Health care expenditure in rural India

Using the NCAER survey data on Human Development in rural India (HDI) (1994), supplemented by other sources, the paper examines the extent of household expenditure on education by different groups of population, the elasticity of household expenditure on education to changes in household income on the one hand and government expenditure on education on the other and the determinants of family expenditures on education. It has been found that there is nothing like 'free' education in India. Household expenditures on education are sizeable; households from even lower socio-economic background—Scheduled Castes/Tribes, low income groups—all spend considerable amounts on acquiring education, including specifically elementary education, which is expected to be provided free to all by the State. Important items of household expenditures consist of books, uniforms and fees. Even in the case of government primary and upper primary schools, students seem to be paying huge amounts of fees—examination and other fees. It is also found that households do not discriminate much against spending on girls' education; substantial differences exist in household expenditures between expenditure on children attending government schools, government-aided schools and private schools. Among the determinants of household expenditures, household characteristics—particularly household income and the educational level of the head of the household—are found to be important. Other important eterminants include demographic burden of the household (size of the household), caste and religion. Generally, gender is believed to be a very significant determinant of household expenditures on ducation. This is not necessarily true in all cases. School related variables chosen—the incentives such as mid-day meals, uniforms, textbooks and stationery, etc., and the availability of school within the habitation—are also quite important. Coefficients of elasticity clearly show that government expenditures and household expenditures do not substitute each other, instead they complement each other. So if the government wishes to mobilise household finances for education, it is important that the government increases its own allocation to education considerably. conversely, and more clearly, if government budgets on education are reduced, household expenditures may also decline resulting in severe under investment in education.EducationRural EducationHousehold Expenditure

Are We Marching Towards Laissez-faireism in Higher Education Development?

Over the years, many developing countries have showed apathy towards development of higher education, deliberately neglected higher education, reduced public investments in higher education, allowed laissez-faireism, and even adopted policies towards marketisation of higher education. Market forces have become very active; but since the markets in developing countries are ‘incomplete' and ‘imperfect', the outcomes are also far from perfect, and in fact, in many cases, the market forces produced disastrous consequences. The evolving state approach could be attributed to the faulty assumptions that (a) higher education is not important for development and (b) the State can as well withdraw from its responsibility of providing higher education in favour of the markets. But both assumptions are wrong, and have proved to be costly. The role of the state in higher education development is critical and cannot be reduced

The dilemma of reforms in financing higher education in India

Higher education systems are increasingly starved of financial resources. India is not an exception. The recent trends in financing of higher education in India are indeed disturbing. Quite a few important proposals are being made in this context by national governments and international organizations. International experience will be of considerable importance in formulating new policies. In this paper a select few proposals are described, the national and international experience on the same is contrasted with each proposal, and the necessary lessons are drawn. It is shown that the suggestions that are being made for developing countries do not have empirical validity, if the practices of developed countries are taken to provide any guidance

Keynote presentation: Reimagining higher education and research during post-COVID-19

Universities around the world are facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. There has been a global devastation of the entire education sector. The health crisis and the accompanying education crisis are still continuing, and the end of the crisis is not certain. It is a challenging time for academic community to work under such an uncertainty. The immediate response everywhere to the outbreak of the virus was closure of the university campuses, disrupting almost all the academic activities everywhere. It seems there are no major exceptions. After the immediate reaction, as a short-term response, universities began offering some of the core programmes in education and research adopting digital technology on a large scale essentially, but not confining to, offering online teaching programmes. This is followed by a phase of partial, slow and cautious reopening of universities with several measures of safety. While some feel that the online methods have improved overall access, many argue that they exacerbate the existing inequalities in access to higher education and research among several groups of population. Research and publication programmes are also affected, and new short-term methods are being adopted. These emergency remote teaching/research practices have to be scaled up into full-fledged wellplanned online programmes. Among the research areas, given the urgency, much priority has been given to COVIDrelated research, and research programmes in other areas tend to suffer in terms of national priorities. As the global health emergency is still continuing, it is widely noted that we need to develop, after initial immediate responses, short-term, medium and long-term plans for developing robust higher education and research systems that contribute to knowledge development, reducing inequalities, and can face future uncertain emergencies. Many also consider the present situation as an important opportunity to bring in revolutionary reforms in higher education and research that are widely recognised as long overdue for transforming the higher education systems in a big way. The paper reviews some of the important developments that have taken place, and different perspectives that are emerging on the needed responses in this direction