The final draft of the 12th Five Year Plan recommends that entrepreneurs investing in higher education institutions be permitted to earn profits. Today, profits are being made in higher education institutions, including private universities, and also by the owners of much sought-after ‘public schools’. Only the governments—at the Centre and in the states—remained unaware of it for all these decades. In India, it pays to encourage ‘illegal and ‘unauthorised’. Teachers are appointed on adhoc basis, allowed to continue for several years, then a couple of protest rallies, and regularisation is gracefully extended to them. No one cares for merit in such instances. An apparently distant but equally prevalent is the case of growth of unauthorised residential colonies in metros, and their ‘regularisation’ by the politicians just prior to elections.
The Planning Commission proposal would receive support from entrepreneurs who find education and health as the most risk-free sectors that assure high returns. Those already in the business of education have realised that there would be no dearth of admission-seekers as the thrust generated by the extension of school education shall always increase and impact higher education.
It was possible for the Centre to have estimated the extent of rising demands in higher education and plan for institutional growth accordingly. The implementation of the National Policy of Education 1986 was the most appropriate occasion. Socio-economic conditions required that the Central and state governments open new institutions on their own. Private initiative in education was never prohibited in India. It was also the right moment to put forward how the private institutions would be regulated to maintain quality and standards. But it was all ignored and whatever regulatory mechanisms were in place, were inundated by private parties that managed approvals for universities and institutions that were short on practically every count. Not only this, the issue of quality or professional ethics was of little consequence to most of them. It appears that the government is concerned to safeguard the interests of the ‘investors’ even in education without worrying about standards. They get their profits and the government may get some taxes in the process.
The position is: higher education, now under the tax radar of the Planning Commission, stands inundated mostly by private entrepreneurs. They know the mechanics and craft of expanding and multiplying. In spite of the ever-increasing demand for more places in higher and professional institutions, the government remains unwilling to allocate the much-promised 6 per cent of the GDP to education. It is also not providing sufficient funds even to Central universities and institutions. In the 1970s and ’80s, ‘generate resources’ was the mantra thrust upon universities by all state and Central governments and also by bodies like the UGC. This step opened the windows of ‘earning’ through self-financed courses. Profits came in abundance, students had no choice but to pay as much as was demanded. It all began from government-funded universities; others came to avail of the opportunity only later. Some universities in ’70s and ’80s spent around 70 per cent of the ‘resources generated’ on developing infrastructure i.e., buildings, cars, air-conditioners and trips abroad, spending only around 30 per cent on the programmes. It was called savings being ploughed back in to the system. How could such practices by the state be justified when its declared objective is to support the education of the weaker sections of society? The private entrepreneurs took a cue from this and permitted their dividends to go sky high.
A step, even in the right direction, could cause more damage than doing good in the absence of political will and high levels of commitment and integrity.
Rajput_js@yahoo.co.in
The writer is a former director of the NCERT