Investment in higher education as a tool for economic development and poverty reduction

Higher Education

Investment in Higher Education

The literacy rate is one of the important indicators of a developed country hence governments focus on enhancing its infrastructure. There are many challenges to promote higher education as demographic and social factors act as barriers to admission for many candidates. The effect of these factors should be explored so that the negative outcomes can be controlled.

Investment in Higher Education

Formal education system is considered as one of the most important needs of an independent country. In many countries particularly the ones who claim or dream to be a welfare state, provision of free and quality education to all the citizens is considered to be one of the major responsibilities of national or federal government. In democratic form of government, budget allocation to high education is one of the initiatives of a successful government. There are many reasons for attributing high level of importance to higher education. Few of them are discussed below.

Higher education determines the level of development in the country. Hence, economic development becomes the subset of higher education. People enrolling themselves in colleges and universities learn to unleash their potential so that they can play their role in the development of the country. These fresh graduates are the creative players of economic industry. They define new standards in the industry and perform the functions which one once considered impossible by the human race.

As industries develop, the overall living standard in society improves. People enjoy high purchasing power and use of luxury goods increase in the society. Production and consumption increase and overall economy grows. Countries are more independent when their production increases. It is because; they reduce their imports and rely more on their own products and services. As economic conditions become favorable to the country, production and supply of goods increase and there are more profit margins to invest in infrastructure related to development projects.

Apart from these tangible benefits, there are many advantages which are emotional and social in nature. When people are educated, they learn to delve deep into the concepts of happy relationships, universe creation and mental harmony. Educated people think beyond the boundaries of visible objects and their intellectual talent is unleashed. People learn to face the challenges of life in a better manner and enjoy their lives.

Keeping in view these benefits, every country focuses on high education. People consider it as one of the main requirements to spend healthy and useful lives. People plan their education as they plan their housing and family. As the need and importance of higher education is established, it is important for government to promote it and provide the citizens with the facilities to educate themselves. There are certain challenges in the way of making education accessible to all.

Statement of Problem

One of the hindrances in the way to promote higher education is related to limited capacity of higher educational institutes. The population of every country is increasing hence resource consumption is increasing as well. On the other hand, resources are not increasing at the rate that can match with population increase rate. In addition to resource limitations, the facilities which are developed using these resources are also limited.

Talking in the perspective of educational institutes, there are limited seats available in each of them. As governments need to focus on the development of every area of the country, there are certain regulations which are imposed on educational institutes about admission of students belonging to various areas. In order to ensure equitable representation of every area in the country, quota systems are introduced for admission (Bardes, Shelley and Schmidt, 2013).

Quota system ensures that the university seats will be reserved for students belonging to various areas and people of every area gets equitable opportunity to get higher education. It is to ensure that all the areas contribute to the development and none of them stays deprived. Urban areas have more seats as compared to rural areas. As seats are restricted to area wise representation, the element of merit is ignored.

It happens quite often that there are many candidates who pass the admission test and perform well before interview panel as well but they are refused for admission on grounds that there are better scorers from the same area. Hence these capable individuals cannot get admission. On the other hand, there are candidates from rural areas who perform quite low but university management is bound to give them admissions as per regulatory requirements. It is not at discretion of university to reject the rural candidates and offer admission to urban candidates.

This issue is quite common in public sector universities which are state owned and offer education at low fee. There are many universities which are not state owned but private in nature. These universities are not bound to follow quota restrictions. However, their fee structure is different from that of public sector universities. These universities offer education at much higher rates which are usually difficult to afford by the middle class students (Fegan and Field, 2009). Hence there is another barrier to admission in these universities.

The barriers to admission in university pose serious challenges for the students as well as the government authorities. There are many students who are bright enough to get admission in any reputed university but they cannot get because of their demographic and social factors (Douglass, 2007). These factors are increasingly becoming hindrance in the way of promoting higher education in the country. As higher education is not accessible to all the eligible citizens, the considerable share of human resource is being wasted. These people could play their role in the development of country but as they are deprived of higher education, they are not qualified for white collar jobs and they are bound to stay hand to mouth.

Either they join a low cadre job which is much lower than their competencies or the welfare states pay them unemployment allowance which is an additional burden on the budget of government. It happens quite often that these people start hunting foreign universities which somehow get impressed with their talent and offer them admission. After graduating from a foreign university, people tend to serve the international market and consequently their own country fails to get advantage of their talent.

This situation is highly undesirable for individuals and governments alike. There is serious need to address these social and demographic factors which are hindrances in the way of promoting higher education for capable citizens.

Statement of Purpose

Having identified social and demographic factors as a barrier to admission in higher educational institutes and consequently in the way to social and economic development, there is serious need to address these issues. This research study is conducted to explore how these factors become barriers for admission and what are the most effective ways to remove these barriers. Broadly speaking, this research study is conducted to promote higher education for all the capable individuals of the country so that all are provided with opportunities to play their respective roles in the development of country.

The purpose seems to be too broad to be opted for at this stage of study, but it is important to mention that it is the main purpose behind this study. There can be certain sub-objectives stemming from the same objective but their efficacy should be measured in the light of main purpose only. Taking quota system for instance, the first hand opinion is to offer admission to candidates who score well on admission test and interview regardless of their origin and area. It seems quite justified as well that the ones who work hard, should be given the reward. There is no contribution of the individual to be born at certain place hence advantage of area in quota system is not justified.

