SAC04343 Menraj Sachdev PhD Candidate m.sachdev@edfac.usyd.edu.au Faculty of Education and Social Work University of Sydney The Social Perspective’s of India’s Higher Education System The adoption of the knowledge-based society by the Indian society has increased the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in India. The financial and consultancy assistance by the World Bank and various international organizations that were embraced by the Indian government in 1991 were taken hostage by the middle class to benefit itself while further displacing people of lower classes, lower castes and women. According to the World Bank, as of 2001, approximately 433 million people are living on less than US$1 per day in India, which includes 36% of the total poor in the world (World Bank 2001). The gap between the “haves” and the “haves-not” continued to increase at such a rate that since 1991 it has become more difficult for the less fortunate to break the hold the upper castes/middle class have on the economic and social dominancy of the Indian society. As explained by Dreze and Gazdar, “The high concentration of power and privileges deriving from the combined effects of inequalities based on class, caste, and gender has made for an environment that is extremely hostile to social change and broad-based political participation” (Dreze and Gazdar, 107-8). One area in particular that the middle class has utilized to control the “inequalities based on class, caste, and gender” has been the higher education sector. Due to their ability to influence the higher education system, it has taken on a more economic, market-oriented, IT direction, which has ultimately taken the focus away from breaking these inequalities in the Indian society. This paper will first discuss the adoption process of the knowledge-based society by the Indian government, and then will shift the direction of the focus on the trends that have emerged within the higher education system which uphold the beliefs of the middle class, and has ultimately forced the system to disconnect itself from the people of lower classes, lower castes and women. The beliefs that the higher education has come to uphold from the new middle class are privatization and globalisation, to be self-interested, a consumer, pragmatic, and competitive (Vora, 284). And the trends that these beliefs have led to are, powerlessness, involvement of various ministries and organizations on policy decisions, “dilution and trivialisation of the aims of education” (Sadgopal, 12), “alienation of knowledge from social ethos” (Sadgopal, 12), rural/urban divide, continual lack of higher education institutions, and the digital divide.

Adoption of the Knowledge-based society The financial situation in India during the 1970s and 80s was less than successful. According to the IMF, India’s debt had increased significantly from the mid 1980s to the beginning of the 1990s. As stated by a IMF Staff Paper, India’s external debt nearly doubled from approximately $35 billion at the end of 1984/85 to $69 billion by the end of 1990/91, medium- and long-term commercial debt had also increased from $3 billion to $13 billion during the same period, and the stock of nonresident deposits increased from $3 billion to $10.5 billion (Cerra, 402). Thus, the Indian government’s only option was to accept the liberalization process in 1991 as laid down by the World Bank, to open up its markets and to agree to structural adjusted loans under stringent World Bank conditions.

Besides providing financial contribution to India, the World Bank also provided consultancy to assist India’s road to development. Reports by the World Bank focused on India’s ability to forgo its attempt to industrialize the nation, and to move ahead, or ‘leapfrog’, with the use of IT strategies towards becoming a knowledge-based society. The idea behind “leapfrogging” was a term coined by Robert Miller in 2001, in his report ‘Leapfrogging? India’s Information Technology Industry and the Internet’, which is a World Bank report. In the past decade the information technology sector has been pushed by international organizations as the market that will allow India and other developing nations to increase their competitive economic production on the global economic scale. The advancement of the information technology era is seen as a ‘new age’ where a nation’s ability to meet the challenges of this sector will shape their economic and social future (Garrihy, 1997). Due to the lack of positive results over the past four decades, economically and socially, the Indian government decided to take the advice, in addition to conditions, from the World Bank and attempt to “leapfrog” the Indian society towards becoming a knowledge-based society. However, in order for the Indian society to fully adopt the knowledge-based society, it first required the necessary manpower. The field of IT is a highly specialized field of ‘mathematics, management, computer science, electronics engineering, and other engineering sciences’ (Nagy et al.1995, 21). Specifically, the IT industry consists of personal to ‘…involve the handling of information by electronic means: that is, information acquisition, storage, retrieval, processing, transmission and control’ (Nagy 1994, 1). This new workforce is considered as the international division of labour (NIDL) (Sommers et al., 21) for the foreign and domestic IT markets that have opened up in India. Due to this transition of the Indian economy from an industrialized society to a knowledge-based one, the higher education system has come under pressure by the Indian government and industry companies, to create and train manpower necessary for the IT sector. Due to the consultancy and financial assistance by the World Bank regarding plans and strategies towards transitioning to become a knowledge-based society, the Indian government since 1991 has placed an emphasis upon the science and technology sector

