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It was launched in 2001 to mark a decade of economic reforms in India. In 2005 students from more than 60 colleges in Maharashtra participated in the festival. This year the college will welcome renowned economists, teachers, managers, academic experts and students on 8th and 9th September for Arth-Manthan 2006.

“Rang De Basanti” is the underlying theme for the festival this year. The organisers aim to transform Arth-Manthan into a platform, where it will be possible to discuss the economic choices which affect not only the economy but also the life of the youth and their future. The focus is on bringing forth burning economic issues and problems and perspective of the youth on these issues.

Eminent personalities from the industry will interact with the academic community through interactive sessions, talks and seminars. A few of the distinguished speakers at Arth-Manthan have been Shri Diwakar Gupta, CGM, SBI, Shri M.N. Chaini, President, Corporate-Affairs, Reliance Industries Ltd., G.N. Bajpai, Ex-Chairman SEBI, Dr. Narendra Jadhav, Principal Advisor to R.B.I., R.H. Patil- Chairman of UTI Asset Management Company and Shri Sharad Joshi-Founder Shetkari Sanghatna.

Spread over a period of two days, Arth-Manthan has various events which test the participants’ creativity and knowledge. The various events are:
Rang De Basanti – The Maha Debate
“Loose control… I’m a Rebel !!!”
“DJ, played by Aamir Khan, expressed his voice and anger on the current system through Rang De Basanti… But you don’t have to be Aamir Khan to do so. You can be you and do that! Come and unleash your potential! Join the Maha-Debate of the Year!” say the organisers through the event Rang De Basanti. In round one of the event, to be held on the first day of the festival, students can speak their heart out on any one of the following two topics: “Given a chance I shall change the destiny of India…!” or “If you want the change, then be the change!”
10 best speakers – fiery, passionate and sincere - will qualify for the Maha-Debate on 9th September.

Global Leaders Meet: “To the corners of the Earth…What is our worth??…What is our destiny??” so goes the slogan for the event. The participating teams will play the role of economic advisers of the various world countries allotted to them in advance. They will analyse the current economic policies of their country and discuss on measures to improve the standard of living of their country. Classic collection, the Book Exhibition which will be held during the festival will include a wide range of books on Economics and Management. Some of the most popular textbooks and reference books used in foreign universities will also be displayed.

This year Arth-Manthan has a whole bundle of events dedicated to Mumbai under the name, MUMBAI MERI JAAN “Jahan hain yahan sapno wala”.
The first event under this section “Wah! Kya Plan hai…” is a business plan competition. Students have to look at Mumbai’s burgeoning population a business opportunity and come up with a business plan specifically catering to needs of Mumbaites. PEN’EM DOWN is an Essay Competition on key issues facing Mumbai. The topics include, If I were the CEO of Mumbai, I have a Disaster Management Plan for Mumbai and Turning Mumbai into a Knowledge City. In ‘Toony Lunes’ the Cartoon competition, students will express their concerns on Mumbai’s infrastructure problems through creative and humourous cartoons.

WAR OF WORDS – the Elocution competition will see students speaking on issues like globalisation, improvement of the education system and their message to the current leadership of India. The topics for the event include, ‘Call of the youth: 10 Tasks for the Indian Prime Minister’, ‘Should we allow unrestricted entry of foreign universities into India?’, ‘Think you don’t deserve such leaders… are you ready to come forward?’ and ‘Is the world really becoming flat?’.

“Naye rang bharne ko, khoon chala, khoon chala..” DRAW’ EM UP will see the desires and aspirations of the Indian youth on posters.

For all those who aspire to be Amartya Sen or John Nash, Budding economist offers them the chance do so. Students will make paper presentations on issues like reforms in India, tackling the rising cost of energy and enhancing the employability of the youth. CUT OUT DA NOOSE is an event which encourages students to read newspapers. Based on a theme of “Save our farmers” students have to submit recent paper cuttings, photographs, cartoons on issues relating to Indian agriculture, empowering farmers and suicide of farmers.

Then there is AD-MASTERS, the advertising game and QUIZ WIZ, the quiz competition.

On the whole, Arth-Manthan is a two day festival laced with lots of learning and even more fun and excitement!
For details, send in a mail at arthmanthan@gmail.com. You can also visit their website www.arth-manthan.com.

