CSR in Higher Education

What is the issue?

• Companies Act, 2013 initiated mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) to transform the business-society relationship.
• But the results so far have not been encouraging, particularly in the higher education sector.

How is CSR performance?

• Around 5,000 companies have filed annual reports till December 2016.
• Among them, only around 3,000 companies had made some contribution towards CSR expenditure.
• Companies had spent around 75% of the prescribed CSR expenditure and most of it to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.

What are the concerns?

• Companies - CSR offers scope for corporations to play a leadership role in contributing to society.
• But there has been very little strategic thinking and innovation under CSR.
• As, companies view CSR more as a charitable endeavour and fail to understood its larger goals.
• Higher education and universities need to receive significantly more attention under the CSR framework.

• Government - There is lack of coordination between the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the MCA.
• MHRD should provide for a road map that incentivises CSR funding to be made available for universities.

How could CSR contribute to higher education?

• Need - Government has initiated five major reforms in regulation, accreditation, rankings, autonomy and internationalisation.
• However, building world-class universities and upgrading existing ones require funding.

• Measures - Some of the measures as recommended by an earlier committee include:

1. provision of free land
2. deduction in taxable income to companies for contributions towards boosting higher education
3. 10-year multiple entry visas for foreign research scholars
4. Rs.1,000 crore scholarship fund (with tax exemption for corporate sector contributions)

• However, these recommendations were not implemented.

What is the way forward?

• There is an urgent need for policy intervention in the higher education sector.
• A thorough re-examination of budgetary resources for higher education is essential.
• This should include aspects of loans, grants and philanthropy in higher education sector.
• Universities and related funding should be designated a priority sector to encourage banks to offer credit.
• Particularly, leadership in philanthropy is central to enabling an institutional vision.
• Corporate Social Responsibility could provide a larger scope in this regard.

Source: The Hindu