within the higher education, particularly the IT sector. This is evidenced in the Eighth Five Year Plan (1992-1997), ‘[t]echnical education…is one of the most potent means for creating skilled manpower required for developmental tasks. While this implies high costs of construction, laboratory equipment, library books and journals and high rate of obsoloscence, such high cost, being directly related to development, should be viewed as an essential productive investment, yielding valuable returns to the society’ (Government of India, “Education, Sports and Culture” Chapter, 1992-97). Additional to the plans and strategies proposed within the Five-Year Plans, the Indian government has invested time and money in producing reports and taskforces towards establishing the IT sector. This unconditional support by the Indian government to the science and technology sector, particularly the tertiary education sector, has created manpower unlike anywhere else in the world. At the higher education sector, the Indian Institute’s of India (IITs) have been an important player of India’s transition towards becoming a knowledge-based society for the past decade in India as well as abroad. The IITs were set up as Institutes of National Importance to be premier centers of education and training in applied sciences and engineering (Government of India 1994-95, Education Annual Report, 8.2.1). The IITs have been put in position by the Indian government to concentrate ‘…on technology assessment and forecast so that futuristic approaches could be re-oriented to take up the development of emerging Science and Technology trends in the country’ (Government of India 1994-95, Education Annual Report, 1.2.15). The goal was to set-up a strong foundation, with global quality. However, at present there are only seven IITs throughout India therefore allowing a small population of students who are able to gain the benefits of these institutes of ‘excellence’. Hence, the Indian government decided ‘[t]o develop horizontal and vertical linkages with other institutions, research laboratories, industry and user agencies through multiplicity of programmes including consultancy’ (Government of India, 1999-2000) in order for additional institutions, such as polytechnics and regional engineering colleges to gain consultancy and support to provide high standards of technical education throughout the nation. The numbers of institutions, as of the year 2000, throughout India are listed the table below.

Formal Educational Institutes teaching Courses Related to Computers in 2000

Particulars Number of Institutes National Institutes (IITs and IISc) 7 Regional Engineering Colleges 43 Degree Colleges at Universities 860 Diploma Colleges 1220 ITI s 730 IIITs (Indian Institutes of Information Technology)

2

Total 2864 Source: Source: NASSCOM, The IT Software and Services Industry in India, New Delhi, 2001, pp.82-83.

(As cited in Vicziany (2001). The support and increase to the number of institutes emphasizing information technology, has led to an increase in the number of qualified manpower available for the IT industry in the past decade. Data from the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1997-2002) has shown that there is estimated 10,000 technical graduate per annum, in the diploma courses there are 170,000 graduate yearly, Postgraduate and Doctoral programs in engineering are available in 150 institutions, and about 60 polytechnics offer advanced and post- diploma courses (9th FYP (1997-2002), 3.3.27). According to Vicziany, there has been an increase of the number of institutions teaching courses related to the IT area from 1,904 in 1998 to 2,860 in 2000, producing approximately 122,000 graduates (Vicziany, 22). Therefore, the success gained by the IT companies, foreign as well as domestic, due to the training by tertiary education institutes has allowed the IT sector to surge economically during the 1990s. ‘In the six years since 1994-1995, the output of India’s IT industry has surged from a total value of US$2 billion to US$8.7 billion in 1999-2000’ (Vicziany, 1). However, as the World Bank and the Indian government continue to support technical education in the view that it will assist the nation to develop into a modernized nation, in reality the people of the middle class and above, particularly within the urban areas, are the ones who have been able to receive the majority of the benefits of the transition towards becoming a knowledge-based society. The support and emphasis placed on the IITs in addition to the success of the IT sector economically within India have only benefited a small population of the ‘elite’ middle class who have the proper background, as illustrated within the Agarwal study. According to a study done in 2003, by Ranjana Agarwal, a Research Assistant at the National Institute of Education Planning and Administration (NIEPA), the middle class are amongst the majority of people with elite backgrounds who have the resources and access to training facilities in the IT sector. The result of her study illustrated that the majority of people within the IT field include people who have had adequate pre-service training and are with elite background products of private English medium schools’. The data reveals that 79 percent of respondents, 94 percent of women and 64 percent men have studied in English medium schools. While at the same time, 72 percent of the respondents, 80 percent of the women and 64 percent of the men have studied in private schools. More so, factors such as parents educational career also plays into the factor of the respondents ‘elite background’. Ninety percent of the respondents have fathers who have graduation and above levels of education, 39 percent of them have professional qualification, 15 percent have a postgraduate degree and 7 percent have a doctorate degree. Additionally, 56 percent of the women respondents are children of doctorate / professional fathers compared to 36 percent of the men. The same scenario is found with the women’s mother’s educational background. For 70 percent of the respondents, mother’s education level is more than graduation and above. This study conducted by Agarwal, clearly illustrates that the middle class are amongst the majority of people with

