Education, especially higher education, seems to be in focus in the Eleventh Five Year Plan. Rightly so. The approach paper to the plan document says: “Only about 8 per cent of the relevant age group (of Indians) go to university whereas in many developing countries, the figure is between 20 and 25 per cent. There is a need to undertake major expansion... New institutions must be set up, to provide easier access to students in educationally backward districts.” Similar sentiments were recently expressed by the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia when he agreed with Shekhar Gupta (‘Walk the Talk’, IE, December 4) that higher education is a problem and went on to say, “What has happened is we suddenly realised that if the economy is now growing at 8 per cent, and could grow at 9 per cent, the skills the economy needs will become a constraint.”

Against this backdrop, there have been reports that HRD Minister Arjun Singh has proposed the setting up of three new IITs, five IIMs, 20 Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), three Indian Institutes of Science Educational and Research (IISERs) and four Schools of Planning and Architecture (SPAs). Even if some of these get through to the Eleventh Plan, where will they be located? Currently the distribution of existing, centrally funded institutes is skewed. In the past, decisions regarding the location of these institutions seem to have been based on whether the state was politically influential or not.

... contd.