Global Imperatives and New arenas for Higher education
1. Global Imperatives and New arenas for Higher education Presented By ShashiRanjanJha M.Phil Scholar (2008-09) NUEPA
2. Structure of the presentation The present paper focuses on: Global imperatives and new arenas of higher education governance. Financing of education in selected developed and south Asian countries. Financing pattern of higher education in India with reference to economic reform. Concluding remarks.
3. Introduction Education as an instrument of development experienced diverse set of policy discourses in 1960s and 1970s. In 1980s and 1990s the endogenous growth model provided framework for human capital investment but the waves of gulf oil crisis forced many of the nation states to go for the reform package. The underlying notion in opting for economic reform package was to restructure expenditure pattern to create check and balance over revenue deficit.
5. Global imperatives Financial crisis has been the ground for the evolution of privatization and marketisation articulated under neo-liberal frame. General Agreement on trades and services paved the path for change in the content of internationalization of education. In response, education policy has been heaved up highly onto national and international political agendas triggered intense debates about the goals and means of education. Further Weakening of Nation State Governance by comparison
6. Public financing of education The public financing of education is important to skill up the labour force in order to accumulate the growth opportunity. There exist positive relationship between gross enrollment ratio, higher education attainment and GDP per capita (Tilak 2005). There is consensus to consider higher education as public good Externalities are associated with Higher education Low private demand
7. Public Financing of education Neo liberalism or the neoliberal states are terms used to designate a new type of state which emerged in the past two decades. Tied to the experiences of the neoconservative governments, such as those of Margaret Thatcher and John Mayor in England, Ronald Reagan in the United States, and Brian Mulrony in Canada (Torres,2000) and under congress government in India. By that time, a club of creditors had emerged headed by the Bretton Woods institutions: the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These international financial institutions (IFIs) then designed and implemented the programs of structural adjustment
12. Economic Reform and Structural Adjustment The economic reform package and SAP was adopted as response to the financial crisis. The need to limit revenue deficits in both the Centre and States’ budgets led to limiting of public expenditure. Several states subsequently proposed some economy measures such as restriction on fresh recruitments/creation of new posts and limiting the growth of administrative expenditure. Institutional reforms have been proposed through the Fiscal Responsibility and Management Act (FRBM) to reduce fiscal deficit.
13. Expenditure on higher education per student at 1993-94 prices, declined from 7676 in 1990-91 to Rs, 5500 in 2002-03 (budget estimate). It is clear from the above figure that there has been much inconsistency with regard to expenditure on higher education per student. There has been almost 28 percent decline in the index over the period expenditure on higher education per student.
16. The reduction of state support to education and turning education as tradable good would have severe impact on skill generation and equity. They might affect (a) the overall demand for higher education, (b) even if (a) is not true due to the phenomenon of excess demand, it would affect the demand from middle and low income group students, and (c) adversely affecting the demand and supply mechanism at large.