elite backgrounds who have the resources and access to specific higher education training to enter the IT field and to reap its benefits. The IT sector has the potential to provide people within India, regardless of the their caste, class or gender with an opportunity to better their socio-economic position. However, due to the Indian government unwillingness to tackle the following trends within the higher education since 1991, the people of the middle class and above have been able to utilize the reforms of the system to benefits itself and further displace the people of lower classes, lower castes and women from modernization. Powerlessness: From the trends listed above, a trend that has had a damaging impact on the people of lower classes, lower castes, women and professors, particularly in the Education sector, is a sense of “powerlessness” towards the higher education reforms made by the Indian government. Due to the involvement of the World Bank on policy reforms at the economic sector and the lack of ability by the Indian government to respond to the demands of the IT manpower, the Indian government has had to allow the decision-making process to the trends of the market. This has ultimately taken the educationists out of the picture of policy-making at the education sector. Professor Gupta, an Education professor from a University in Delhi, supported this. “I as a person in education never felt so powerless as I feel today. Powerless in the widest sense. Because earlier you can go to the government…I could organize a demonstration, I can organize a seminar and a conference, often with government money, and tell the government you are doing wrong things” (Prof Gupta, February 25 2003). But not only has Professor Gupta felt disenfranchised by the Indian government towards the direction of education in India, various professors interviewed have noticed this change in attitude. Many professors have expressed their concern of the Indian government’s handling of the reforms after 1991, but their concern has not only been with various international organizations, but on the ability of the middle class to influence policy decisions. This can be seen in a conversation with an Education professor in Pune, India. Interviewer: What do you feel can break that elitist hold? Prof. Sood: That depends on political ideology. That’s all. I: So it stems from the top? S: Exactly, unless the political system is very serious, unless the political system is committed to the nation” (Prof Sood March 9 2003). The lack in confidence by Educationists in the Indian government’s ability to place reforms and respond to the needs of the people of India has led professor’s in India to deem that the people of the middle class and elite’s are in control of the government. As a result, the choices made by the Indian government and the trends that have resulted due to them, are established to benefit the middle class and not the less fortunate.

