PART FOUR : SUPPLEMENTARY PAPERS MINUTE OF SUPPLEMENTATION
The object of this minute is to submit the accompanying report, bearing the title `manpower-planned Development and Reform of Higher Education' for consideration by the Government of India and all the State Governments in India.
2. When I began this work, I had intended to prepare a perspective plan-frame for the entire National Educational System, in all its levels, and relate it to forecast of growth of National Economy. This relationship was intended to be worked out in two aspects, one in relation to the growing requirements of educated manpower which would be rendered necessary be economic growth; and the other in relation to growth in the allocation of resources for the National Educational System which would be rendered possible by economic growth. When this ambitious project was half-way through, I fell ill; and the work was at first interrupted and subsequently delayed. Eventually, I limited the scope of the project to higher education and completed a report and presented it for consideration by my colleagues of the commission. This was in the middle of April this year. By that time it had become too late. I had missed my chance-such as it might have been of establishing a meeting of minds and coordinating conclusions and recommendations.
3. The process of development of higher education may be described as being `manpower-planned' when it includes the following as one of its major objectives: The productive capacity of higher educational institutions (assessed in terms of the annual out-turn of higher educated manpower cohorts) should be increased from year to year at such a rate that the annual out-turn matches (in number of cohorts, as well as their composition by classification of higher educational attainment) the parallel growth of annual demand of the developing national economy for higher educated manpower cohorts required for first employment.
4. The process of reform of higher education may be described as being `manpower-planned', when such reform is designed to bring about a planned adaptation of higher-educational curricula as well as higher educational administration, so as to meet the requirements of `manpower-planned' development of higher education with the maximum practical efficiency.
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938 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
5. I am not qualified by experience to deal with syllabuses, teaching methods and such other matter's as may be described as the 'technology of higher education. My report is, accordingly, limited to those considerations of public policy relating to manpower-planned development and reform of higher education (as defined above) and connected questions of administrative organization on which decisions Will have to be taken by Government.
There is also one further limitation. It is necessary for some purposes that the time-horizon of a perspective Plan should he beyond two decades. These are mainly educative purposes. The interval is too long, however, for operational decisions to be taken by Governments in the next few years. As my report is related to such decisions only, my time-horizon is nearer. It lies around 1975-76, the final year of the Fifth Plan Period.
6. The scope of this report presents a special difficulty. it is not limited to higher educational institutions and higher educational administration. I have to deal also with the enterprises and institutions in which higher educated persons are employed, including the occupations in which they are self-employed. This would not have mattered so much if there were an official or otherwise generally accepted system of correlation of education planning and manpower-planning. Unfortunately there is, as yet, no such system. It was necessary for me, at least partially, to develop the conceptual framework of such a system.
7. The foregoing remark is apt to be construed as a reflection on our administrative organization, which it is not. I hasten, therefore, to add that there is, as yet, no such system in the United States of America or the United Kingdom either. It is well known that our effort to realize a planned economy within the framework of a free, democratic and quasi-federal policy is a pioneering venture. it is wholly unprecedented in, history. In every aspect of this effort we come up against the difficulty that there is no ready-made model to follow. We are obliged to find our own way by trial and error.
8. We have made not only a good beginning but also achieved rapid progress in 'manpower-planned' development of one particular branch of higher education,viz., engineering education. As a result, we do posses a valuable fund of 'trial-and-error experience' on which to draw. This experience has been intensively studied in the Institute Applied Manpower Research. The nature and results of these studies have already been made public in three reports issued by the Institute. I have made use of these results and endeavoured to adapt and extend them to the entire area of higher education. Some special studies were necessary in order to effect such adaptation and extension. They were also carried out in the Institute.
MINUTE OF SUPPLEMENTATION 939
9. Engineering education is one branch of higher education where it is indubitable that the planned rate of growth has to be the fastest. Even in respect of this branch, the studies made in the Institute have led to the conclusion that the present tendency to go on accelerating the rate of growth is mistaken and should be corrected. There are two kinds of manpower shortages. One is quantitative and the other is qualitative. The conclusion is that the problem of quantitative shortage of engineering manpower is ceasing to exist. The time has arrived when the rate of growth of institutional capacity has to be moderated, instead of being further accelerated. A change of tempo is needed also in order efficiently to plan and implement these reforms which are necessary for solving the problem of qualitative shortage which has now come to the forefront.
