Education reform has been in the air in recent days but what made headlines was, to my mind, the wrong story. Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal’s proposal for optional Class X board exams is a welcome step, given the trauma associated with the exam to both students and parents. I will not go into his other proposals including a controversial nationwide Class XII board exam but suffice it to say Sibal’s plans will not fundamentally alter education in this country, and there is a dire need for fundamental reform.

The two gripping problems in education in this country are:

•    Universal literacy and the challenge of sending every child to school, and
•    The lack of higher education opportunities, demand for which is soaring resulting in many going to sub-standard universities abroad, including to Australia.

Any reform needs to address these issues and Sibal surely doesn’t. Both are crucial to India fully realising the advantages of the so-called “demographic dividend” – the potential growth possible on account of a large working age population. Economists believe India can benefit from this demographic dividend over the next 30 years. In fact, it is because of this that some, including Robert Ward of The Economist Intelligence Unit, believe that India’s long-term growth potential is greater than that of China,” which has already reaped most of the benefits arising from a similar demographic dividend.

Sibal’s plan, part of an effort by the UPA government to demonstrate some action in its first 100 days in office, offers  little to address the first, which is clearly the far bigger challenge. But it’s a pity that a panel headed by Prof. Yashpal to study higher education reforms has rejected several path-breaking suggestions by a colleague, Kaushik Basu. The Cornell University economist has outlined several of his ideas in an article in Outlook magazine. The key points he makes are:

•    Delicense higher education in this country (just look at how delicensing has helped industry since the 1990s!)
•    Allow for-profit educational institutions, even publicly listed companies (after all, private educational institutions are already in it for profit, though they employ surrogate means to pocket them)
•    Market-determined or quasi-market forces to set salaries for professors, rather than a uniform pay structure laid out by the University Grants Commission

Now, these are game-changing proposals and are meant to provide an alternative to the wholly impractical choice of the government setting up enough universities to meet soaring demand for higher education.  But instead of opening up a broad debate, the Yashpal panel has rejected them, kowtowing a judicial ruling that unrealistically bars education for profit.

Basu is candid about some of the drawbacks of this free and open education system. There will be several sub-par universities. Even the United States has the best of universities and the worst of universities. While this would not be remediable, it can be mitigated by rating the universities, thereby giving students the key information they need before making their choices.

 If this is to be India’s century, as many believe, it has got to quickly get its education right.