Yet, Educationists throughout India are not the only collection of people who also feel “powerless” to the elite’s hold of the reforms and policies that have been planned at the higher education sector. Due to decisions of the higher education policies residing on the trends of the market economy, people of lower classes, lower castes and women are directly placed in a disadvantaged position because their “propensity to consume is limited” (Vora, p. 278) which has become an absolute requirement to participate within this new economic society. Yet, while the disadvantaged groups struggle within this reformed society, the people of the middle class and above increase their opportunities and economic prosperity allowing them to further the gap between the itself and the less fortunate. As supported by Dutta, “It is becoming more and more evident that large sections of their population have been unable to actively participate in the modernisation process of industrialisation and urbanisation, and still lack the capacity to afford even the minimum subsistence needs for food, shelter, health and education” (Dutta, 2000, 2). The lack of access and services of “food, shelter, health and education” has exacerbated the “powerlessness” felt by people of lower classes, lower castes and women. For the less fortunate, the thought of attending a higher education is far from their minds when the bulk of their time and energy is spent on the needs of survival. The Indian government’s unwillingness to put forth reforms and policies to assist these groups in accessing services to “food, shelter, health and education” has forced these groups to not participate within the new economic system resulting in them to being further pushed away from being able to attend a higher education institute. Dilution and trivialisation of the aims of education (Sadgopal, 12) India’s transition towards becoming a knowledge-based society after 1991, has forced the higher education to transition its objective. However, before the Indian society was in any position to utilize information technology strategies to “leapfrog” the economic and social hardships, it required manpower. Therefore, in 1991 the higher education sector’s aims shifted to adjust to provide the necessary manpower within the IT sector. This transition was illustrated within the Ambani-Birla report released in 2000 where it states, “India has to create an environment that does not produce industrial workers and labourers but fosters knowledge workers. Such people must be at the cutting edge of knowledge, be competitive and innovative. Education development has a major role to play in shaping knowledge workers…” (Ambani-Birla, 5.3). Yet, this transition towards “shaping knowledge workers”, plays in whose advantage? As discussed above within the Agarwal study, the people belonging to the middle class and above are the majority who are gaining access and therefore the benefits from this transition towards a knowledge-based society. Thus far, the shift to “leapfrog” the hardships and inequalities within the Indian society in actuality has left the less fortunate, further less fortunate. That is why the focus of this trend has emphasized the dilution and trivialization of the aims of the higher education sector. Originally, Sadgopal had observed this trend at the primary school level during the decade after 1991. Yet, as the Department of Education has allowed the middle class, international organizations and various ministries to influence the focus and aim of tertiary education, this trend holds

true for tertiary education. Professor Chopra, an Information Technology Professor, observed this trend during the past decade, he states, “Well recently what I feel about higher education is we are slowly drifting away from the values. Somehow the education has become so technical, it’s probably the perspective of education we look at, it’s changing. Like today education for me would be probably look towards fetch me up a job. But I think education is much more than that, it should not be only the technical application, maybe a specific activity, but it also should develop the individual as a whole. So I think higher education, somewhat moving away from the strides of values development” (Professor Chopra, March 11, 2003). Professor Chopra believes that the aims of higher education are not only to provide the student with the necessary tools but also with the necessary values. But he feels that due to the changes that have been made to the higher education sector over the past decade, that the system has moved away from what he feels is an important area, values. However, all the professors interviewed in India did not share the opinion of Professor Chopra. Professor Kapoor, an Education Professor interviewed, believes that the aim of education is supposed to focus upon providing people with the necessary tools to gain employment, and therefore the education at the tertiary level has not become diluted or trivialized. “Yes, yes, because what happens, is that the ultimate aim of higher education is to produce a HR, human resource. So once the quality of higher education increases, the quality of HR will increase. And this HR will allow India to develop” (Prof Kapoor, March 17 2003). Professor Kapoor expresses that if people have the proper tools to work and be a resource to the economy, this will then lead India to develop. But who is to say that either one of these professor’s is right? Yet, the more important question maybe who is the benefactor of these new aims of the higher education sector? With different views from professors in the Education and IT sector, analyzing if the aims of tertiary education has become diluted and trivialized becomes a difficult task. However, if one looks at the changes that have been made within the past decade, since 1991, in policies at the higher education sector, it does not seem that the aims have been diluted and trivialized. The Indian government decided in 1991 that they wanted to shift India towards a knowledge-based society. As a result, changes were made to policy reports in the higher education sector to provide the necessary manpower for the IT sector. Additionally, if the aim of higher education is to support the needs and agenda of the middle class, then from the argument stated above, one is in a position to state that the aims have once again not been diluted and trivialized. Yet, both of these issues listed above supports the middle classes use of the higher education sector as a tool to increase their dominancy economically and socially within the Indian society, in addition to increasing the gap between itself and people of lower classes, lower castes and women. For the less fortunate, higher education has been an institution they only think about reaching. More often than not, people of these groups will never have the chance to attend a tertiary education institute, and that is where the dilution and the trivialization of the aims higher education have occurred. At the beginning of this paper Dreze and Gazdar pointed out that power and privilege originated due to the ability of the middle

