Financing and Privatization of Higher Technical Education: Trajectories between Equity and Excellence

• In Event: Economic and Finance aspects of Education

Proposal

The higher education around the globe is experiencing new challenges with rapid expansion of the sector. The concerns for access, quality and excellence have become even more intense with rising importance of ranking, technology and innovations. While the developed countries are comparatively placed well with the quality and equity concerns but struggling with advancement of technology and innovations, the developing and underdeveloped countries are facing multiple challenges to cope up with tremendous expansion of higher education, privatization and growing private providers in higher education.
The significant contribution of higher and technical education for economic growth and development in a global knowledge economy has made it important human capital of a country. Funding of technical education gets special attention by the federal government (States) in United States for its significant contribution to economic growth and development. The funding is performance based by many states for improving performance of technical colleges looking at placements or employment by the graduates or attainment of industry-recognized credentials or technical education completion rates (Foster et al., 2014).It is observed in the context of Pacific countries that, to make future financing of technical and vocational education more efficient and effective at both national and regional levels it is important to identify key financing issues typical to a region, and identify directions through which they can be addressed considering sustainable quality and role of quality assurance mechanisms for both public and private providers (Bateman et al., 2015).
However, the growing demand for technical and professional education and thereby the rising cost of job-oriented courses, has put pressure on public exchequer for financing of it. There is a growing reliance on self-financing mode of financing and increasing participation of private providers in the provision of technical and professional courses. It has raised concerns for quality and affordability of such types of courses. An earlier study recommended for a rational, long-term strategyfor tuition and fee rate setting that is aligned with state goals, considers costs for students andinstitutional revenue needs, and is developed in consultation with state higher educationexecutives, governing boards, institution presidents, and state policymakersto addresscollege affordability (Armstrong et al., 2017).
There are studies pointing out towards quality enhancement by updating the skills needed as per industry requirements. It has been suggested (Burnett and Thrift) to provide high-quality professional/vocational education which is deeply embeddedin the cutting-edge research and development, latest technologies in the context of UK universities in partnershipwith industry who sponsors the cost of education and thereby tackling also the affordability concerns of the students from poor economic backgrounds.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) identifies seven global trends in higher education: Expansion, Diversification of offerings, Heterogeneity in student bodies, new funding arrangements, Increased focus on accountability and performance, new forms of governance, and Global networking, mobility, and collaboration which has the objective of quality enhancement (Daugherty et al., 2013).
Despite the initiatives for quality enhancement, accreditation mechanisms and regulatory bodies, the private providers seeking for profit motive offer those courses and programmes which has higher demand from the aspiring students due to their lucrative employment outcomes and employability. There is a competition between public and private (corporate types) technical and professional institutions for enrolments in such courses (both for masters and bachelors courses) and for placements which pushes up the fees of such courses further (Geiger & Heller, 2011). It is further stated that there are competitions for research grants, intellectual property rights, patents, consultancy activities as well as linkages with industries or companies.
The massive expansion of higher education in a Developing country like India with a GER of 27.3 percent has brought in new issues and concerns for policy makers. Such expansion is driven by the growing enrolments in private sector and particularly in market oriented courses (in technical and professional streams) for better employment opportunities. The public institutions offering technical and professional courses have realized the competition from private providers who operate in a commercial mode offering self-financing courses and pressure of ranking and therefore enhancing quality and excellence.
With the fact that the expansion of higher technical education driven by private sector, it is quite pertinent to observe from available government data sources that the private (household/students) funding of the system is greater than public funding. Post new economic reforms, structural adjustment policy and recently New Education Policy 2020 has also directed the education system for generating own resources by the educational institutions through cost sharing, and income generating activities.
In this context, the study explores public funding of higher education institutions (HEIs) offering self-financing courses and the resource mobilization strategies or innovative methods adopted by HEIs and thereby overall implications of changing sources of funding on equity and excellence concerns of higher education.
The study is based on a mixed methodology approach, using samples from students, teachers and focused group discussions with administrators at the HEI level and state government department level funding or facilitating the process of funding to technical and professional HEIs.
It seems there has been widening of inequalities between technical and professional HEIs in public and private entities as well as between new and old established institutions. In the process there are distortions in terms of courses offered as the market value or employability of offered courses determine the fee structure and capacity of institutions to mobilize additional resources. The competition for ranking and therefore enhancing excellence and quality has created a unaddressed vacuum related to the concerns of access and equity.

Author

• Jinusha Panigrahi, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi, India