10. While the foregoing appreciation of the situation is not yet generally accepted in respect of engineering education, it is likely that there would be a larger measure of agreement on a similar appreciation about higher education as a whole, and more particularly about arts education. The report deals fully with this wider question and gives reasons for believing that our current rate of accelerating growth of higher education (taken as a whole, inclusive of all branches) is outrunning the growing capacity of our National Economy to employ the growing numbers of higher educated manpower efficiently. It is also outrunning the growing capacity to allocate the resources needed for maintaining an raising the quality and utility of higher education.
11. We are, in fact, going through a process of educational inflation which requires to be brought under control for much the same reasons as the other and more familiar processes of inflation in the National Economy.
To this end it is necessary to fix (not a target but) a ceiling for the overall rate of growth of higher education including all its branches. The report proceeds on the basis that a decision of this kind must be taken as the starting point for subsequent determination of appropriately different and consequently unequal rates of growth for Different branches of higher education, so as to correlate such unequal rates to the unequal rates of growth of different occupational groups of higher educated manpower which will be dictated by the changing pattern of employment in the National Economy.
12. There is, as earlier noted, no generally accepted system of correlation of educational planning and manpower-planning. It is widely assumed by many who sense the need for a system in a vague way, that it is some kind of a number-game to be played by expert statisticians who have specialized in that subject. This assumption is wide of the mark. Planning decisions relating to education and manpower (like
940 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
all other planning decisions) are, no doubt, reached in the light of statistical data. But the decisions are not mere statistical computations; they are administrative judgments. This is so for two reasons. First, our statistics are incomplete and defective for purposes of forecasting the future; and it will take time to improve them. Even if they are improved and the techniques are further elaborated, we cannot attain predictive finality. Secondly, we need to forecast the future, not in order to realize the future exactly as predicted, but to modify it to the extent practicable so as to attain policy objectives.
What is important,therefore,is not so much the improvement of statistics and research (needed though that is) but the improvement of administrative organizations which are responsible for programme- planning and programme-implementation. They should be rendered increasingly competent to use available data, such as they are, and yet make increasingly better administrative judgments.
Stress is accordingly laid throughout my report on the development of needed administrative machinery.
13. The report is arranged as follows:
There are only four main recommendations. They are set out in the first chapter.
The next five chapters are explanatory. Beginning with a formal explanation of new concepts and special terminology, the meaning, purpose and implications of recommendations are made clear. An account is also included of the nature and results of special studies which were undertaken in order to link the results of previous studies about Engineering Manpower with present recommendations about Higher- Educated Manpower as a whole and the major occupational groups thereof.
The final chapter sets out a series of subsidiary recommendations about the division of executive responsibility between the Government of India and the State Governments and the further development of administrative machinery.
14. The four main recommendations may be very briefly restated here.
First. The Government of India and all the State Governments should accept the premises and objectives of Public policy underlying manpower-planned development and reform of higher education and formally adopt an agreed statement of All-India Policy.
Secondly. The objectives of All-India Policy as thus settled, should be quantified in a framework of targets and ceilings (referred to in the report as the 'Higher Educational Perspective Plan- frame').
Thirdly. The responsibility for taking executive action at governmental level which will accrue as a result of adoption of the higher
MINUTE OF SUPPLEMENTATION 941
educational perspective plan-frame should be dearly defined and distributed. What the Government of India should do and what each State Government should do should be agreed upon.
Fourthly. The foregoing agreements should be placed before and accepted by Parliament and State Legislatures. Such acceptance should take the form of enactment of such legislation as may be needed in order to provide a firm statutory basis for implementation of the agreements.
15. What is described as the draft of a Higher Educational Perspective Plan-frame has been offered in the annexure to the first chapter of the report. Strictly speaking, it should have been referred to as the 'nucleus of a draft'. Before it can become operational it will require to be not merely finalized but also amplified.
