LITERATURE ON RUSA
RashtriyaUchchatarShikshaAbhiyan (RUSA)
Introduction
RashtriyaUchchatarShikshaAbhiyan (RUSA) is a centrally sponsored scheme proposed by the Ministry of Human Resources Development/ UGC to ensure holistic planning at the state level and enhancement of allocations for the state institutions, which will spread over the two plan periods (XIIth and XIIIth) and it will focus on state higher educational institutions. A sum of Rs 5,00,00,000 has been earmarked for the implementation of RUSA in India during the said two plan periods.
There are 316 states public universities and 13,024 colleges that can be covered under RUSA. The funding will be provided in the (Centre:State) ratio of 90:10 for North-East-States.
The draft proposal of RUSA was approved by the Hon'ble Human Resource Development Minister and the same copy has been placed on the Ministry's website for discussion with various stakeholders. A meeting with State Governments was convened on 8th February, 2012 by the HRM to discuss the same.
HRD Ministry in consultation with Tata Institute of Social Sciences prepared the current draft of RUSA which has been published in January 2013 for circulation.
HIGHLIGHTS
Some important provisions of RUSA are highlighted here in order to give awareness to all concerned. Certainly, RUSA can prove to be a boon for the states like Manipur which are unable to implement the updated modern infrastructure and other essential items for up-gradation of higher education systems due to shortage of fund.
RUSA will have a completely new approach towards funding higher education in state universities and colleges. It is based on key principles of performance-based funding, incentivising well performing institutions and decision making through clearly defined norms, which will establish and rely upon a management information system to gather the essential information from institutions.
RUSA will aim to provide greater autonomy to universities as well as colleges and have a sharper focus on equity-based development and improvement in teaching-learning quality and research. It will be a new flagship scheme of the Government of India after successful implementations of SSA and RMSA in the primary and secondary levels of education respectively for overall development of the education system in India to compete with fast global changes.
Higher education needs to be viewed as a long-term social investment for the promotion of economic growth, cultural development, social cohesion, equity and justice. The globalisation era has necessitated inculcation of competitive spirit at all levels. This can be achieved only by bringing quality of higher standards to every sphere of work. Therefore, the quality of higher education has become a major concern-today.
On an average, about 94% of the students enrolled in state funded or state controlled private institutions come under the state higher education system in India. In Manipur, there are altogether 71 colleges which include 28 Government colleges, 12 aided colleges and 31private colleges. Enrolment of students in colleges during the last session were 22,968 students in Government colleges, 12,115 in aided colleges and 6,525 students in private colleges. It shows that 55.2% of the total enrolment was in Government colleges and more than 84% of students were enrolled in state funded Government and aided colleges. So, any efforts for development in this sector must recognise the importance of state higher education system.
An important element in ensuring quality and excellence in Higher Education is the need for adequate number of good faculty in Institutions of Higher Education. The number of existing teachers in government colleges is 1,019 and the number of sanction posts is 1,303. Thus, about 21.8% of the current faculty requirement remains vacant. However, as per the Manipur University syndicate approval in 1997, the number of teaching faculty required for the Government colleges in the state was 1,551.
So, a shortfall of 248 teachers has not been appointed in Manipur due to financial constrains in addition to the current vacant posts of 284 teachers. In other words, a total of 532 posts of teachers are not filled up now. This can be treated as an insult to the higher education system in Manipur. Moreover, underpaid teachers under the nomenclature of Part Time Lecturers have been utilised in the Government colleges to make up the huge shortfall in the number of teaching faculty in the colleges since the last 15-24 years. This is a clear evidence of compromising our higher education system-with-poverty-of-the-state.
Faculty shortage creates serious hurdles in the proper functioning of a college or University. All activities from the basic functions of teaching and research to curriculum development are compromised. The Supreme Court in its landmark judgment in T.M.A. Paimatter, had severely castigated institutions which do not employ full time qualified faculty. It said that "teachers are like foster parents to the students; can we afford to place the future of the country in hands of these hired teachers".
RUSA gives emphasis to ensure adequate availability of quality faculty in all higher educational institutions and ensure capacity building at all levels of employment. It is one of the various goals of RUSA. "Faculty Planning" is one of its strategic focus of RUSA and recruitment and capacity building of faculty is one of the its 15 primary components.
PREREQUISITES
A State Higher Education Council (SHEC) must be set up. This will perform multiple roles such as strategy and planning, monitoring, evaluation etc.