class to continue the inequalities within the Indian society based on class, caste and gender therefore; as long as the aims of higher education sector continue to uphold these inequalities and alienate the knowledge that the majority of Indians require, then these groups of people continue to be compromised and left further behind. Alienation of knowledge from social ethos (Sadgopal, 12) Sadgopal has observed through his years at the primary school level that polices passed down from Delhi, were not connected to what was required at the primary school level. Through his experience he was convinced that the market-economy was the sole proprietor of decisions during the decade after 1991. His concern with this trend, was that the local knowledge, or the “geo-cultural diversity” of knowledge, has over the past decade since 1991 transitioned to a form of knowledge that is more “globally acceptable (i.e. marketable)”, which ultimately benefited the middle class and strengthened their position within the Indian society (Sadgopal, 20). This shift of knowledge after 1991 has been due to the new aims of education in an era where the economy holds the priority and the agenda to fulfill the manpower needs of the IT sector to support the Indian government’s decisions to convert the Indian society to a knowledge-based one. Although Sadgopal’s paper observed this trend at the primary school level, as an educationist, he has also observed this trend at the higher education level (Sadgopal, 20). The middle classes participation with the Indian government’s decision to adopt a new aim of education that focuses on providing knowledge that is “globally acceptable (i.e. marketable)” illustrates the obvious lack of attention, resources and access the Indian government was and is willing to provide for the majority of Indians living in the rural area, in addition to people who are of lower castes, lower classes and women. What the higher education system has been set up to do is two fold, as explained by Professor Sood, an education professor located in Pune. He states that the system is to provide the elite’s with an opportunity to maintain their “status quo” and two, to provide students with an opportunity to take their education and resource overseas, outside of India. “…Higher education is meant for two purposes, one is the elitist have the opportunity for higher education that is to satisfy their socio-economic status that is to maintain the status quo. Second thing is to have a foreign assignment. So these two things are very less to do with this nation, which is one of the poorest nations in the world” (Prof Sood, March 9 2003). More importantly, Professor Sood additionally illustrates that both of these agendas do nothing to assist India towards development. He feels that these two agenda’s alienates people of lower classes, lower castes and women with accessing a tertiary education which could provide them the necessary tools that can be used to increase their social and economic benefits. The combined impact of lack of attention the Indian government has given these groups, and the continuous support for the middle class and their beliefs within the higher education system has allowed inequalities to carry on unabated by the Indian government. The Indian governments unconditional support to the beliefs of the middle class within the higher education sector has spurred concern from many professors that the higher

education sector has not only alienated many groups, but also that once people from these groups enter the system it “de-links” them from the Indian society. Professor Sood has seen this “de-linking process” take place, during his observations from the local level on what the current tertiary education does to a family and the community. “There is a saying I will tell you, you pass ten years of schooling, you leave your village. If you pass twelve years of schooling, you leave that bigger area. And if you pass your graduation, you will leave that district. And if you pass MBA or PhD, you will leave the country. Education is like a de-socializing process, or naturally it becomes a de-linking process… (Professor Sood, March 19 2003). Professor Sood statement regarding the displacement of the education system supports Sadgopal’s argument that the aims of education have, from the primary to the higher education level, focused more on the economy and overseas agenda, rather than local issues. The higher education system has been set-up to support the middle classes beliefs to acquire a tertiary education to become more attractive to employers domestically, but also to overseas transnational companies. This has been obvious during the past decade with the enormous attention given to the IT sector within the higher education sector by the Indian government and international organizations. In addition to Professor Sood’s comments, Professor Bajaj below also expresses his concern that even though the Indian government has placed a high emphasis upon computer science and IT within the higher education sector, little of it has to do with the social needs. He states, “Technology front, we are growing, growing, growing, we are buying technology we are using technology, ok fine. But nothing to do with the society, unless the society is getting benefited from it” (Prof Bajaj, February 11 2003). The lack of confidence in the Indian government’s decision to focus on the IT sector has professor’s, such as Bajaj, question whether it was wise for the Indian government to allow international organizations and the middle class to influence the reforms in the higher education sector, when these two groups are not aware of the need of the lower classes, lower castes and women. These groups of people are in the most need of any opportunities that will allow them to overcome their economic and social hardships, and over many generations there have been many inspirational educationists, such as Gandhi, Zakir Hussein, Tagore, etc. that have given their lives to the people of India and yet the Indian government has taken the view of international organizations and the middle class to decide the direction and knowledge that the higher education system will provide to students. The Indian government’s alienation of important educationist and the knowledge of majority of the people in India has illustrated the lack of willingness to tackle the increasing inequalities within India, one of the main ones being the rural/urban divide. • Rural/urban divide The divide between the urban and rural has at times been synonymous with the divide between the middle class and the people of lower classes, lower castes and women. Based on numbers alone, according the 2001 census of India, the population of India is 1,027,015,247; where 741,660,293 live in the rural areas and 285,354,954 live in the urban areas. Since the liberalization of the economy took place in 1991, in addition to the

