[Previous posts in the series: here and here]
With the ever growing economic reputation of India at the global level and the paradigm shift of the social mentality for the professional activities from primary to more sustained and secured ones, the education sector in India is on an exponential rise. The whole process though, from the institutions, infrastructure, funding is still very flawed and disparate. For example, the funding from state and central government is now granted mainly to state run universities and is not able to give any kind of coverage to the private ones. This leverage is put in place with the expectation to avoid the financial pressure on the student base and let them pursue the higher education at a subsidised price in a state run institution. But given that there is a proliferation of private higher education institutions in India since last two decades and the numbers are constantly growing, the financial burden to run a private institution falls mainly on the incoming students. This leads to the high levels of tuition fees and other charges that the students have to incur to get education.
Scholarship Segment in India
With the limited scope and accessibility of the educational loans (only 9 percent of students, with a majority of them belonging to the middle-income families, seek loans); the alternative of the scholarships seems a better one. At the same time, financing for scholarship and fee reimbursement, despite the rising cost of the education (especially higher education) making it beyond the reach of a large section of Indian society, still seems like a faint effort to make education affordable to all. The main focus of the scholarship initiatives is at the higher education level with only a handful of them supporting the school education. The scholarship market in India, which is still far from making an impact on a larger front, needs to grow its base to establish and sustain a more conducive environment for impacting the education demand at the individual level.
Government-Aided Scholarships
Almost all of the government scholarships are managed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development with the assistance of the sub-departments. Some of the aid programmes run by the government are:
INSPIRE Scholarships offers 10,000 scholarships every year at Rs.80,000/- each for undertaking Bachelor and Masters level education in the Natural & Basic sciences and is managed by the Department of Science and Technology.
Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund provides assistance for doctoral studies with the per month stipend of Rs 12000 for scholarships and Rs 50000 for fellowships.
Central Scheme of Scholarships for College and University Students aims at providing Rs 1000 per month for graduation and Rs 2000 for post graduation for higher studies in engineering and medical to around 82000 students.
The government expenditure on education is already considered highly inadequate and is the lowest among the global peers of the similar economic and growth aspects. Government support to students in terms of scholarships and grants schemes is even more alarming (for higher education, less than 0.5% of the total expenditure on education and it is consistently declining). The amount of the scholarship earmarked for the college and university students was Rs 250 million in the year 2003-2004 and was increased to Rs 450 million in the year 2008-2009 (with the objective of covering at least 2% of the student population pursuing higher studies). This considerable absolute increase looses it significance when it’s mapped relative to the growth of other sector parameters (increase in Gross Enrolment Ration, flooding of educational institutions etc) during the period. The amount of scholarship accounts for a proportion of the tuition fees at maximum. In many cases, due to cumbersome disbursement procedures and various leakages in the procedures, the assistance option is not received in time.
Private/Corporation Aided Scholarships
The private players and some corporate houses are performing an influential role in shaping the country’s next generation leaders. Renowned business houses like Jindal Group, Birla Group, Tata Group, Reliance and many other high net worth individuals are mobilising huge sums of capital to leverage the students in pursuing their educational dreams. Motivated by their sense of social responsibility or gratitude towards their alma mater, every year they are providing financial support for the studies of students in India and abroad.
Aditya Birla Group Scholarships provide considerable sums to selected candidates for their studies in the partner institutions (Rs. 175,000 per annum for Management and Rs. 65,000 for Engineering). OP Jindal Group provides Rs. 125,000 for Management and Rs 65,000 for Engineering studies at their partner institutions. Sir Ratan Tata Trust and The Allied Trusts have dedicated funds providing financial support for studies at all the education levels with some funds specifically for the marginalized groups’ education and development. KC Mahindra Trust provides support for school education as well as for higher studies. Apart from that, there is a merit cum need scholarship option in almost all the private institutions which covers substantial amounts of tuition fees. The whole process is very smooth and is uncluttered with red tapes.
This segment still presents a wide room for a much better coverage with the adequate support from the governments and an unbiased channel to induce efficiency and equity in the whole aid process.
International Scholarships
The increasing importance of the inter-governmental relations and the attention of the association and councils in bringing equilibrium in global standard levels has provided students with resources to carry out their studies abroad as well.
Rhodes Scholars, a fund sponsored by Rhodes Foundation provides all expenses paid scholarships for post graduation studies at Oxford University. Reliance Dhirubhai Ambani Group covers all the expenses of 5 Indian students every year for their MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Management. The Gates Cambridge Scholarships provides all costs covered aid for graduate studies at University of Cambridge. British Council in association with various universities and administrative houses (both in India and the UK) has grants, mostly, in post graduation studies at various UK universities. Most of them are an all expenses paid gateway to the arena of one of the best global provider for education. Victoria State Government in Australia provides 10 scholarships of AUD 90,000 each for doctoral studies at elite universities in the state. Sir Ratan Tata Scholarships provide a grant of GBP 20,000 to each candidate for masters in the UK and US universities.
Apart from that there is a whole bunch of government aided international scholarships provided in collaboration with the administrations of Asia Pacific and European nations.
Room for More
With the framework developed by constructive collaboration between the government, promoters, educational industry players and the management of the institutions, there is whole range of initiatives that can be put in place to target the problem of education affordability. A centralised administration of merit based scholarship schemes for example can be deployed to streamline the whole process. This provides the possibility to administer the scholarships process more efficiently while curbing the analogous expenditure on administrative handlings as incurred by every aid scheme. The sentinels to refine the process can provide for a better approach to the issue and thus incentivise more players to dive in.