Sustained and continous investment into the education sector, especially the primary education and that too in the rural areas is the need of the hour.

India is going to feel the glut of educated youth in next ten years. Also, there would be continous brain drain for valuable talent from government sector jobs to more lucrative and less cognitive jobs in IT sector, which would result in waste of investment done on education.

Hence, the need for educating the other half (rest 50 crore of the population) and strenghtening the education system so as to reach the ‘last mile’

Nagesh
http://o3.indiatimes.com/eccentric

I believe that change in the fraction for education in the budget is required. But expenditure that lacks focus is a waste. Elsewhere
I have tried to point out the what I see as the problem of lack of quality education. It is a later concern whether private or government institutions provide the service, and what are the pros and cons.

Before we slash higher education and boost funding to primary education, efficient use of the funds must be ensured.

Perhaps the sentiment could be rephrased as: A necessary part of fixing the system involves ensuring efficient use of the funds. I assume that “fixing” is inclusive in that everything from the principles to the practice that is wrong is to be corrected.

Also, research and acquisition of knowledge in higher instutions holds a very important place in society. Its path cannot be totally dictated by money and the markets.

Why not?

Research is of two types: (i) one used to answer questions of immediate relevance, and (ii) one used to pose questions that could be relevant in the future. Each type involves information collection and manipulation, but creative leaps are central to the second kind, while are a “side effect” in research of the first kind. Research of the second kind is knowledge acquisition activity, and is the presumed business of higher education institutions. This activity is expensive because the goals carry high risks, may turn out to be unrealisable, and could be unrealistic/expensive to start with but become realisable after persistent effort. Seeking new knowledge is shooting in the dark. Money and market based directions are not useful because: (i) markets fluctuations operate over short time scales that are in direct opposition to long term time scales that knowledge based research requries, and (ii) the use of money would induce conservative attitudes - e.g. defining only well defined, demonstrably realisable goals - going against the ‘high risk ventures’ required by knowledge seeking activity. Even if high risks are taken by financially strong organisations (public or private), the incentive to own the acquired knowledge is high, and is impractical since sharing (of ideas) is the prime, and only, mechanism to further knowledge. Money/Market forces can be partial guides, not total!

I do not believe that money markets cannot finance education and research; rather if they do then the RoI estimates have to be drawn very differently than usual and some conventional ideas like ownership may have to be done away with. It might be useful to remember the adage “Work with the masses and live with the classes, work with the classes and live with the masses.”

Finally, Anshul puts forth a number of suggestions that essentially try to ‘fix the wrongs’ in the system.

In summary: It is true that a change in our education system is required - including but not restricted to only the budget provisions. The question however is: what issues/factors/ideas should guide the change, and thus determine what should be changed and how much ? I believe that quality - rather than quantity - of education should be the focus, and a pyramid like model with primary education at the ‘base’ and higher education at the apex would be useful. In particular, the quality of primary education at mass level needs a strong (and honest) focus than what exists today. A greater expenditure on prim-ed is necessary, but not sufficient.

I got those numbers from Andy Mukherjee’s article linked in the post, and admit I didn’t verify them against other sources.

Do you know of an authoritative source that provides the breakup, including the expenditure by the states?

Update: I’ve looked up the UNESCO database which differs quite a bit from Bloomberg’s numbers. Thanks for pointing this out. Necessary changes have been made in the post.

One of the basic tenets of economics is that there’s no “free lunch”. http://indianeconomy.org/2005/10/03/basic-questions-of-economics/

The relevance re this post: the government has limited resources and given these constraints, it would be more advantageous for the government to be spending on primary education rather than higher education, which the private sector can well handle.

India’s biggest weakness vis-a-vis China (at least, in my opinion) is the appalling female literacy rate — 45% versus 87% for China. Even more than the infrastructure, this is India’s Achilles heel.

See these posts for more

http://indianeconomy.org/2005/09/27/china-v-india#comment-350

http://indianeconomy.org/2005/12/27/one-billion-peoplethen-why-the-shortage-of-labor/

If I am not mistaken primary education is a state subject, so the actual amount spent will have to be a summation of all the state budget allocations.