Challenge the dogma of the educational establishment, or else....

The dogma of the educational establishment is a serious threat to our ability to provide higher education for all to ensure the country's continued growth. Here's a taste of the the dogma.

Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is seeking more private investment in higher education, educationists want privatisation to be restricted "to the minimum desirable level." Also, they have called for a tax on the industry to raise resources for higher education.

Such is their angst against privatisation and commercialisation of higher education that the majority view at a recent meeting on the issue - organised by the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (on May 2 2005) - favoured a law banning such commercialisation. "All commercialisation of education, which should be unambiguously defined, should be banned by a suitable act of Parliament." This was one of the recommendations of the meeting of 64 eminent educationists here earlier this week.

However, they are not closed to the idea of private participation. "Private investors in education may be encouraged. However, it must be made clear that this cannot be for profit-making purposes, in however disguised a form. Further, the entry of the private sector cannot be seen as a solution to all the various problems of quantity and quality," the educationists noted in their recommendations submitted to the Government.

One of their grouses against privatisation was its market-orientation. "Commodification of education may lead to excessive emphasis on skill, employment and corporate-oriented education" at the cost of basic sciences and the vast pool of traditional knowledge, thereby creating an imbalance among various streams of learning.

Given the inevitability of private initiative in the Indian context, they said Article 19(6) of the Constitution should be invoked to ensure a holistic development of higher education, and prevent commodification and profiteering. Article 19(6) allows the State to put "reasonable restrictions" on the exercise of the right to establish and run educational institutions conferred under Article 19(g) - the freedom to practise any profession, carry on any occupation, trade or business.

says a report in The Hindu (May 06, 2005) about a National Seminar on Privatization and Commercialization of Higher Education organised by NIEPA on May 2, 2006 at the India International Centre ( IIC), New Delhi. Surprisingly, no newspaper other than The Hindu has thought it worthwhile to report on this. It would be interesting to find out who the 64 educationists mentioned are and how many of them were part of the majority view and how many of them (and who) were the dissenters, if at all. If anyone has access to a detailed report of the seminar proceedings, please post it.

Let's consider what the eminent educationists are supposed to have said (marked in red) and look a bit deeper at the implications of what they're saying.

• educationists want privatisation to be restricted "to the minimum desirable level."

  The State has, over the past 58 years, been unable to create enough opportunities to provide higher education for all through state funding alone and has pretty much abdicated its responsibility to the private sector. How many new state funded higher education institutions have been set up in the last ten years when compared to the number of new institutions set up in the private sector in the same period? Why should privatisation be restricted to a minimum desirable level, when the State is unable to meet the demand?

  The educationists seem to be so steeped in dogma about the role of the state and the role of the private sector that they are losing sight of the ends (providing education for all) and getting caught up with the means (keeping the private sector out and letting only the State do everything at its own glacial pace, even if it means the objective is becoming unattainable). We left this mindset behind when the economy was liberalised in 1991, but it continues to haunt us in the education sector. Rapid growth of Industry and Services since 1991 is testimony to the success of economic liberalisation. Educational liberalisation can result in rapid growth of educational opportunities, likewise.

  There's also the other issue of what is the "minimum desirable level" of private participation? Who is to define this? There can be no easy consensus on such an issue.

• they have called for a tax on the industry to raise resources for higher education.

  While in general, raising taxes to fund education is the way to go, we need to do the sums. What will be the extent of fresh taxation, how much will that raise and what will be impact of the taxes on the economy? Will the money raised through fresh taxes be sufficient to increase the supply of education to meet the huge, pent up demand? It's one thing to speak in general terms about taxes, but specific proposals doing the sums need to be put forward and debated.

• the majority view at a recent meeting on the issue favoured a law banning such commercialisation. "All commercialisation of education, which should be unambiguously defined, should be banned by a suitable act of Parliament." This was one of the recommendations of the meeting of 64 eminent educationists here earlier this week.

  What is commercialisation? The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines
  - Commercialisation as "manage or exploit in a way designed to make a profit"
  - Profit as "a financial gain, especially the difference between an initial outlay and the subsequent amount earned", and
  - Profiteering as "making an excessive or unfair profit"

  These words are going to be widely used in debating the dogma and need to be understood well by all.

  An educational institution spends money on infrastructure and salaries to provide an education to students and expects to get paid by students in the form of fees for the service provided. If the fees cover all of the institution's expenditure, that would be ideal. More often than not, the fees cover only part of the expenditure and the institution has to balance the shortfall from other sources in the form of grants from the State or other types of income. If the State had no shortage of funds, it could bridge the shortfall in all institutions through grants and subsidies and there would be no problem at all in keeping fees very low and yet providing education for all. But with the State not having enough funds to meet the shortfall in existing institutions, where is it going to find the necessary funds to set up new institutions?

  We're only talking about higher education here - the State has a far bigger challenge to find the funds to address the far more important task of providing free school education for all children.

  If the ultimate objective is to provide educational opportunities for all, something no one can or will disagree with, there is no alternative to relying on the private sector to invest in expanding the supply of educational opportunities.

