Post covid devastation strategic role for Higher Education for Techno-Economic Growth for Global Reincarnation through Smart and Secured Governance – thepolicytimes.com
The COVID-19 crisis has resulted in India going into an unprecedented nationwide lockdown in the months of March and April 2020. The effect of the pandemic is being felt across all aspects of the economy with GDP growth falling to as low as 2.5% in the calendar year. The Indian government has…….
The COVID-19 crisis has resulted in India going into an unprecedented nationwide lockdown in the months of March and April 2020. The effect of the pandemic is being felt across all aspects of the economy with GDP growth falling to as low as 2.5% in the calendar year. The Indian government has responded to this by providing several guidelines including restricting the movement of people and social distancing.
University Grants Commission (UGC) and other apex education bodies also issued COVID-19 specific guidelines for Indian higher education institutions (HEIs) resulting in temporarily closing, students being asked to go home, and efforts being undertaken to move classes online. These measures will have varying degrees of impact on ~3.75 crore students enrolled in and ~14 lakh faculty employed by the system.
Higher education leaders are also concerned that an extended lockdown due to the pandemic could have a deeper impact on the sector, as COVID-19 has disrupted the admissions cycle and might have an effect on enrolments; creating a cash flow crunch, slowing down research and consulting activities.
This year, close to 1.44 crore students are appearing for their school-leaving exams, and close to 50 lakhs of these students will be looking to enroll in a higher education institution in this academic session.
Institutions planning for their admissions cycle will need to muster their limited resources, have an agile response plan to COVID-19, and build resilience to minimize the impact on their enrolments, diversity of students, and revenues.
Today’s rapidly growing economies depend on the creation, acquisition, distribution, and use of knowledge and this requires a well-educated and highly skilled population. The various report says that India has the potential to become the second-largest economy in the world by 2050 in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) terms (third in Market Exchange Rate (MER) terms), although this requires a sustained developmental program in the existing educational system. Education plays a key articulating role between nation and economic growth. No country can achieve sustainable economic development without substantial investment in human capital. Education enriches people’s understanding of themselves and the world. It improves the quality of their lives and leads to broad social benefits to individuals and society. Indeed, investing in education helps to achieve a sustainable economic growth of a nation.
Generally, funding of education mainly comes from the government, with a smaller role for non-educational private sources (including for example households, enterprises, non-profit organizations, and religious institutions) and generally an even smaller role for international organizations.
But education budgets are limited, especially in times of economic …….