reforms of the higher education sector, the income gap between rural/urban and the haves/have-nots have increased many fold. As pointed out by Rath, in the last three and-a-half decades, while the average income has changed by a little for people living in the rural area, one-third of the people living in the urban area have doubled their income (Rath, 71). According to the Ninth Five-Year plan, there are 320 million poor people within India, and out of which 244 million live within the rural area (2.1.1). The emphasis from the Indian government to provide all necessary resources to the middle classes and the IT sector has allowed them to move forward, but it has also forced the people living in the rural areas to wait for these benefits and resources to trickle down to them. And because of this process, people in these areas, majority of which are people of lower classes, lower castes and women, have been left behind the middle class and India’s strides towards becoming a knowledge-based society and modernization. This has been observed by professor Sood, “IT has not yet contributed to national development in India, because this nation needs in the hands of strong social-economic groups. IT is serving urban, elite boys and girls as avenue as a venue for foreign employment” (Prof Sood, March 9 2003). Professor Sood’s comments not only support the argument that the gap has increased between these groups, but the development of the IT sector has contributed to students from an elite-urban background in their pursuit to gain employment outside of India, instead of focusing on assisting the less fortunate with their economic and social hardships. The frustration by many professor’s lies with the deception by the Indian government decision to shift India towards a knowledge-based society, revolved around the IT sector, which was first portrayed as a plan to assist the less fortunate. Therefore, from 1991 onwards, as the Indian government continued to be influenced by the middle class, as well as international organizations, the rural / urban gap has not only been sustained but has increased since India’s adoption of a liberalized economy and the knowledge-based society in 1991. And with this transition, two factors have come into play that has assisted in the gap between the middle class and people of lower classes, lower castes and women, in addition to the urban / rural divide to increase, these are the continual lack of higher education institutions within rural areas and the digital divide. • Continual lack of higher education institutions Throughout the Indian societies transition becoming a knowledge-based one, revolved around the IT sector, a number of reports by the World Bank (see Nagy 1994 and 1995) and the Indian government (see Ambani and Birla (2000), “India as a Knowledge Superpower” (2001), “IT Action Plan” (1999)) have reiterated the need for the higher education system to shift its focus to provide the necessary education and knowledge to students in order for them to enter the IT sector. Additionally, the World Bank and the Indian government have also supported these changes in the higher education system by providing financial assistance to see the implementation of their recommendations. However, an issue that continues to be missing from both of the World Bank and the Indian government is necessary support for tertiary level training within the rural areas. In 1991 when the Indian government accepted loans from the World Bank to rectify its financial crisis of the 1970 and 80s, it had also accepted conditions. One of these

