Budget 2024: Right time to prioritise higher education

India is a nation with the largest young population in the world. Indian economy is envisioned to triple over the next 12-15 years towards its goal to create “Viksit Bharat”. On the other hand, seismic changes are underway on the technology front, reinventing and reorienting most traditional sectors and opening up new mega opportunities with massive potential in India and around the world. It’s, therefore, of paramount importance for India to articulate policies related to education and support them with budgetary and regulatory enablers in a way where India’s path to becoming a developed nation can be made robust and accelerated.

1. Objective: To be able to deal with the tsunami of disruptive changes in business environments triggered by new-age technologies, the Indian workforce and the youth need to have institutionalised mechanisms to unlearn, learn and relearn.

Proposed Policy Intervention

Education as a Service:
a) To institutionalise systemic orientation of educational institutes to offer education as a service as a subscription model; where workforce and youth keep coming back to these institutes to unlearn, learn and relearn to continue to remain relevant based on the future of work and related knowledge, and skills and competencies.

b) Allow educational institutions to offer nano degrees, with specialised cutting-edge knowledge or skills.

2. Objective: Moving towards the national objective of "Viksit Bharat", in line with the emerging sectors/opportunities for India, preparing trained and skilled human resources around those emerging opportunities.

Proposed Policy Intervention:

a) Incentives for the Institutes of the central and state government to leverage PPP (Public Private Partnership Model), and in partnership with sector-specific domain expert company; create research facilities, research-oriented faculty and course offerings related to public health, sustainability, chip fabrication, agri-tech, sustainable food processing, civic governance, AI (Artificial Intelligence) space technologies, defence indigenisation, etc.

b) Embedding educational institutions within the campuses of premier research and development institutions such as ISRO, DRDO, etc.

c) ITI to be embedded in companies or organisations with the PPP model (Public Private Partnership).

d) Currently unused land space of IITs and IIMs can be leased out on PPP models to incubators, accelerators, angel investors and venture capital firms.

e) Indian defence/military can be mandated and incentivised to start medical training facilities by attaching defence or military hospitals.

f) Integrating professional skill and technology-related corporate certifications offered by global technology giants (e.g. Google, Microsoft certifications, etc.) with the regular degree credit system of higher educational institutions.

g) Financial/tax incentives to companies or organisations to offer industry immersion programs to the faculty of educational institutes of the central government.

3. Objective: To mobilise low-cost global funds for "green initiatives" of academic institutions and their courses related to sustainability, etc.
Trillions of dollars worth of funds for sustainability projects are available globally, which can be mobilised by green bonds.

Proposed Policy Intervention: HEFA (Higher Education Financing Authority) can be further strengthened and mandated to mobilise Rs 1 lakh crore over the next 5 years by issuing foreign currency-denominated ultra long-term green bonds.

4. Objective: To ensure that by providing trained and skilled healthcare professionals for the ageing Indian and global population, to enable Indians to earn foreign exchange abroad and send it back for the development of our country and also create job opportunities for Indians.

This objective can be achieved with incentives for India to become the global hub for:
· Geriatric care, supplier of a) trained and experienced paramedical resources, b) trained nursing staff c) trained and skilled health tech providers, etc.

· Wellness centres: Holistic health concepts around AYUSH and Yoga not just for Indians but for the world population in India and abroad.

Policy Interventions:

Indian Railway’s Train Stations as the hub for skilling institutes and job creation:

Railways/train stations can be the hub for para-medical training and healthcare facilities can be located wherever unused Indian Railway land is available.

Why train stations?: Because students, faculty and patients from remote and rural areas can also easily reach these places without too much of a commute by road.

Why para medical training only?: That’s where millions of jobs can be created and that’s where there has been and will continue to be a supply crunch e.g. trained and experienced physiotherapists, professionals for muscle pains, etc., are so difficult to find even in urban areas, trained optometrists and audiology professionals are also difficult to get.

Objective: Enable educational institutes to set up endowment funds and mobilise massive pools of donations by backing them with the required legal, regulatory and operational systemic enablers.

Alumni of educational institutes as the source of funding to expand and enhance the quality of physical infrastructure and faculty enhancement and development for educational institutes.

Indian educational institutes have an extremely large pool of highly accomplished and resourceful networks of alumni who are global leaders in their chosen field of specialisation. Some advanced countries have universities, which have billions of dollars in their endowment funds which enables.

Proposed Policy Interventions:

Incentives, legal know-how and hand-holding by the central government agency can be offered for the creation of endowment funds by educational institutes and universities.

Fundraising: Allowing educational institutes of national importance to issue ultra-long-term foreign currency-denominated non-convertible green bonds against the collateral security that they have to fund initiatives of the institute related to sustainability, etc., as trillions of dollars of funds are available globally at low rates for green bonds.

India has over 250 million students currently studying at various levels of K-12 in India. The next orbit of reforms would be helpful to equip them with knowledge, skills and domain expertise to remain relevant in the Indian and global supply chain of appropriately educated, trained and oriented professionals who are ready to take on emerging challenges of the future of work. Time is Now!

Disclaimer: The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in the article are solely the author’s and are not representative of the author's employer/organisation.