"Privatization of education is defeating the constitutional rule of “equality for all”
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Privatization of education is defeating the constitutional rule of “equality for all”
The preamble of Indian constitution states JUSTICE, LIBERTY, EQUALITY, and FRATERNITY. Unfortunately the promises of providing perfect justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity remain unfulfilled even after 70 years of independence.
Our great leaders such as Gandhi, Tagore, and Siri Aurbindo believed EDUCATION was panacea for all types of challenges, issues, problems, and backwardness. Therefore all of the above mentioned personages emphasized on providing and creating world class educational system for Indians, especially the poor and backward classes.
However, quite contrary to the drams and visions of those great souls, the equality of opportunities to quality education is limited to only the privileged few people. The field of education has been so much monopolized by private sector corporate that the poor and the less privileged are still deprived of quality education.
Quality education has become limited to brands such as DPS, G.D. Goenka World Schools, Rayan International Schools, DAV Schools, etc. Only people with high incomes can afford educating their children at such schools. The educational expenses in the current times have assumed back-breaking proportions. The tuition fee charged by the private schools is so much that an ordinary man or woman cannot have his or her children educated at such schools. Adding to the burden, these schools charge capitation fee according to their own policies which aim at collecting funds from the parents. In this privatization of education, the ideals set in the Preamble have been lost.
What hurts one the most is the fact that in spite of the clear directives against the privatization of education in the constitution, some greedy people are minting money in the name of education. The Honourable Supreme Court of India has issued a directive against the capitation fee. A five-judge Constitution bench of Justices A R Dave, A K Sikri, R K Agrawal, A K Goel and R Banumathi said the objective of setting up educational institutions must not be to make profit and the government must step in to regulate the sector to promote merit, curb malpractices and secure merit-based admission in a transparent manner.
According to the directive Education must treated as a noble occupation on 'no-profit-no-loss' basis. Any school that indulges in profiteering activities through ill practices such as charging exorbitant tuition fee, admission fee, or any type of capitation fee must be strictly dealt with by the Government.
The Government must act with an iron fist to eradicate this privatization of education. India won’t develop and advance if this evil is not got rid of. The sooner it is done the better.
The process involves the private sector in the ownership or operation of a state owned enterprise. Since the impact of privatization is penetrating all sectors of the economy, it is bound to affect education sector as well. The question arises: Why is privatization being recommended in education.
Firstly, it is alleged that the policies followed in India under the Nehru- Mahalanobis Model placed excessive responsibility for the expansion and development of education on the state. Consequently, the expansion and establishment of education institutions and facilities have been shouldered mainly by the State.
At the elementary levels of education, the state-sponsored schools have been responsible for the spread of literacy, more especially in rural areas, but even in urban areas, bulk of the schools are state run or aided by the state.
At the level of secondary, higher secondary and the college and university as well, public sector has played a dominant role in the development of education system.
A stage has now come when the state is finding it very difficult to meet the democratic aspirations of the people for further expansion of educational system due to paucity of resources, because the demand for funds for the educational sector has to compete with the demand for resources for the other sector.
It is, therefore, being felt that the private sector be inducted in education so that it can share the burdens of the State in funding education.
Secondly, the expansion of the horizons of knowledge is taking place at a rapid pace all over the world; the underdeveloped economies must keep pace with this explosion of knowledge.
Emphasizing this point the World Bank has stated: "Today knowledge explosion is dividing the world into fast moving, rich economies that use knowledge effectively and slow moving, poor economies that do not. Education or knowledge industry is becoming a key factor in the process of development.
This being so, education is no longer viewed as a social service, it is considered a necessary economic input and as such investment in education is treated as a factor contributory to human resources development.
In this effort towards human resource development, the private sector is also expected to play its part since it is a major beneficiary of the knowledge industry.
Thirdly, according to W.W. Rostow, the world is passing through the fourth Industrial Revolution (1985). This encompasses genetics, communications, robots, lasers and new industrial material and the various tools and products incorporating the micro chip.
The growth of Satellite TV and the developments in computer technology have further escalated the information revolution. These technological developments have increased the requirements of highly educated and well-trained technical manpower.
The public sector is hampered by lack of resources and cannot meet the needs of industry and other sectors of the economy. Therefore, the private sector must be initiated in the programmes of training skilled manpower to take advantage of hi-tech opportunities.
Fourthly, privatization can respond more promptly and efficiently than the public sector which is hamstrung with structural and operational inflexibilities to market signals or market demand for labour and take effective steps to promote human resource development to keep pace with the emerging requirements.
Fifthly, over the years, the public sector has failed to generate resources from the recipients of education. Education has become more or less a free public service.
This has devalued education in the eyes of the recipients. Privatization, by charging the full cost or a substantial portion of the cost and at times, by charging cost-plus pricing for the service provided is likely to generate greater responsibility among the recipients of education i.e., the students.
As a consequence, students are likely to insist on greater efficiency in teaching and improvement in its quality.
Lastly, privatization, by generating more resources from student fees, will help to reduce fiscal burden on the Government.
Hope this helps you...