It is repeatedly emphasized in the report that the figures representing targets and ceilings (referred to as 'control figures') which are specified in the draft are not intended to be and should not be regarded as unarguable results of exact statistical computations. They represent judgments, which I believe to be good ones. The Governments may accept my general appreciation of the situation and yet adopt different figures. The essential purpose of the draft (accompanied as it is by detailed exposition of the process by which the figures were arrived at) is to carry conviction that an exercise of the nature recommended is both necessary and practicable and should, therefore, be undertaken.
16. In concluding this minutes I wish to place on record my appreciation of the earnest and painstaking manner in which a number of relevant studies were carried out by various officers of the Institute of Applied Manpower and Research. Much of the data used in the accompanying report are based on careful studies made by Shri H. N. Pandit and Shri Q. U. Khan. I have benefited by advice and assistance which I received from Shri A. K. Das Gupta, Shri K. N. Sundaram and Dr. S. P. Agarwal.
R. A. GOPALASWAMI
NEW DELHI Member
29 June, 1966 Education Commission
CONTENTS
Manpower-Planned Development and Reform of Higher Education
Chapter I Statement of Four Specific Recommendations 945-948
Annexure to
Chapter I (Draft) Higher Educational Perspective Plan-Frame 946
Chapter II Introductory Explanation 948-952
Section 1 Definition of Higher Education (paras 1 to 6) 948
Section 2 Levels, Sub-levels, types and detailed Classification of
Higher Educational Curricula and Awards (paras 7
to 12)949
Section 3 Definition of 'Manpower', 'Cohort' and the con-
cept of 'Manpower-Planned Development and
Reform' (paras 13 to 18) 950
Section 4 The Concepts of the 'Final Target Year', 'Interim
Target Year' and 'Control Figures' (paras 19 to 24) 951
Chapter III The Problem of 'Educational Inflation'-a Statistical
Study and Lessons for Planning 952-963
Section 1 Preliminary Remarks (paras 25 to 31) 952
Section 2 Economic Growth Assumptions (paras 32 to 35) 953
Section 3 Educationally Classified Persons-1960-61 (paras 36
to 44) 954
Section 4 Trend-Based Growth up to 1975-76 (paras 45 to 52) 956
Section 5 Possible Objections and Answers Thereto (paras 953
to 72)958
Chapter IV Proposed Growth of the National Stock of Higher
Educated Manpower and Major Occupational Groups There
of 963-971
Section 1 Employment Categories (paras 73 to 75) 963
Section 2 Major Occupational Categories (paras 76 to 83) 964
Section 3 Higher Educated Teaching Manpower (paras 84
to 87)966
Section 4 Engineering Manpower (paras 88 to 94) 967
Section 5 Scientific and Technical Manpower (other than
Engineering and Science-teaching Manpower)
(paras 95 to 97) 968
Section 6 Public Administrative and Corporate Managerial
Manpower (paras 98 to 109) 969
Chapter V Proposed Growth of the Annual Out-turn of Higher
Educational Cohorts and the Different Levels and
Types Thereof 971-977
Section 1 Preliminary Remarks (paras 110 to 112) 971
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944 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Section 2 Higher Educational Cohorts and Higher Educated
Manpower Cohorts (paras 113 to 118) 972
Section 3 Different Types of National Higher Educational
Cohorts (paras 119 to 127) 973
Section 4 Professional-Specialized Education and Sub-profes-
sional-Specialized Education (paras 128 to 132). 976
Chapter VI Proposed Growth of Pupil-Enrolment and Teacher-
Employment in Higher Educational Institutions and
Financial Provision for Direct Expenditure Thereon 977-982
Section 1 Preliminary Remarks (paras 133 and 134) 977
Section 2 Enrolment of Pupils (paras 135 to 142) 977
Section 3 Employment of Teachers (paras 143 to 145) 979
Section 4 Allocation of Funds for 'Direct Expenditure' (paras
146 to 149) 979
Section 5 Sources of Funds for 'Direct Expenditure' (paras 150
to 156) 980
Chapter VII Proposed Scheme of Specification of Executive Res-
ponsibility of the Government of India and each of
the State Governments and Statutory Basis Therefor 982-992
Section 1 Preliminary Remarks (paras 157 to 162) 982
Section 2 Higher Educational Finance and Administration:
(Proposed) Division of Functions between the
Union and States (paras 163 to 172) 983
Section 3 Machinery of Higher Educational Administration:
Engineering and Technology Branch (paras 173
to 177) 985
Section 4 Machinery of Higher Educational Administration:
Other Branches (paras 178 to 182) 987
Section 5 Union Corporate Services Commission (paras 183 to
