Centre announces Rs1,00,000-cr scheme for higher education

The government on Friday announced a centrally-sponsored scheme for higher education, involving an expenditure of nearly Rs1,00,000 crore, spread over the 12th and 13th plan periods.

The announcement, which coincided the election commission's announcement of elections to five state assemblies, said the cabinet committee on economic affairs (CCEA) approved the Rs1,00,000-crore Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), late on Thursday.

The scheme entails spending some Rs98,138 crore over the 12th Plan (2012-17) and 13th plan (2017-22) periods, Shashi Tharoor, minister of state for human resource development, told reporters in New Delhi. It will be a ''new flagship scheme of the government that will pave the way for far-reaching reforms at the state level''.

''Traditionally, the focus has always been on a modest number of central institutions but the reality is 96 per cent of the students are from states,'' Tharoor said, adding, the government has been ''devoting more resources to a small number of elite institutes while state institutions are languishing in mediocrity.''

Of the total funding, the central government will spend Rs69,675 crore and the rest will be contributed by the states.

The central government, the minister said, will put in place a new mechanism under which more money can flow to states and this will not be through the University Grants Commission (UGC).

The minister said the UGC got about Rs22,000 crore during the 11th Plan period but managed to spend less than Rs8,000 crore.

''We have to be practical about certain issues. While UGC will continue to stay in the standard setting and regulating space, some of its fund giving schemes will be subsumed in the new plan,'' Tharoor said.

Centre-state funding would be in the ratio of 90:10 for north-eastern states and special states like Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, Tharoor said.

The rest will have a sharing pattern of 65:35, like the one in place for the Right to Education (RTE).

The new scheme will focus on state higher educational institutions, covering a total of 316 state public universities and 13,024 colleges.

The scheme will help states build some 278 new universities, 388 new colleges, and convert 266 colleges into model colleges.

This will also benefit some 20,000 professors, a ministry paper said.

Overall, some 22,000 colleges will benefit from the central funding, RP Sisodia, a joint secretary in the ministry, explained. ''We are rolling out the scheme today,'' he said.

To avail the funds, each state needs to set up a state higher education council, remove a ban on appointment of faculty members and improve the teacher-students ratio to a level like 1:15.

Under RUSA, the government proposes to improve gross enrolment ratio at institutions of higher learning from 19 per cent at present to 30 per cent by 2020.

It will help create new academic institutions, and expand the existing institutions, that are self-reliant in terms of quality education and professional management.

There will be greater inclination towards research and students will be provided with education that is both relevant to them as well as the nation as a whole.