conditions, besides the liberalization of the economy, was to cut back financial responsibilities to many social sectors, one of them being the higher education sector. As a result, the Indian government has had to look at alternatives, such as distance education, to provide tertiary education to remote and rural areas where there was already a lack of tertiary education available. The total population in India is 1,027,015,247, where 741,660,293 live in the rural areas and according to the Tenth Five-Year Plan, out of the 12,300 colleges throughout India, there are 4,683 colleges located in the rural area (“Higher Education” Chapter, 2.5.2). Therefore, approximately 72.2% of the total population resides within the rural area, where only 38% of the colleges are located. Therefore, due to the Indian government’s inability to fulfill the demand, it had implemented distance education. This was done for two reasons one, to decrease the gap between the rural and urban areas and two, to establish distance education as the primary medium of this level of education from 1991 onwards. Within the Eighth Five-Year Plan, the Indian government has announced that distance education programs are planned to “absorb at least 50 percent of the additional enrolment”, which should reach approximately 1,500,000 of students. However, as the government began to reduce financial assistance to create and/or maintain higher education institutions, they continued to provide financial assistance to support the development of IT training at the higher education sector. The Indian government did not provide the sole funding for the development of this sector, but the financial support for this sector also did not decrease. The IT sector and many other areas of science and technology at the higher education level have a significant advantage compared to the courses located within the social sciences, it has the financial support of the industry and international organizations, which over the years has been very generous to the development of the science and technology sector throughout India. What has resulted of this unbalanced support to higher education institutions within urban areas, in addition to the science and technology sector, is an alienation of the knowledge being supplied by the higher education system to people of lower classes, lower castes and women, particularly in the rural, where the majority of the population resides. The aims of the education system in India has focused more on the needs of the middle class than on the needs of the less fortunate. Due to this reformed system people of lower classes, lower castes and women do not stride to reach the tertiary education level, because they do not feel it will be beneficial in increasing their chances to a better life. The aims and the knowledge that are produced at this current higher education system are not in touch with the reality of the local issues of India, which has resulted in alienating people of lower castes, lower classes and women from an opportunity that a tertiary education can provide. • Digital divide According to statistics listed on the CIA website, the total number of households with Internet users in India is 18,481,000. Looking at the total number of people in India, in addition to the number of literates one would think that the majority of Internet users are located within the rural areas. However, this is not the case. In actuality the total number

of Internet users are located in the urban hubs. Due to the lack of willingness by the Indian government to break the inequalities crated by “sectional privileges”, a new digital divide has accrued within the rural areas of India, while at the same time allowing the middle class and the urban areas to move towards becoming a knowledge-based society. The digital divide established in the rural area is due to two factors. One is the high cost of Internet use outside of the urban areas and two, the lack of infrastructure being developed to lay connections to the rural areas. Yet, both of these factors are directly related to the lack of higher education institutions located in the rural areas. Because of lack of higher education institutions, there has been an increase in the “alienation of knowledge of social ethos”, digitally, of the rural areas compared to the adoption and acceptance of the knowledge of “globally acceptable (i.e. marketable)”. There is an interdependent relationship between the community and universities (Gangrade, 42) and due to the lack of higher education institutions throughout the rural areas, they miss the ability of universities to establish programs and conduct research that is relevant to their needs and local knowledge. The link between education and the society was reiterated within the Ninth Five-Year Plan, where it explicitly states that education plays an important role in understanding methods to improve the quality of life of the population at large. “Education holds the key for increasing awareness of the population of the methods for improving their quality of life through appropriate utilisation of available resources, opportunities and facilities (9th FYP, “Human and Social Development” Chapter, 3.1.44). Yet, the Indian government continues to provide the rural area with little or no attention at the higher education level to tap into the necessary knowledge that is relevant to the people located in these regions. The Indian government continues their procedures to make plans and reccomendations, but do very little to implement them and follow through. This can be seen within the Eighth Five-Year Plan where in the “Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation” chapter where there is no mention of the opportunities and importance of attaining a higher education. There was discussion and plans to provide training for employment, but nothing on how important it is to attain a tertiary level education. The Indian government sees the problem within the rural area as unemployment issue. According to the Indian government’s thinking and planning, people within the rural area are poor, lack services and opportunities, and have fallen behind people located in the urban area because of their inability to find employment within the rural area. The Indian government does not see a difference between the rural and urban sectors in regard to what knowledge is necessary for them to succeed. This has been evident within India’s plan to assimilate the Indian society, urban and rural into the knowledge-based society. As the Indian government has transitioned the higher education system to focus on the IT sector they have set up an agenda that is identical throughout India regardless of the diversity and variations of the local needs of the people throughout India. This has been due to the lack of knowledge and understanding of the rural areas by the Indian government. This is pointed out by Bhatnager, “The information needs were assessed by a group located in New Delhi and have been treated as standard for all the districts in India. The software design and specification of databases were also standardized and originated in New Delhi” (Bhatnager, 23). As a result there are two streams that have