188) 988
Section 6 Union Manpower Authority and State Manpower
Authorities (paras 189 to 196) 990
MANPOWER-PLANNED DEVELOPMENT AND REFORM OF HIGHER EDUCATION
CHAPTER I. STATEMENT OF FOUR SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS
I. ALL-INDIA POLICY OF MANPOWER-PLANNED DEVELOPMENT AND REFORM
OF HIGHER EDUCATION There is need for ensuring that further development of higher education in India is planned so as to fulfil the following conditions:
First. The annual requirements of the country in respect of additions to the national stock of higher educated manpower should be assessed in advance with as much precision and firmness as may be found to be practicable. Arrangements should be made to secure that the assessed requirements are adequately met by the annual supply of higher educated manpower cohorts made available by all the higher educational institutions in the country.
Secondly. Arrangements should be made to ensure that higher educated manpower cohorts will not remain unemployed or wastefully under-employed. Employment should be made available as nearly as may be in those capacities in which they are able to make the best use of the educational preparation given to them.
Thirdly. The courses of studies which are at present provided in higher educational institutions should be reviewed in the light of the changes which are occurring in the pattern of employment of higher educated manpower cohorts. The structure and content of these courses of studies, as well as admission requirements, should be reviewed and the entire system reformed so as to provide the best possible educational preparation for the different occupational groups of higher educated manpower.
Fourthly. There is need for developing a new type of 'promotional-extension' courses of studies for secondary educated persons who are already in employment and are found suitable for promotion, so as to raise their educational level to parity With that of higher educated manpower. Special arrangements necessary for this purpose should be devised and developed.
Fifthly. During the last decade, the demand for higher educated manpower cohorts has been increasing from year to year at a faster rate than ever before. At the same time, however, the annual out-turn of higher educated manpower cohorts from all the higher educational institutions of the country has been growing even faster than the demand. As a result, the difficulty of securing higher educated employment has been increasing; and the numbers of higher educated employment-seekers have grown excessively in different parts of the country. As employment becomes more difficult to secure, the pressure of demand for admission to higher educational institutions becomes intensified. Thus a process of 'higher educational inflation' has been building up. This is likely to get worse and worse because 'secondary educational inflation' has also been building up at the same time. It is now necessary to bring this inflationary pressure under control, without any avoidable delay. In order to secure this result, it is essential that a system of effective government control over the increase in the number of seats for enrolment of students in all higher educational institutions should be organized. On the basis of such control, it is further necessary to institute a system of competitive entrance requirements for all higher educational institutions, similar to the system developed in recent years for engineering educational institutions.
It is, therefore, recommended that the Government of India and all the State Governments should agree upon and adopt a statement of all-India policy on 'manpower-planned development and reform of higher education', embodying the foregoing considerations.
II. HIGHER EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE PLAN-FRAME After achieving agreement on all-India policy, there would be Deed for a common all-India basis for organizing 'Manpower-Planned Development and Reform of Higher Education' in accordance with such policy. To this end, it is necessary that the Government of India and all the State Governments should jointly agree upon and adopt a 'Higher Educational Perspective PlanFrame'. Programmes of development and reform, to be planned and implemented by many different authorities, should be maintained in coordination with one another by the common requirements of conformity to the Higher Educational Perspective Plan-Frame. A draft of such a plan-frame has been prepared and is annexed to this chapter. The meaning, purpose, and
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