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P LANNING P ARADIGM
concurrent responsibility of funding the
cost of providing such education.
The effort is long overdue, but the
major concerns to this are several. The
fi rst one is regarding the conditions laid
down in the act and its implications in
terms of funding. The expenditure on
elementary education (till class eight) in
India, combining both state and centre, is
around a static 1.6 to 1.7 percent of GDP.
The new effort might increase the need
for combined investment to three times
the present level. One is not sure how
much is spent at present to fulfi ll the goal.
The second major issue is its implication
on higher education. The gross enroll-
ment ratio (GER) in class XI-XII educa-
tion in India was around 28 percent in
2006-07 (Economic Survey, GOI, 2008-
09). The GER in higher education insti-
tutions (College and universities) was a
mere 13 percent in 2003 which might have
gone up insignifi cantly in recent years.
Once the new act is properly implement-
ed (which again may be a debatable issue),
the need to provide higher education
will go up tremendously. The
response of government is
still along the lines of crea-
tion of more colleges and
universities to cater to this
need. The emphasis is more on the provi-
sion of traditional subjects although the
government documents do stress on the
need to strengthen the urban and rural
polytechniques. The existing Public Private
Partnership (PPP) models are geared
more towards either provision of land to
private providers in lieu of government
quotas in those institutions or trying to
put a cap on the tuition fees and enforcing
a standardized teaching module.
However, it is increasingly felt that
providing general or traditional higher
128 THE IIPM THINK TANK
education to all is a worse alternative than
directing the students to their most deserving
streams. This creates the need for
more vocational and community colleges
in the society. Vocational education is really
in a mess for most states in India for
the simple reason that the government
lacks an educational map of the neighbourhood
where such a college is located.
Thus supply and demand of the skills
needed in the area is hardly known and
the system might create oversupply in
certain vocation while some other vocations
may be starving for lack of proper
skilled manpower. Such a planning is essential
with the active help of neighbourhood
industries (probably small and tiny in
nature), so that continuous upgrading of
the syllabus and infrastructure could be
made in the vocational colleges. Otherwise,
the students coming out of these
institutions will continuously search for
an appropriate opening, leading to depression
and despair in the minds of
thousand of our young men and women.
The response of govt is still along the
lines of creation of more colleges and
universities to cater to this need
The community college model in US
served this purpose exceedingly well.
They provided an opportunity to the economically
weak and school dropout section
of the society to fi nd a position in the
changing landscape of the economy. So,
the new Act should never be thought of as
an end in itself. It should be put in the
perspective of endowing the population
and the society with more human capital
which could bring more growth with equity
to the nation.
Infrastructure and
Backward Region Development
Indian Plan documents are replete with
policy suggestions for backward region
development in terms of accelerated
infrastructure development.
However, despite
different policy directions,
backwardness
has remained a major
issue in India today.
The process and principles
towards fund
devolution face serious
questions regarding its effi
ciency and underlying theoretical
foundations. The major issue is
not really how to identify the backward