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:

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

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