• However, they are not closed to the idea of private participation. "Private investors in education may be encouraged. However, it must be made clear that this cannot be for profit-making purposes, in however disguised a form. Further, the entry of the private sector cannot be seen as a solution to all the various problems of quantity and quality," the educationists noted in their recommendations submitted to the Government.

  How can the the private sector be encouraged to participate in increasing the supply of education on the one hand, while the other hand is forcing them to operate at a loss? I'm sure the eminent educationists all understand economics and incentives, but their dogma is so strong that they believe the private sector will do their bidding. If a private sector educational institution cannot at the least recover its costs, it will have to close down. The private sector won't even be interested in getting involved in the first place. At the least, private institutions must be allowed to be "commercial" i.e. they must be allowed to break-even or make a small fair profit, which would be the difference between the money spent and the money earned. If they are allowed to do so transparently, there would be no need to disguise their profit. Like prohibition, by outlawing for-profit education, the State has not been able to arrest it - it has only driven it underground. In fact, not just commercialisation (fair profit), even profiteering is rampant today - only not overtly.

  But if private institutions begin profiteering and give short shrift to quality, that should certainly be stopped. That is where the State needs to play a crucial role, something it has been remiss in not doing so far.

  Good regulation is the solution to doing away with profiteering and poor quality. The State must set up an independent, autonomous regulator to regulate all private and public higher education institutions to ensure quality and transparency and prevent profiteering. The State did so in the telecom sector by setting up the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to ensure basic quality of services as well as keep the prices of telecom services provided by both public and private operators at reasonable levels. It needs to do the same in the education sector and regulate quality, not growth of supply.

  The group of eminent educationists should be urged to take note of the excellent job quietly being done by the Directorate General of Shipping, the regulator of both publicly and privately funded maritime education institutions in India. Not only has the DGS decided to make it mandatory for all maritime education institutions to get themselves rated by independent rating agencies (CRISIL, ICRA and CARE), but it has also introduced exit examinations for students graduating from the institutions. The exit examinations will be conducted not by DGS but "by professional bodies in an open, fair, transparent and independent manner," and "institutes not yielding good results at the common exit exams would be closed down," according to GS Sahni, Director General of Shipping. When DGS has shown the way, why can't we learn from them and do the same in all other areas of higher education in India?

• One of their grouses against privatisation was its market-orientation. "Commodification of education may lead to excessive emphasis on skill, employment and corporate-oriented education" at the cost of basic sciences and the vast pool of traditional knowledge, thereby creating an imbalance among various streams of learning.

  Commodification is inevitable in education too like most other areas and we need to deal with it in the proper manner. It is true that the private sector would tend to first focus on areas where there is high demand, areas with emphasis on skills, employment (engineering, medicine etc.) and corporate-oriented education (like Management, Law, Finance etc.). Rather than citing that as an excuse to keep the corporate sector involvement to the minimum, the State should acutally encourage the corporate sector, albeit with proper regulation, to address the demand in these areas to the maximum and look to complement the corporate sector by channeling all its funds towards basis sciences and "knowledge-oriented" courses. We also need to remember that there's no reason to believe that the private sector will never be interested in the sciences, social sciences and other knowledge oriented areas. The Indian Institute of Science (1911), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (1945) and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (1936) were originally mooted and set up by the Tatas. Apart from taking over these institutions, how many more such high quality institutions has the State set up? The State's efforts have largely resulted in the proliferation of numerous arts and science degree colleges (that only dole out paper degrees mostly), with little emphasis on quality or knowledge.

• Given the inevitability of private initiative in the Indian context, they said Article 19(6) of the Constitution should be invoked to ensure a holistic development of higher education, and prevent commodification and profiteering. Article 19(6) allows the State to put "reasonable restrictions" on the exercise of the right to establish and run educational institutions conferred under Article 19(g) - the freedom to practise any profession, carry on any occupation, trade or business.

  The eminent educationists grudgingly accept that private initiative is inevitable, but in the same breath are fighting to keep the private sector role to the "minimum desirable level" and clamouring to prevent the private sector from making a small fair profit. They seem to be unable to come to terms with the fact that the State by itself, has not been able to, and cannot, provide educational opportunities for all and if the private sector is not invited to participate, the ultimate objective of providing education for all is in jeopardy.

  Why are they so threatened by the private sector to the extant that they want to invoke Article 19(6) of the Constitution to put "reasonable restrictions" on the right to establish and run educational institutions? Why can't they let enlightened regulation by an independent, autonomous body hold both the private and public sectors to transparency and high standards, without the need to resort to legislation? , Why can't they encourage both the private sector and State-funded institutions like the IITs, IISc., TIFR, JNU, the various Central Universities and others to address the needs of basic sciences, the humanities and the arts?

It is matter of serious concern to find these eminent educationists clamouring for legislation to turn their dogma into the law of the land. We need to challenge their dogma and speak out against it, else, there's little hope for us to provide educational opportunities for all, to ensure continuing growth.