The States must make a detailed State Plan in the prescribed format duly keeping in mind the norms and indicators prepared under RUSA. Future allocations of fund would be based on the achievement of the targets and past performance of the States.
The State Government must commit 4% of its GSDP (Gross Domestic Products) for the State Higher Education Sector, if not in the first year of RUSA, but at least within 3years-of-RUSA-implementation.
It is necessary to appoint full time faculty in adequate numbers. Hence, the states must ensure that the faculty positions are filled on a phase-wise manner.
If any state has imposed a ban on regular recruitment of faculty, the state must ensure lifting of all bans on recruitment, and requisite proof must be produced.
"Filling faculty positions" is one of the prerequisites for the states to obtain fund under RUSA. Not more than 15% of the faculty positions can remain vacant at any time in the state. If any state has more than 15% faculty positions remaining vacant by the end of the first year of RUSA, such states may lose the entitlement for any further-grants.
The appointments made as well as the faculty already appointed must be remunerated according to UGC regulations and latest pay scales as prescribed.
The procedural bottlenecks in the recruitment processes must be actively eliminated.
Assessment and accreditation in the higher education, through transparent and informed external review process, are the effective means of quality assurance in higher education. Accreditation will be carried out by a recognised agency like NAAC.
There are various other provisions to get adequate funding under RUSA for the overall development of the state higher education system. However, accessing of fund strictly depend on the fulfilment of the various prerequisites and the effective utilisation of fund. So, all efforts of the state must be utilised in order to finish preparation of ground works in time so that adequate free flow of funding will come under RUSA. This will be the only ray of hope for a poor state like Manipur for growing up our human resources as par with the global changes in a rapid pace. Otherwise, our future will always be dim.
India is set to launch an ambitious higher education plan that will pump money into state universities, link university performance to funding and set up new institutions, thus creating expanded access to higher education for the country’s growing number of school-leavers.
The Ministry of Finance recently approved Rs250 billion (US$4 billion) towards RashtriyaUcchatarShikshaAbhiyan, or RUSA, which proposes to spend Rs990 billion (US$16 billion) over the 12th Plan (2012-17) and 13th Plan (2017-22) periods.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development, or HRD, will now approach cabinet for approval to implement the project in the current fiscal year.
The plan was initially proposed in 2012 by then HRD minister KapilSibal, and was approved by a parliamentary finance committee last July.
A finance ministry official said the committee had in principle approved the programme with a few riders. “We have told them to focus on the quality of institutions rather than just creating new infrastructure. Emphasis should be on student needs such as laboratories and training faculties rather than just building offices and classrooms,” he said.
Focus on states
Under RUSA, the focus will be on strengthening state institutions and building their capacity to use resources efficiently.
Notably, only 6% (500,000) of students studying in public institutions are enrolled in centrally funded institutions while state-controlled public institutions cater to about 94% (7.9 million) of students enrolled.
Yet the majority of funding from the central government goes to centrally funded institutions. In the 11th Plan (2007-12), central institutions grew by 13% while state institutions grew by 4.5%.
To be eligible for funding under RUSA, each state will have to set up a higher education council, which will channel funds from central government to colleges and universities – unlike the current system, where the money is paid directly to universities.
States will monitor the funding flow and will commit to their higher education spending not shrinking year after year. At least 4% of the gross domestic product of states has to be spent on higher education.
Other prerequisites include academic and institutional governance reforms, setting up state accreditation agencies and filling faculty positions.
“RUSA links the state government, the centre and the university, with all three working towards strengthening the higher education sector. This can rejuvenate declining state institutions and give a big boost to higher education in states,” said Professor BaishnabCharanTripathy, vice-chancellor of Ravenshaw University in Odisha state.
Notably, two-thirds of teaching posts across Odisha are vacant. “As per the RUSA guidelines, 80% of teacher posts in colleges should be filled. The [state] government is keen to fill the vacancies to qualify for RUSA funding,” said Tripathy.
Quality over quantity
While the central government set up dozens of new institutions under the 11th Plan, RUSA will focus on improving existing institutions rather than setting up new ones.
One focus area is strengthening state colleges and university departments. For instance, RUSA will limit the number of colleges affiliated to a university to 200, in order to improve governance.
Some universities currently have a huge number of constituent colleges. For example, Osmania University in Andhra Pradesh has more than 900 colleges affiliated to it.
“Universities spend time on administrative work such as conducting examinations, overseeing curricula and channelling funds to affiliated colleges, when they should focus on teaching and research,” said Professor MK Sridhar, member secretary and executive director of the Karnataka Knowledge Commission, a think-tank under the chief minister’s office.