been established within India depending on what group is looking to benefit from the opportunities from the capabilities of information technology (Jain 2002). According to Jain, the first stream “connects the established and institutionalized science and technology capabilities to organized industry” (Jain, 5). While the second streams focuses on a “culture that is sensitive to local community practices” (Jain, 5), which has been coined as the ‘subaltern’ stream (Guha, as cited in Jain 2002). Both streams are being practiced within India, yet the Indian government has and continues to provide assistance towards the first stream focusing on connecting the science and technology with the industry. While the second stream, the ‘subaltern’, has been working independently of the Indian government, due to the Indian governments lack of awareness of the needs of this stream and the people involved. Additionally, due to the middle class being involved with the first stream, this has allowed them to move ahead of the rural areas and the people who resides there digitally, economically and socially. The Indian governments assistance to the first stream can be illustrated by strategies planned and implemented by taskforce groups in the IT sector. Within the “IT Action Plan”, the IT Taskforce sets into place a plan, “A National Technology Mission, 'Project Sankhya Vahini' ”, to create an information backbone by connecting approximately 100 universities within 10 cities with knowledge and applications focused on education, healthcare and other knowledge to support “the technological and economic growth of the nation” (Government of India, IT Action Plan 1999). Yet, none of these 100 universities are located within the rural area and at no time within this plan is the agenda to assist people with benefits and opportunities located in the rural area, but instead to support and establish the growth of the nation based on technological and economic growth within the urban centers. The Indian government lack of understanding of what plans and strategies to implement for the people located in the rural area regarding the IT sector has also been observed by professors’ throughout India.

I think we, as I said it is a social-economic development, which we should be targeting. When we are speaking of the rural people, lets understand first that the masses there are not literate. So information technology for their use, you have to metamorphize the technology into their understandable terms. So I think it has a large amount of support, but the need of proper planned and targeted aim to bring up information technology to the rural areas. What we are probably lacking today is the efforts of the government, as well as the academic institutions. The academic institutions who have the technology, who can scale it down for common man’s use, and the we can disperse it (Prof Chopra, March 11 2003).

Professor Chopra comments reiterate the lack of understanding the Indian government has in regard to the decisions they have made for the use of IT strategies for the rural area. Professor Chopra states that most of the population in India, particularly within the rural areas, are illiterate and do not speak the English language, which is the main

language used on the Internet. According to the 2001 Census the number of illiterates located within the rural sector in India is 374,988,881 whereas the number of illiterates located in the urban area is 85,323,086. The Indian government within their report, “India as a Super Knowledge”, has stated that they have strategies in place that will not lead to a digital divide, yet none of these strategies have anything to do with teaching people how to read, or teaching them the English language. The Indian government’s inability to take the time to understand the required needs of the rural areas illustrates that the Indian government is in denial of what has been in fact occurring in India. For decades now, the Indian government has allowed for “sectional privileges” to continue, and at times, have supported them. And now with a new digital divide, the Indian government is once again allowing a gap to accrue and marginalizing the rural areas and the people residing there to benefit the middle class and the people in the urban areas. Conclusion: The success of the IT industry at the economic level in India has come at the expense of many changes that have taken place at the higher education sector. Not only has the focus of tertiary education adjusted to the new needs of the economy, but also who and what groups and organizations have the ability to influence the policy decisions. As a result, professors within various higher education institutes have stated their concerns of the future of the system. The following is a statement by an Education professor in response to the changes in the higher education system in India since 1991.

Now the traditionally, many of us used to think, rather look at education as more of socialization, cultural transmission, and personal, cognitive and social development, as well as general preparation for employment. This is how we used to look at it as a nation right from the beginning. Now global actors, like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, they have been playing a significant role, in changing the concept of education in the form of privatization and commodity of education…These are key to making education tradable and profitable to private interests, it is not a common interest. Now with the growing commercialization of education, the values of the marketplace are gaining momentum and our traditional values are taking a backseat. One of the main factors is the change in the societies attitude towards education, which is now seen as a private good benefiting those who study or do research” (Education Professor Roshan interviewed on March 17, 2003 at a higher education institute in Pune, India).

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