India spends just 1 percent of its GDP on higher education which is much lower compared to developed countries like US and UK
Dr Manasvi M. Kamat
The government expenditure on education in India as a percentage of GDP declined from 3.1 per cent in 2012-13 to 2.7 percent in the budget estimates for 2017-18. Out of the total expenditure on education, India spends about 1 percent of the GDP on higher education which is much lower compared to developed countries like the US and the UK. While the US spends about 1.37 percent of its GDP on higher education, the UK spends 1.34 percent.
Though it is believed that investment in higher education enhances the level of educational attainment in workforce for state’s economic future, the world has been hit hard by the budget problems leave alone India.
State policymakers around the world have overwhelmingly relied on spending cuts to make up for their lost revenues. Cut in expenditures have often and in many ways diminished access to education, quality and jeopardized outcomes. Higher education which otherwise rely heavily on state funding have responded to these cuts by cutting their own spending, discontinuing what they earlier offered to students, by eliminating student services and supports and through increasing the fees if they ran self financing courses.
Increase in fees compensate for only part of the revenue loss resulting from state funding cuts. In India for instance, the Union budget 2018-19 allocated only about 55 percent of the funds demanded for higher education. Further the institution-wise allocation of funds suggests that about half are given as grants to central universities, IIT/IIM’s, the UGC and AICTE leaving very small amounts for state universities and their affiliated colleges.
According to the 2016 Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development in the Report, ‘Issues and Challenges before Higher Educational Sector in India’, about 65 per cent of the UGCs budget is utilised by the central universities and their colleges while state universities and their affiliated colleges receive only the remaining 35 per cent. This can be viewed in tune with the AISHE 2017-18 findings that the state universities and their affiliated colleges together account for the majority share in the total university and college enrolment yet lack the required central government funding for their development.
Incidentally it may be pertinent to note that while the funds allocated for Rashtriya Ucchatir Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA)) increased by 8 percent in the budget estimates for 2018-19 over the revised estimates of 2017-18, as on the September 30, 2019 only about 24.7 percent of the central government funds were actually utilised under the RUSA scheme.
The incidences of the fund cut have been universal in recent years but have been drastic for developing countries. The UNESCO data show that between 2000 and 2013, government expenditure on education as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell in 39 countries, 12 of them in Africa while the expenditure on tertiary education as a percentage of total government expenditure fell in 34 countries, of which 11 were African. For US, Mitchelle and Leachman based on analysis of 2008-15 periods of inflation adjusted spending per student found that the funding for higher education across all the States in the US fell below the pre recession levels.
While national spending was essentially flat in the US between the 2017 and 2018 school years, 31 states actually cut per-student funding by about 2.6 percent, on average.
The recent figures show that during the 2017–18, total state spending on public two-and four-year degree programs was $7 billion less (adjusted for inflation) than it was in 2008. The average State spent $1,502, or 16 percent less per student in 2018 than in 2008. In some States, the cuts have been particularly deep Arizona, for example, currently spends half what it did in 2008.
In the last week of September this year at almost all Dutch universities and a number of lectures were held out of doors to protest against budget cuts in higher education. This was the first time that academic staff will campaign in so many different places for one week in the Netherlands, and the universities are scheduled to receive nearly Euro 12 million less in the coming year. Meanwhile, the government grant per student has been reduced by a quarter since the year 2000 when there are 68 percent more students today. Stiff budget cuts are also having an impact on Malaysia’s higher education. Research and education budgets are in shambles in Denmark and Finland. Finnish academics fear that government funding cuts could result in long-term damage to the country’s higher education sector after figures showed that the number of Ph.D educated Finns who have moved abroad increased by 37 percent between 2011 and 2015.
The case of our neighbouring country Pakistan is no different. Express Tribune has reported that this country’s budget has been slashed by 50 percent for the second consecutive fiscal year 2018 in order to control expenses while finances of new projects have been cut by nearly 65 percent.
The CAG recently pointed out that in India Rs. 83,497 crores were collected as cess for secondary and higher education, but has not been utilised. The scholarship for college and university students has been reduced from Rs. 294 crores to Rs. 40 crores while the overall Budget of UGC has been reduced from Rs. 4,922.74 crores to Rs. 4,722 crores. The budgetary support of the government has been reduced this year to Rs. 3,022 crores and if one deducts the capital investment under HEFA of Rs. 2,750 crores while the budget for higher education has been cut from Rs. 34,612.46 crores to Rs. 32,258.29 crores.
The above data shouts to suggest that higher education sphere has no one to look at to sustain. We all desire faster growth but be it India or elsewhere, but where is the money for higher education?
