Education
Secondary & Higher Education Cess Unspent For An Entire Decade
The Secondary and Higher Education Cess (SHEC) was introduced in the Finance Act, 2007, to fulfil the commitment of Secondary and Higher Education. Scrutiny of the Union Finance Accounts for the period 2006-07 to 2016-17 revealed that a total collection of SHEC of Rs 83,497 crore was made and was being credited in the CFI without creating any reserve fund in Public Account. The CAG report for FY 2017-18 said that Rs 94,036 crore was collected in lieu of secondary and higher education cess till March 2018.
Unlike the creation of Prarambhik Siksha Kosh in the case of primary/elementary education cess, for the SHEC neither a Fund was designated to deposit the proceeds of SHEC nor were schemes identified on which the cess proceeds were to be spent until a Cabinet decision in August 2017 approved the creation of Madhyamik and Uchhatar Shiksha Kosh.
Consequently, the commitment of furthering Secondary and Higher Education Cess as envisaged in the Finance Act was not transparently ascertainable.
Interestingly, in the budget for 2018, the Finance Minister of India introduced a new cess – 4% Health and Education Cess - to be levied on the tax payable. This cess replaced both primary education cess@2% and secondary & higher education cess@1%. The new cess was levied from the FY 2018-19. This was implemented to meet the education and health needs of the Below Poverty Line and rural families by improving the quality of education and the teachers, and bring in digital initiatives and quality education to tribal children. This would also bring about an improvement in the infrastructure of education, flagship national health protection scheme, set up more of Government hospitals and colleges and so on.
What did RTI plea filed by Antardhwani reveal?
A meagre Rs 7,690.52 crore of S&HE Cess money was allocated in the financial year 2018-19 after the creation of Madhyamik and Uchhatar Shiksha Kosh (MUSK) was approved by the Union Cabinet as late as August 2017 for crediting the proceeds of Secondary and Higher Education Cess.
The entire S&HE Cess collected was lying unspent in the Consolidated Fund of India for 10 years after it was introduced. According to CAG Report 2017-18, Rs 94,036 crore of Secondary and Higher Education Cess (SHEC) was retained in the Consolidated Fund of India as the designated fund MUSK remained unoperational through FY 18.
Antardhwani files PIL seeking utilization of S&HE Cess money
Anatrdhwani has filed a public interest litigation in Delhi High Court seeking direction for utilization of Secondary & Higher Education Cess by transferring the collected amount from Consolidated Fund of India to Madhyamik and Uchhatar Shiksha Kosh. The plea seeks fixing of accountability and liability for non-allocation of the cess money collected from every citizen of this country when it could have been used over the past 10 years for improving the learning levels and quality teaching in classrooms, recruiting more teachers to improve the pupil-teacher ratio and paying more to teachers, and largely improving and putting in place the right infrastructure, especially in rural areas.
Higher education in India – Major roadblocks
Poor student enrollment: The first challenge to be overcome is to increase the present rate of enrolment of around 20%, much lower than developed countries (China’s 43.39% and US 85.8%) and also many developing nations. We have only around 800 universities, as against the National Knowledge Commission recommendation of 1,500. The aim should be to arrive at a proper estimate of universities and undergraduate institutions in order to plan a strategy for the next 20 years or so. Given the low rate of enrolment, we need more quality teaching institutions at the undergraduate level.
Quality Issues: Ensuring quality in higher education is amongst the foremost challenges being faced in India today. Still Large number of colleges and universities in India are unable to meet the minimum requirements laid down by the UGC and our universities are not in a position to mark its place among the top universities of the world. Academic reform — which includes semester and credit systems, courses by choice, and examination reform — is a process which should be advanced only after the pre-requisites are met. Ensuring quality textbooks is another point. Now that teaching in most undergraduate and State universities is in the regional languages, good textbooks and quality translations from the original English books are a must if a student is to make progress.
Poor Infrastructure: Apart from the highly recognized higher educational institutes in India most of the colleges and universities suffer from poor physical facilities and infrastructure, and lack in basic and high-end research facilities. Many institutes are running without proper infrastructure and basic facilities like library, hostels, transport, sports facility etc. Infrastructure can be improved with an increase in financial allocation.
Faculty: Faculty shortages and the inability of the state educational system to attract and retain well-qualified teachers have been posing challenges to quality education for many years. In most of the state and central universities more than 30% of faculty positions are lying vacant. Large numbers of NET/PhD candidates are unemployed even there are lot of vacancies in higher education sector. As the issue has assumed serious proportions, a solution demands joint efforts being put in by the Centre and States. One way, and as a one-time effort, is to enforce the UGC teacher-student ratio for each state, and ensure that the financial requirement of additional faculty is shared by the Centre and States.
Inadequate research and innovation: There is inadequate focus on research in higher education institutes. There are insufficient resources and facilities, as well as quality faculty to advice students. Most of the research scholars are without fellowships or not getting their fellowships on time. Moreover, Indian Higher education institutions are poorly connected to research centers.
Disparities in access to education: Another challenge that confronts India is in the disparities in access to education, especially in terms of economic class, gender, caste and ethnic and religious belonging. Unequal opportunities have developed unequal human capabilities and converted education into an instrument to further economic inequalities. The expansion of the private, self-financing education sector, with its aim of commercial intent, and the corresponding decline in government and private-aided institutions has been another reason for the propagation of disparities. Public and private aided institutions must be strengthened and expanded and the expansion of self-financing private institutions restricted to a reasonable level. The alternative would be to extend ‘poor-friendly’ financial assistance by setting up a government finance organization, based on the models in Australia and Canada.
Global collaboration: There is the issue of ensuring the access of Indian education to global frontiers. A popular view is to allow global universities to set up campuses in India. However, this is countered by some who argue that the presence of a few quality institutions is hardly the solution as far as the majority of rural and poor students are concerned. The alternative is to allow foreign educational institutions to enter into collaborations with Indian institutions on a large scale. In turn, this will help in enhancing capabilities as far as curricular and pedagogical practices, and student-faculty exchanges go.For quality institutions, autonomy as far as academic and administrative aspects are involved is a must.
Need for relevant education: Enabling an education that is relevant to the economy and society is another challenge. The development of human resources for the economy has been translated into action through vocational and professional education. The need to enhance the employability of graduates is presenting entry points for collaboration in enterprise education and entrepreneurship, links with industry, research skills and the wide range of transferable skills, including English. The emerging interest in Indian higher education institutions in the vocational skills market provides areas for potential engagement with international partners.
Need for UGC reform: While attempts have been made in the past, the UGC should have a dual structure — a governing body and a general body. As more than 65% of our universities and about 90% of colleges are in the states, their involvement in policy making at the Centre is a must. The framing of successful policies requires reliable data, and on multiple aspects. We are faced with a situation where we not only do not have reliable data, but also have had no review of higher education for the past 50 years, the last one having been the D.S. Kothari Commission in 1965, when far-reaching changes have taken place in higher education in the last 50 years.