Marked absent

Of course,the problem is much larger than the IITs and IIMs,which service only a small proportion of the population. The majority of young Indians eligible for college-level instruction receive training elsewhere,and there are unmistakable signs that these students are ill-served by the quality of available instruction. Indian graduates are poorly trained and lack employability,according to separate studies conducted by staffing company TeamLease this year,which estimated that more than half of all Indian graduates suffer from some degree of skill-deprivation,and by McKinsey earlier. For a young nation,with a majority of its population below 25 years of age,addressing this quality deficit in higher education should be a priority.

It doesn’t seem to be so,despite the big talk. Under the watch of HRD Minister Kapil Sibal,bills that aim to address the structural problems in the higher education sector — of access,quality and regulation — have been stuck in Parliament. The National Accreditation Authority for Higher Educational Institutions Bill has been pending since 2010,while the foreign educational institutions bill,introduced in the Lok Sabha the same year,appears to be firmly on the backburner,as also the Higher Education and Research Bill. Higher education reform is hobbled by a lack of political will and imagination. The government risks a demographic disaster if it continues to hem and haw.