People cry that education in India has become a business. The way it is, I agree that the current system is far from ideal. But what is wrong is not that the avenue has become a business, but that it is a business where it is rigged against the consumers. It is a business, which should be regulated by the forces of supply and demand rather than government interference. Let me explain.
The college managements should be able to charge whatever they want from students to run the establishment. When asking for any amount is legitimate, all the money that changes hands would be legitimate. Also, if the amount is too high for the services provided, the demand would go down and the management would be forced to lower it. This already happens, albeit behind closed doors.
Also, the government should allow anybody to start any number of colleges for any reason, as long as they meet the national and university academic standards. If, for any reason they cannot keep up with the standards, the management should be made responsible for the transfer of all the students affected to other good quality colleges with all the expenses borne by the management. This is just a theory though, as more creative ways of enforcement can always be implemented. I await your comments on that one.
Furthermore, once the system becomes a free market, no management would want to give the seats in its college only to students who are willing to pay the best price. This will only result in diminishing quality of the institution and it would only makes it more difficult for the management to demand more money. Also, the best students would always be courted by the best colleges so that they can improve the institution’s reputation and this would result in those students getting scholarships or other incentives to attend a specific college.
These all would deem that the government would have to do away with the entrance examination or even make it just a benchmark against with the admission committees can evaluate a student. We all know that a high entrance rank would never translate to high accomplishments, whether it is in academics in college or in the professional world. So the government could alter entrance examination to be like a rating test like SAT, GRE, GMAT etc and let the managements decide who should get admitted based on the score, interviews etc. As I have said before, a free market system would ensure that the managements would make sure that their student population is a balanced mix of people with merit; whether it is their own merit or their parents’ financial merit.
Also, there is one thing that the government can do. It can offer subsidized or cheap education through its network of colleges and can create any kind of requirements. It can offer the education only to the financially challenged students. It can also increase the number of seats in its colleges so that the private managements cannot compete with the government ones without lowering the fees.
I teach at a business management college. I do think education in India has become big business. But what is needed is not more colleges but better primary and secondary level schooling. Students come to urban colleges with such a poor base that they tend to become very easily satisfied consumers, with the result that the standards of colleges deteriorates. To have better higher education, we must start with excellent base work.
Comment by Rosemary Ambale — June 1, 2009 @ 9:29 am
@Rosemary
What you have said is very true. The post here is mainly aimed at education after school. If you are in Kerala you will understand this post much better.
Comment by Kenney Jacob — June 1, 2009 @ 9:48 am
You should understand that Kerala has a comparitively good basic education system. The college education system is perhaps what undoes this. But IMHO, US still has the world’s best education system. One closer look would reveal how radically different and efficient US university system is. We largely churn out defective manpower becoz our degree/college system is our Achilles’ heel. I put forward the following points:
1. In the US, one would find the Academia in harmony with the practical world which tend to senstize the students towards the various nuances of the industry- something which is completely absent here.
2. They research out there. Here research is a concept almost unheard of (unless u r talking of the IITs or IISc)
3. US colleges seldom see the ‘business’ part in education which is completely opposite to what we have in India- business overshadows education at any cost.
My own feeling is that unless the commercialization is taken outta Indian education system, we would continue to supply people who cannot stand on their own two feet. My two (or 3) cents here!
Comment by The Nomad — June 1, 2009 @ 10:30 pm
In a survey done by Readers Digest, 70% of the Indians said they are ready to relocate completely to USA, if given an opportunity. It was the world’s highest in any region across the world. After seeing that I was thinking why we need free public education. Maybe people will send valuable foreign currency to take care of the parents (at least) here, and help Govt. of India
in that way.
The privatization of educational system is good, as long as it is tightly regulated. Also we should not get rid of the public system. There is and attempt to bring quality control through NBA and NAC. As a young system it has miles to reach some basic maturity.
Comment by Sachin — June 2, 2009 @ 9:43 am
I agree with Kenney. Many a time, base education is sufficient. However, if it is found to be needing, one would need to think about bridge courses to repair that defect.
However, moving on to my subject of discussion, the realm of professional education, the quality is a total different animal. I agree and disagree with Sachin. There is no need of a ‘tight’ regulation by the government, it will prove to be counterproductive. However, a tight quality control would be welcome and should be a priority.
Coming to Nomad’s opinion, I think we can increase quality by encouraging commercialization rather than discouraging it. I will discuss how commercialization and quality goes hand in hand if and even if the sole goal of the management is making profits.
Comment by Domestic Avalanche — June 3, 2009 @ 7:28 am
We encouraged privitization, what happend is that they joined together, as a group similar to Bilderberg, and they are working against the people and the govt. They know the loop holes in law. And they have the best advocates. They are very confident of their powers. They have political hold and muscle power. Everybody knows about it. We do have so called regulations. But the regualtions regulated by this group. They bribes authorities. And it is like a paralell totalitarian group which decides the policy. The commission regulated the fees for Engineering as Rs.36000 per semester which includes fees for everything. The college where i studied demanded us to pay Rs. 48,000. Everybody paid it. The regulations has nothing to do with this group. The govt is helpless so do the people are.
The scholarship system you suggested is obviously good. But it is not going work in here. There are only a fixed number of seats. If a management decides to give scholarships, they get the least money out of the group. They might get brilliant students. But they will ofcourse loose money. In Kerala, this is strictly business. A business running for profit, not for reputation.
What I suggest is an international open university, a model University like BITS, MIT. Where we choose only the elite, whether it is a teacher or students. And about the running cost, we have to discuss.
Comment by Tony Jose — June 7, 2009 @ 10:31 pm
@Tony –
“There are only a fixed number of seats.”
Exactly! Now the current managements have a monopoly on the education. Free market will wither under monopolies. Free market can work only with competition. Hence there have to be enough and more seats than there are students. That way, only the reasonable managements get the business (that is students) At that point reputation will matter because if you donot focus on that, people will go elsewhere.
Also, student fees is the only revenue source now a days. That has to change too. I will talk about that later in the week since now I am preparing what I promised you before.
Comment by Domestic Avalanche — June 7, 2009 @ 10:39 pm