Privatization of Professional Education in India

Privatization of Professional Education in Indiathe local governments, since their recognition comes
 from a far away state. Add to this a new culture of
IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATIONwell-branded private educational institutions allowing
Education is the process of instruction aimed at the allfranchisees at far away locations to run their courses,
round development of boys and girls. Education dispelswithout being responsible to the students or teachers in
ignorance. It is the only wealth that cannot be robbed.any other way. This is increasingly becoming a trend
Learning includes the moral values and thewith foreign universities, especially among those who
improvement of character and the methods todo not want to set up their own shop here, but would
increase the strength of mind.like to benefit from the degree-purchasing power of
HIGHER AND PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION IN INDIAthe growing upwardly mobile economic class of India.
Higher education in India is gasping for breath, at a timeSoon we might see private educational institutions
when India is aiming to be an important player in thegetting themselves listed in the stock market and
emerging knowledge economy. With about 300soliciting investments in the education business on the
universities and deemed universities, over 15,000slogan that its demand will never see the sunset.
colleges and hundreds of national and regionalThe economics of imparting higher education are such
research institutes, Indian higher education andthat, barring a few courses in arts and humanities,
research sector is the third largest in the world, inimparting quality education in science, technology,
terms of the number of students it caters to.engineering, medicine etc. requires huge investments in
            However, not a single Indianinfrastructure, all of which cannot be recovered
university finds even a mention in a recent internationalthrough student fees, without making higher education
ranking of the top 200 universities of the world, exceptinaccessible to a large section of students. Unlike many
an IIT Kharagpur ranked at 41, whereas there werebetter-known private educational institutions in Western
three universities each from China, Hong Kong andcountries that operate in the charity mode with tuition
South Korea and one from Taiwan.waivers and fellowships (which is one reason why our
On the other hand, it is also true that there is nostudents go there), most private colleges and
company or institute in the world that has not benefiteduniversities in India are pursuing a profit motive. This is
by graduates, post-graduates or Ph.D.s from India be itthe basic reason for charging huge tuition fees, apart
NASA, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Bell, Sun, Harvard, MIT,from forced donations, capitation fees and other
Caltech, Cambridge or Oxford, and not all thosecharges. Despite huge public discontent, media
students are products of our IITs, IIMs, IISc/TIFR orinterventions and many court cases, the governments
central universities, which cater to barely one per centhave not been able to regulate the fee structure and
of the Indian student population. This is not to suggestdonations in these institutions. Even the courts have
that we should pat our backs for the achievements ofonly played with the terms such as payment seats,
our students abroad, but to point out that Indian highermanagement quotas etc., without addressing the basic
educational institutions have not been able to achieveissue of fee structure.
the same status for themselves as their studentsPRIVATIZATION OF TEACHER EDUCATION
seem to achieve elsewhere with their education from            “The destiny of India is now
here.being shaped in her class rooms”. This is the
While many reasons can be cited for this situation,opening sentence of the Kothari Education
they all boil down to decades of feudally managed,Commission report (1964-66). What kind of destiny has
colonially modelled institutions run with inadequatebeen actually shaped during the last sixty years?
funding and excessive political interference. Only aboutThere are thousands of schools without primary
10 per cent of the total student population enters higherneeds. The position of teacher’s economic
education in India, as compared to over 15 per cent incondition is also poor when compared to USA
China and 50 per cent in the major industrialisedteachers. Majority of teacher educational institutions
countries. Higher education is largely funded by theare under the control of private sector. The main aim
state and central governments so far, but the situationof private organizations is to get profit.
is changing fast. Barring a few newly establishedIt is not only students but also teachers who are at the
private universities, the government funds most of thereceiving end of the ongoing transformation in higher
universities, whereas at the college level, the balance isand professional education. The nation today
increasingly being reversed.witnesses the declining popularity of teaching as a
THE PRIVATISATION EXPERIENCEprofession, not only among the students that we
The experience over the last few decades has clearlyproduce, but also among parents, scientists, society
shown that unlike school education, privatisation hasand the government. The teaching profession today
not led to any major improvements in the standards ofattracts only those who have missed all other "better"
higher and professional education. Yet, in the run up toopportunities in life, and is increasingly mired in
the economic reforms in 1991, the IMF, World Bank andbureaucratic controls and anti-education concepts such
the countries that control them have been cryingas "hours" of teaching "load", "paid-by-the-hour",
hoarse over the alleged pampering of higher education"contractual" teachers etc. With privatisation reducing
in India at the cost of school education. The fact of theeducation to a commodity, teachers are reduced to
matter was that school education was alreadytutors and teaching is reduced to coaching. The
privatised to the extent that government schoolsconsumerist boom and the growing salary differentials
became an option only to those who cannot affordbetween teachers and other professionals and the
private schools mushrooming in every street corner,value systems of the emerging free market economy
even in small towns and villages. On the other hand, inhave made teaching one of the least attractive
higher education and professional courses, relativelyprofessions that demands more work for less pay.
better quality teaching and infrastructure has beenYet, the society expects teachers not only to be
available only in government colleges and universities,inspired but also to do an inspiring job!
