India Today ranks India's Best Universities for 2013

The system of higher education in India is a mixture of several stark, and some contradictory, realities. What is apparent is that India's best universities are run by the Government. What is emerging is that India's smartest universities are in the private sector. What is unfortunate is that even the combined might of the two is not enough to meet the aspirations of millions of students. Supply is not keeping pace with demand. It isn't just a matter of quantity. Quality is a serious problem-no Indian university, with the exception of an IIT or two, ever features in any global ranking of the top 100 or top 200 global universities. In an increasingly globalised marketplace, that puts Indians at a serious disadvantage.

It might be unrealistic, even unfair, to measure Indian universities against global benchmarks. India is still an emerging economy and most of the top-ranking universities globally are from the advanced economies. The real problem is that Indian universities hardly seem to be making a dent in the global pecking order whereas universities from competitor nations like China are slowly ascending the ladder. The Indian universities system is stagnant, if not sick. It is still shackled by an overbearing government and an unreconstructed licence raj. It is the one sector untouched by the winds of reform.

The mindset over private universities needs to change. In our rankings this year, five private universities feature in the top 30-bits Pilani, Jain University, Amity University, Christ University and Manipal Academy of Higher Education. Nine feature in the top 50. All the institutions have been in existence for many years and are steadily rising in the rankings. Needless to say, it takes time for any university, whether government or private, to establish a reputation. That is precisely why the Government needs to allow more universities to be set up immediately so that they can grow into reputed institutions over the next decade.

The UPA Government has acquired an unenviable reputation for bad governance and corruption in the last four years. In the midst of gigantic scams in telecom and coal and severe policy paralysis in the building of infrastructure, education has hardly featured as a top-of-the-mind issue, either for those in Government or those outside. However, when the history of the UPA's 10 years in office is eventually written, its failure to decisively reform India's moribund higher education system may be the darkest spot on an inglorious tenure. Whereas corruption and bad governance can stall growth for a handful of years, an unreformed higher education system could hobble the hopes of a generation. There will be no demographic dividend if young Indians, who will be a clear majority of the population in the coming decade, receive insufficient or poor quality university education.

The UPA Government has squandered an opportunity. It began on an ambitious note when the Prime Minister appointed the National Knowledge Commission chaired by Sam Pitroda in 2005 to recommend a complete overhaul of the system of higher education. The commission actually finished its work on time and submitted a final report to the Prime Minister in 2008. But its recommendations, much like those of many other committees set up by Manmohan Singh, are gathering dust in the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

When Kapil Sibal took over the education portfolio from Congress veteran Arjun Singh in 2009, there was hope of radical reform in the sector. The ministry drafted a number of high-profile bills to further the reform agenda in higher education. Four years on, Sibal is no longer the minister, and all of those crucial legislations are still pending passage in Parliament. A lethal cocktail-of hastily drafted bills which fell short of best practices, Sibal's failure to persuade Congress allies and the Opposition of their merits, and the policy inertia which afflicted upa after 2010-means that only the next government, still one year away, will now be in a position to pilot necessary reform.

Consider what some of the bills could have achieved had they been passed. The Higher Education and Research Bill, 2011, would have set up a new regulatory structure for the sector, replacing an ineffective University Grants Commission (UGC) and a sometimes corrupt All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). The bill would have handed the powers of regulation to a single body, the National Council of Higher Education and Research. The council, which would function at arm's length from the Government, like other modern regulators, would in theory grant autonomy to government-funded universities in their functioning. It would also have a greater say than the ministry in key appointments, like those of vice-chancellors. The bill was derailed because of certain controversial clauses like the one which would have demanded all institutions to get permission from the regulator before enrolling students (in addition to recognition), an unnecessary licence-raj-type provision.

The Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill, 2010, which is still pending in Parliament, could have potentially allowed the best universities from overseas to set up campuses in India, thus expanding quantity while providing quality. For now, several Indian institutions have tie-ups with foreign institutions. Unfortunately, that system has largely seen collaborations with second-rate institutions and not top universities. It is a matter of debate whether top quality universities would have been enticed by the passing of legislation, especially if they had to submit to the sometimes arbitrary regulatory diktats of the ugc and aicte and the Ministry of Human Resource Development. But assuming those structures were changed by the Higher Education and Research Bill, 2011, it would have been well worth the experiment to allow foreign universities.

Ideally, a third bill, The National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Accreditation of Higher Educational Institutions, 2010-also pending in Parliament-would be necessary to ensure the proper entry of quality foreign institutions and to ensure better quality among Indian institutions. The bill, when passed, will require every higher educational institution in the country to apply for accreditation which would certify academic quality. For now, accreditation is voluntary.

At the heart of the political dithering over reformist legislation in higher education is an inherent suspicion of the private sector, whether domestic or foreign. In the early 2000s, a number of private universities gained recognition from UGC through the controversial "Deemed University" provision in the UGC Act. The process was later shrouded by allegations of institutions of dubious quality getting approvals. It was halted by Sibal. Some of the private universities that came up after 2009, including those set up by industrialists-turned-philanthropists Azim Premji and Shiv Nadar, were governed by acts of state legislatures, rather than the Centre. More than 20 years after liberalisation, there is no easy method of setting up a private university.

While it is of course necessary for sound regulation of new universities-an independent regulator needs to protect students from substandard institutions-a paranoia about all private institutions is unnecessary. Ultimately, parents and students will make informed choices. Competition to attract students would ensure that standards move on an upward trajectory rather than in a race to the bottom.

UPA needs to ponder the inadequacy of the universities system on the occasion of its ninth anniversary in office. There may still be enough time to pass one or two legislations. There is no time to waste.