about foreign universities ? If as a nation we are brave enough we can allow them to come and operate through this route but otherwise we can have the equivalent of an FIPB to ensure that trashy organisations are kept out -- but this is neither necessary nor sufficient for quality and is best kept in abeyance for the time being.

As a part of the Prime Ministers 100 day program, may I request Mr Kapil Sibal to organise a conference on Higher Education where ideas like these – and those from other, more eminent people – can be formally considered for speedy execution.

Reforming Higher Education

With the departure of the control-and-caste-conscious (3C) politicians from the Ministry of Human Resources Development there is a window of opportunity for Mr Kapil Sibal, the new incumbent, to finally get India going on the road to high quality education. Newspaper editorials written by sane and civilized people have made numerous suggestions and -- not surprisingly -- most of these would like to see a sharply diminished role of the AICTE and similar sarkari inspectors. Let me add my 2-paise worth of ideas to this great melting pot.

Education policy in India has been motivated crass crony capitalism masquerading as concern for the customer. We are asked to believe that if the government -- consisting of the corrupt neta and the inefficient babu -- does not control all aspects of a service then the poor customer would be fleeced by the unscrupulous businessman. This is the same set of lies that kept preserved government monopolies and government supported oligopolies in telecom, aviation, postage, steel until the great bankruptcy of the 1980s forced the government to liberalise and the results are there for all to see.

Going forward we need the government to play two kinds of roles -- that of a lean regulator and of an honest financier.

While SEBI and TRAI have often been showcased as instances of positive regulation, I would suggest that we go even further and take the Registrar of Companies as a model. The Registrar of Education ( why just Higher Education ) should be the nodal agency for simply registering -- and not approving -- any educational entity in India. All that this body needs to do is to keep track of who the owners are and whether they are in compliance with the laws of the land. The Registrar of Companies does not go about the evaluating or approving the goods or services that a company provides ... it simply ensures adherence to the Companies Act. In the same vein, we could have an Educational Institutes Act and the Registrar of Education should ensure compliance with the same.

What should be there in the Educational Institutes Act ? As little as possible to ensure that Institutes declare who they are, what they offer and how much they charge. Nothing in the Act should allow the Registrar to decide who should offer what course and how much should they charge -- just as the Companies Act does not specify what goods or services are offered by any company nor how much should they charge for the same. The Act and the statutory disclosures under the Act should ensure total transparency in terms of ownership and financial status.

The second role that the Government can and should play with far more vigour is that of financial support. Here we should have bodies like the UGC that would lay down funding criteria an decide how much money should go to each Institute. All Institutes -- private or government owned -- can apply for funds and all allocations should be based on a appropriate guidelines and made visible on appropriate public platforms like websites.

We can have a multiplicity of funding bodies -- for example, in addition to the UGC, there can be state level bodies, bodies funded by specific government departments like Biotechnology or Space, or even public-private bodies set up with private participation. Each funding body can have its own criteria -- based on courses, locations, caste status of students or any other condition that is not in violation of Constitution of India -- but the information about their disbursements should be in the public domain. This will reduce arbitrariness and unfair discrimination.

The Institutes, on the other hand, by having to publicly compete for these funds will have to make sure that they meet and exceed the various criteria and this to an extent will improve the quality of education that is delivered.

This two track approach -- with a lean regulatory framework supporting a robust financial support mechanism -- would need to be thought through in greater detail but if established and operated honestly will ensure a solid foundation for higher education in India.