Community colleges in India need government funding: IGNOU

New Delhi, Nov 3 : Community colleges which are making their advent in the country need strong government funding, experts said at an interactive meeting Tuesday at the Indira Gandhi National Open University.

"IGNOU has tried to expand the scope of community colleges in the country. This is an alternative system of education which aims to empower individuals through appropriate skill development leading to gainful employment in collaboration with the local industry and community," IGNOU Vice Chancellor V.N. Rajashekharan Pillai said.

"Unlike in other countries where the colleges are supported largely by the government, in India funding is still from private sector," he said.

There are 47 functional community colleges under IGNOU at present. IGNOU is the largest distance education learning university in the country.

Pillai was speaking at a meeting organised by the university in collaboration with US-India Education Foundation (USIEF) to assess the challenges and scope of community colleges which unlike regular university-run colleges offer the advantage of tailoring programmes to local needs and state-based requirements.

IGNOU officials said that community colleges generally have a two-year curriculum that either leads to an associate degree for transfer to an undergraduate college or to the students' direct entry into any occupation or trade.

Pillai mentioned that the planning commission had, in principle, approved government funding of community college initiatives.

"The human resource development ministry had given a proposal to the planning commission for establishing one college in each district of India. This would roughly cost Rs.1 million for each college. They have agreed in principle," Pillai told IANS on the sidelines of the event.

Talking about the success of community colleges in achieving an increase in gross enrolment ratio in United States, Judith Irwin of the American Association of Community Colleges and the USIEF representative, said that the colleges would be effective especially for less privileged students.

"Like in America students have the option of transferring credits. They do two years at community college and two years at university. This is reversible. And students really prefer that option because it coast 50 percent less," Irwin told IANS.

In US, the community colleges are provided money by the state governments, something that many community college representatives said would be appreciated in India.

India has a total number of 330 universities and 16,885 colleges with a gross enrolment ratio of about 11 percent as opposed to US' 85 percent.

"The rationale behind community colleges is enhancing the skilled labour force. There 2.5 million seats for vocational learning as opposed to 12.8 million entering the labour market each year. So such associate degrees could help bridge that gap," said Latha Pillai, IGNOU's pro-vice chancellor.