Experience of Privatization of Education in India

The experience over the last few decades has clearlyEven government-funded colleges and universities in
shown that unlike school education, privatization hasmost states started many "self-financing" courses in IT,
not led to any major improvements in the standards ofbiotechnology etc., without qualified teachers, labs or
higher and professional education. Yet, in the run up toinfrastructure and charging huge fees from the
the economic reforms in 1991, the IMF, World Bank andstudents and are liberally giving them marks and
the countries that control them have been cryingdegrees to hide their inadequacies.
hoarse over the alleged pampering of higher educationIt is not that the other well established departments
in India at the cost of school education. The fact of theand courses in government funded colleges and
matter was that school education was alreadyuniversities are doing any better. Decades of
privatized to the extent that government schoolsgovernment neglect, poor funding, frequent ban on
became an option only to those who cannot affordfaculty recruitment and promotions, reduction in library
private schools mushrooming in every street corner,budgets, lack of investments in modernization leading
even in small towns and villages. On the other hand, into obsolescence of equipment and infrastructure, and
higher education and professional courses, relativelythe tendency to start new universities on political
better quality teaching and infrastructure has beengrounds without consolidating the existing ones today
available only in government colleges and universities,threatens the entire higher education system.
while private institutions of higher education in IndiaAnother corollary of this trend is that an educational
capitalised on fashionable courses with minimuminstitution recognized in a particular state need not limit
infrastructure.its operations to that state. This meant that universities
Nevertheless, successive governments over the lastapproved by the governments of Chattisgarh or
two decades have only pursued a path of privatizationHimachal Pradesh can set up campuses in Delhi or
and deregulation of higher education, regardless ofNoida, where they are more likely to get students from
which political party ran the government. From thewell off families who can afford their astronomical
Punnaiah committee on reforms in higher education setfees. What is more, they are not even accountable to
up by the Narasimha Rao government to thethe local governments, since their recognition comes
Birla-Ambani committee set up by the Vajpayeefrom a far away state. Add to this a new culture of
government, the only difference is in their degree ofwell-branded private educational institutions allowing
alignment to the market forces and not in thefranchisees at far away locations to run their courses,
fundamentals of their recommendations.without being responsible to the students or teachers in
With the result, the last decade has witnessed manyany other way. This is increasingly becoming a trend
sweeping changes in higher and professional education:with foreign universities, especially among those who
For example, thousands of private colleges anddo not want to set up their own shop here, but would
institutes offering IT courses appeared all across thelike to benefit from the degree-purchasing power of
country by the late 1990s and disappeared in less thanthe growing upwardly mobile economic class of India.
a decade, with devastating consequences for theSoon we might see private educational institutions
students and teachers who depended on them forgetting themselves listed in the stock market and
their careers. This situation is now repeating itself insoliciting investments in the education business on the
management, biotechnology, bioinformatics and otherslogan that its demand will never see the sunset.
emerging areas. No one asked any questions aboutThe economics of imparting higher education are such
opening or closing such institutions, or bothered aboutthat, barring a few courses in arts and humanities,
whether there were qualified teachers at all, much lessimparting quality education in science, technology,
worry about teacher-student ratio, floor area ratio,engineering, medicine etc. requires huge investments in
class rooms, labs, libraries etc. All these regulations thatinfrastructure, all of which cannot be recovered
existed at one time (though not always enforcedthrough student fees, without making higher education
strictly as long as there were bribes to collect) haveinaccessible to a large section of students. Unlike many
now been deregulated or softened under thebetter-known private educational institutions in Western
self-financing scheme of higher and professionalcountries that operate in the charity mode with tuition
education adopted by the UGC in the 9th five-yearwaivers and fellowships (which is one reason why our
plan and enthusiastically followed by the central andstudents go there), most private colleges and
state governments.universities in India are pursuing a profit motive. This is
This situation reached its extreme recently in the newthe basic reason for charging huge tuition fees, apart
state of Chattisgarh, where over 150 privatefrom forced donations, capitation fees and other
universities and colleges came up within a couple ofcharges. Despite huge public discontent, media
years, till the scam got exposed by a public interestinterventions and many court cases, the governments
litigation and the courts ordered the state governmenthave not been able to regulate the fee structure and
in 2004 to derecognise and close most of thesedonations in these institutions. Even the courts have
universities or merge them with the remainingonly played with the terms such as payment seats,
recognized ones. A whole generation of students andmanagement quotas etc., without addressing the basic
teachers are suffering irreparable damage to theirissue of fee structure.
careers due to these trends, for no fault of theirs.