 RESOURCES FOR EDUCATION

19.1 The NPERC made an exhaustive study of several reports and documents and made valuable recommendations for augmenting resources for education.

19.2 The recommendations are, in brief, as follows:

i) Public investment in education should exceed 6 per cent of GNP.

ii) All technical and management education may be made self-financing with appropriate support to the students by way of student loans.

iii) Increase by higher education institutions of tuition fee and fees charged for specific purposes such as laboratory fee, library fee, etc.

iv) Mobilising institutional finance for promotion of research in universities and for creation of educational infrastructure such as buildings, hostels and staff quarters.

v) Increase in funds provided for scholarships by the Central Government.

vi) Mobilisation of community contribution.

vii) Efforts to be made by higher, and technical and management institutions to augment their income by way of consultancy and other services.

19.3 These recommendations are within the framework of the existing Education Policy; however, the Credit Policy needs to be revised to provide for a larger measure of student loans as well as developmental finances for education.

19.4 We reiterate the point which has been made by several committees and commissions earlier and which is indeed axiomatic that without adequate resources educational reconstruction would remain a slogan. The Kothari Commission had first put forth the view that public expenditure on education should be 6 per cent of the GNP. This view 3¯3 Š has been reiterated time and again and has come to acquire the characteristic of a national resolve. The NPE had proclaimed that from the Eighth Plan onwards the outlay on education would uniformly exceed 6 per cent of the National Income (Para 11.4). The NPERC had reiterated this prescription. Though all the Five Year Plans had stressed the importance of education as crucial for national development and survival, in actuality, education has been treated as residual sector in the matter of allocation of resources. We accept this finding and feel that this practice should be reversed and that the NPE

provision (para 11.4) should be implemented forthwith. Need-based financing is required for priority areas like Universalisation of Elementary Education, Adult Literacy and Vocationalisation.

19.5 We are conscious of the fact that given the competing demands and resource constraints, resources for education can never be adequate and that higher budgetary allocation for education should be complemented by other measures such as -

i) Prioritisation within the Education Sector in the matter of allocation of governmental resources.

ii) Progressively making higher education and technical and management education largely self-financing by revising the fee structure with appropriate support to the needy students by way of student loans.

iii) Institutional finances for development of educational infrastructure.

iv) Incentives to academic institutions to augment income by way of consultancy and other studies.

v) Encouraging community and the cooperative sectors to financially support education. The time and effort given by thousands of unpaid volunteers in the Total Literacy campaigns is a concrete demonstration of the possibility of raising social capital without any opportunity cost.

vi) Efficiency and effectiveness of expenditure which would imply that programmes should be judged not only with reference to the financial expenditure or coverage in terms of geographical area or number of beneficiaries but also in terms of outcomes.

19.6 The above framework is only a restatement of the NPE/POA provisions and of the NPERC recommendations and is relevant nonetheless. We would recommend that Central and State Governments, financial institutions and educational institutions draw specific action plans for operationalising this framework. 3æ3 Š 75