“RUSA correctly focuses on decentralisation and autonomy. It limits political involvement in the university’s administration and gives autonomy to the process of selection of vice-chancellors and curriculum development.
“All these will go a long way in improving the quality of education,” Sridhar said.
Colleges will be encouraged to gain academic and administrative autonomy, become responsible for the curriculum and assessment, and become eligible to receive funds directly.
“The idea is to support some of the best colleges to develop into universities rather than starting new universities,” an education ministry official said.
Performance-based funding
RUSA also ambitiously talks about performance-linked funding to states, with institutions funded based on their performance.
“Until now a certain amount of funds was allocated and went to an institution irrespective of its performance. Under RUSA, the funds given to a state will be linked closely with the outcomes it can achieve. In short, good performance will be incentivised,” the ministry official explained.
“States and institutions will be encouraged to compete with each other in order to reap [the] benefits of competition-based formulaic grants.
“We want to achieve a gross enrolment ratio of 30% by 2020. This is possible only if we strengthen state institutions and build their capacity. Secondly, a focus on states will also ensure access to less privileged students, thus ensuring equity,” said the official.
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Literature on RUSA III
RashtriyaUchchatarShikshaAbhiyan (RUSA)
July 6, 2013- Decoded, Govt. Schemes, Latest, Miscellaneous, Politics & Administration- Tagged: government initiative for higher education in India, new in Indian Higher education system, what is RashtriyaUchchatarShikshaAbhiyan (RUSA)- no comments
The country will substantially increase the number of students in higher education in next seven years. The presentation made by the HRD Ministry to the Consultatative Committee expressed that RashtriyaUchchatarShikshaAbhiyan (RUSA) will increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) from 18% to 30%. The scheme estimated to cost Rs.99000 crore will include other existing schemes in the sector. The highlight of the scheme will be that central funding from the Ministry and UGC to institution will be through the State Council of Higher Education as against the direct funding by the Centre and UGC to educational institutions of higher education. Moreover, the funding by the Centre will be upto 90% and it will be available to even private institutions based on certain norms.
The scheme emphasizes to promote reforms in the State Higher Education System by creating a facilitating institutional structure for planning and monitoring at the state level. It will help to promote autonomy in state universities and include governance in the institutions. One of the goals of RUSA will be to ensure academic examination reforms in the higher education institutions and enable conversion of some of the universities into research universities at par with the best in the world.
The project will be implemented through HRD Ministry as a centrally sponsored scheme with matching contribution from the State government and Union Territories. It is proposed to set eligibility criteria for states to achieve a high and sustained impact of the project through monitoring and evaluation. The primary responsibility of the monitoring will lie with the institution themselves. The State Government and the Centre through The Project Appraisal Board will monitor the project annually. The main component of the programme is to set up New Universities and Upgrade the existing autonomous colleges to universities. The other attempt will be to convert colleges to Cluster Universities and set up new Model Colleges. The strategy will also include converting existing Degree colleges to Model Colleges.
He also wanted research be given more priority in the context of higher education. Pointing to various legislation relating to HRD pending in parliament, HRD Minister hoped that some of them will get parliamentary nod in the mansoon session.
Other related points that came up for discussion were expanding the institutional base by creating additional capacity in existing institutions and establishing new institutions in order to achieve enrolment targets; correcting regional imbalances in access to higher education by facilitating access to high quality institutions in urban and semi-urban areas creating opportunities for students from rural areas to get better access to better quality institutions; and improving equity in higher education by providing adequate opportunities of higher education to SC/STs and socially and educationally backward classes.
Executive Summary
RashtriyaUchchatarShikshaAbhiyan (RUSA).
There are 316 states public universities and 13,024 colleges, that can be covered under RUSA. The funding will be provided in the (Center : State) ratio of 90:10 for North-Eastern States & J&K, 75:25 for Other Special Category States (Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand) and 65:35 for Other States and UTs. Funding will be available to private government-aided institutions also, subject to their meeting certain pre-conditions, for permitted activities based on laid down norms and parameters. RUSA will have a completely new approach towards funding higher education in state universities; it is based on key principles of performance-based funding, incentivizing well performing institutions and decision making through clearly defined norms, which will establish and rely upon a management information system to gather the essential information from institutions. RUSA will aim to provide greater autonomy to universities as well as colleges and have a sharper focus on equity-based development, and improvement in teaching-learning