Viewing the same argument from another perspective, it becomes evident that urban areas are always more developed than rural areas. If there is no quota system, it becomes obvious that rural areas will remain deprived and polarity between the two regions will increase. Rural areas will never be developed hence the same country will have extreme educational levels in the country. It can result in prejudices among the citizens of the same country and in the worst scenario people may enter into protest against government for not giving them the facilities they require.

Based on this argument, ignoring the factor of origin seems biased. This is the reason quota system is still in practice despite its all shortcomings. There is strong need to develop a system which ensures win-win conditions for all the areas and candidates. Proposing such a system is the ultimate objective of this research study.

Background

The importance of promoting higher education for all is mentioned in the introductory section of the paper. Higher education determines the level of development for a country hence it is extremely important for the governments. Generally speaking in the context of modern 21st century in which wave of globalization has paved ways for free and easy movement of capital, labor and goods across the borders, the employment opportunities in the international markets have become more and more lucrative to people.

Markets are open for competition both from trade and services point-of-view. As organizations are becoming multinational and international, people are learning new skills which are helpful to perform in multicultural environment. If these individuals are graduated from the universities which already promote multicultural environment, the overall industry can reap the benefits of talented human beings (Ferranti, 2003).

Hence, it is important that universities offer education to people belonging to various areas and cultures. It is where the importance of quota system is highlighted. It restricts universities to give admission to people belonging to various cultures hence a university enjoys a multicultural environment. As there are students belonging to various demographic and social factors, the increased diversity leads to rich experience of learning and overall grooming. Hence it is inevitable that various social and demographic factors are considered at the time of admission.

In addition to factors like nationality and area of origin, age factor, gender and previous qualification are also considered. People with different ages give a unique value to the learning environment. Experienced people share their experiences which are real case studies for junior students to solve. As there is no shortcut to experience and junior students need to learn through their respective experience in their professional lives, interaction with these individuals at university level paves way for juniors to make their minds to serve in the industry where they can come across the similar challenges.

People belonging to different gender are encouraged to take admission in the university courses. There have been varying views about the nature of subjects which can be learnt by males and females. Many people believe that females are good at memorizing the contents and are artistic by nature hence they are good at arts subjects. On the other hand, men have strong problem solving capabilities, they can be given admission in applied fields like mathematics, software engineering etc. Business administration can equally suit both of them but for decision making, males are preferred.

Continuing discussion about business administration, it is important to mention that industry is going through rapid changes and business graduates need to learn new things on daily basis. Furthermore, administration is requirement of every business and organization regardless of its nature of operations and scope; people belonging to various professions enroll themselves in the degree of business administration. A student in MBA class can be a medical doctor, a professional engineer, a licensed lawyer or a qualified businessman. The teacher entering the class needs to satisfy the learning needs of all these students. The students, in turn are to add value to the class through their qualification and experience which do not match with each other. This heterogeneous blend gives university a competitive advantage in the world as its graduates have more diverse knowledge when they pass out. Based on this, they prove themselves to be better equipped with skills to manage their professional duties.

This discussion concludes the fact that consideration of social and demographic factors is an added advantage for university and other institutes offering higher education. But, on the other hand, as mentioned in the beginning, these factors pose serious challenges as well. There is strong need to devise the solution in which these factors are managed to offer maximum advantage to the universities and their graduates with eliminated disadvantages.

Research Questions

The research questions of his study are as follows.

1. What are the demographic and social factors which are considered for admission in various universities?

2. Which consideration of demographic and social factors become barrier to admission in the institute offering higher education?

3. What is the likely and actual effect of admission barriers on the objective of imparting education to the society?

4. Should admission policies be revised? What policy recommendations should be made?

These are the main research questions around which the research study will revolve. As mentioned earlier, the basic objective of this study is to promote higher education in the country, it is important to determine the impact of admission barriers on this overall goal. This is the reason; the first two questions are included in the research.

There can be an argument that increasing the capacity of educational institutes can serve the purpose. The seats in a class should be reserved depending upon the population of the areas and their accessibility to the institutes offering higher education. This argument though considered as valid, may open the door of new research in which the desired size of an educational institute will be found out. It is important to mention that even the ideal size of educational institute is established, it has to be restricted as there cannot be unlimited capacity. It can create the same bottlenecks for which the research study is conducted. It can be assumed at this stage that capacity of educational institutes should be matched with population increase rate but it requires extensive homework with no guaranteed results.

It is well accepted in the circle of scholars and experts that every man made system has flaws and any effort to remove the drawbacks leads to arising of certain other challenges. Hence, there is strong need to focus on promoting the plus points rather than eliminating the negative points (Cooperrider, Whitney and Stavros, 2008). It is quite possible that consideration to social and demographic factors was started to remove the issue of misrepresentation to various segments of society and they became the barriers.

Nature of the Study

The study is exploratory in nature as it intends to propose a new system which is supposed to be better than the existing system of granting admission in the institutes offering higher education. In order to develop a system, it is important to take into consideration all the demographic and social factors which are in consideration by various institutes. Having gathered data about the admission policies of various universities, a comparative analysis can give an idea about the foundation of new system.