while private institutions of higher education in IndiaPRESENT STATUS OF TEACHER EDUCATION
capitalised on fashionable courses with minimum            Permission is granted by the
infrastructure.NCTE regional centres to number of teacher
Nevertheless, successive governments over the lasteducation institutions/colleges especially in the private
two decades have only pursued a path of privatisationunaided sector. Take for example, in Andhra Pradesh,
and deregulation of higher education, regardless ofthere are more than 300 B.Ed Colleges in the private
which political party ran the government. From theunaided sector and there are less than 20 B.Ed
Punnaiah committee on reforms in higher education setcolleges in Government and aided sector. Is there any
up by the Narasimha Rao government to thekind of supervision either by the university authorities or
Birla-Ambani committee set up by the Vajpayeeby the government officials or by the officers of
government, the only difference is in their degree ofNCTE with regard to availability of the staff during
alignment to the market forces and not in thecollege days, proper attendance of the students,
fundamentals of their recommendations.proper organization and running of different
With the result, the last decade has witnessed manyprogrammes of B.Ed Course? It is a doubtful validity.
sweeping changes in higher and professional education:The first and foremost supervising authority for running
For example, thousands of private colleges andB.Ed programme is the concerned University. The
institutes offering IT courses appeared all across theconcerned officials of the university have to make
country by the late 1990s and disappeared in less thanfrequent surprise visits to the B.Ed Colleges under its
a decade, with devastating consequences for theJurisdiction. If any loopholes identified, necessary steps
students and teachers who depended on them formay be taken for rectifying them at the earliest
their careers. This situation is now repeating itself inpossible time; then only the quality of B.Ed programmes
management, biotechnology, bioinformatics and othercan be improved.
emerging areas. No one asked any questions aboutIn the most of the private B.Ed. colleges in the state of
opening or closing such institutions, or bothered aboutAndhra Pradesh, there are two or three teaching staff
whether there were qualified teachers at all, much lessonly. In some of the universities, there are no selection
worry about teacher-student ratio, floor area ratio,committees for these colleges. The managements will
class rooms, labs, libraries etc. All these regulations thatrun the colleges according to their whims and fancies.
existed at one time (though not always enforcedIn majority of the situations, they are charging Rs.6000
strictly as long as there were bribes to collect) have- for a set of B.Ed. records which cost about Rs.300/-
now been deregulated or softened under thein the market. They will pay less than Rs. 5000/- to the
self-financing scheme of higher and professionalteaching staff. They are collecting huge amounts from
education adopted by the UGC in the 9th five-yearthe students under the heads; ‘practical
plan and enthusiastically followed by the central andexaminations’, ‘study tours’, etc. they allow
state governments.less than 20% attendance students to the
This situation reached its extreme recently in the newexaminations by collecting huge amounts from them.
state of Chattisgarh, where over 150 privateSome private management resort to all types of fraud
universities and colleges came up within a couple ofactivities. Then, who will set right these things? The first
years, till the scam got exposed by a public interestand foremost is the concerned affiliating university,
litigation and the courts ordered the state governmentthen the state government and NCTE at the regional
in 2004 to derecognise and close most of theselevel and national level. Honesty persons with surprise
universities or merge them with the remainingvisits can make the situation better.
recognized ones. A whole generation of students andCONCLUSION
teachers are suffering irreparable damage to their            India is a developing country.
careers due to these trends, for no fault of theirs.Different types of religious people are living in the
Even government-funded colleges and universities incountry. We have thousand years of tradition and
most states started many "self-financing" courses in IT,culture. Now we are living in the technological and
biotechnology etc., without qualified teachers, labs ormodern world. Because of globalization a lot of change
infrastructure and charging huge fees from theoccurring. Education is a primary need for all in the
students and are liberally giving them marks andsociety. It is the duty of government to provide free
degrees to hide their inadequacies.education for all up to 14 years. All people have no
It is not that the other well established departmentsopportunity to study higher and professional education.
and courses in government funded colleges andNow majority of professional educational institutions
universities are doing any better. Decades ofare under the control of private organizations.
government neglect, poor funding, frequent ban onEspecially all teacher educational institutions are in the
faculty recruitments and promotions, reduction in libraryprivate sector. The main aim of private sector is to get
budgets, lack of investments in modernization leadingprofit. How it is possible to expect quality education? It
to obsolescence of equipment and infrastructure, andis not possible to study Medicine or Engineering course
the tendency to start new universities on politicalfor a poor student in the society. It is necessary to
grounds without consolidating the existing ones todayestablish more and more professional and higher
threatens the entire higher education system.educational institutions in the country. Teacher is a
Another corollary of this trend is that an educationalnational builder. He has a capacity to change the world.
institution recognized in a particular state need not limitThere are some benefits and losses due to
its operations to that state. This meant that universitiesprivatization of professional education. But India is a
approved by the governments of Chattisgarh ordeveloping country. It is better to establish all
Himachal Pradesh can set up campuses in Delhi orprofessional educational institutions under the
Noida, where they are more likely to get students fromgovernment sector. Then only it is possible to study all
well off families who can afford their astronomicaltype of courses for poor section children and India will
fees. What is more, they are not even accountable tobecome developed country in the world.