Oppose Market Oriented Reforms in Higher Education
Organize Nation-wide Decentralized Protest
Against the higher education Bills in the Parliament
Dear Friends
The UPA Government implemented the ‘Right To Education Act’
from 1st April 2010. The result, as everybody can see, has been the
weakening of public education system and big hikes in fees in private sector. The
Common School System or democratic curricular objectives have had no place in
our education system either before or after the implementation of the Act. However,
MHRD minister Kapil Sibal is now carrying out a program for restructuring the
entire education system. Having destroyed the school system, he has now initiated
market reforms in higher education. A
series of Bills related to higher education are before the parliament and maybe
passed in the budget session this year which my start on 12th of
March. If enacted, these bills will make higher education an unprotected prey
for both domestic and foreign corporations. The academic consequences of such
`reforms’ will be catastrophic. The privately-borne high cost of education will
put a premium on disciplines and courses that are directly linked to the
demands of domestic and foreign markets that currently generate some jobs and
the biggest salaries for few. Fundamental research both in social and natural
sciences and pro-people research and democratic syllabi will suffer an
inevitable decline. As a consequence, the critical and transformational purpose
of institutions of higher education will recede into the background, as they
are rapidly turned into `providers’ of a commodity called `knowledge’.
New Bills: The foreign educational institutions
(entry and regulation) Bill, opens flood gates for foreign trade in education
sector. The Educational Tribunal Bill system seeks to establish a draconian
grievance redressal system in conditions in which unionization and collective
action, and even recourse to the courts, would be denied to all sections of the
university community. The Abolition of
Unfair Practices Bill defines only those exorbitant demands for fees that have
not been announced at the time of admissions as constituting `unfair practice’ and
thus legitimizes the rest of all unfair practices!
The Bill to set up an Accreditation Authority has the
declared objective of maintenance of quality. Yet its main purpose is not
academic; it functions as an aid to students to decide where they should
`invest’ to get the best `returns’ from the system. In an educational environment
as historically, regionally and socially diverse and unequal as contemporary
India, it would seriously compromise those courses and institutions that would
in fact merit the most support. The said accreditation authority gives licenses
to private and public accreditation agencies reducing National Accreditation
Council of India to become one among the countless. In the new regime, if
established, private agencies will give accreditation to private and public
Universities.
A ‘National Council for Higher Education and Research’, is
proposed to be established through “Higher Education and Research Bill” as the
` single-window’ entry point, so favored by corporate capital, to replace
bodies like the UGC, MCI, AICTE, NCTE which regulate diverse academic streams.
Now these are seen as hurdles in the onward march of trade in education. The
important point to be noted here is that the World Bank suggests to and the
World Trade Organization imposes on their member countries to set up a single
and ‘independent’ regulatory authority in every service sector. These
independent regulatory authorities will be independent of democratic pressure
from people and regulate trade in favor of corporate houses. Again, the
proposed ‘Universities for Innovation Bill’, even its revised version, empowers
the central government to establish new or ‘elevate’ the existing universities
and go for collaboration with foreign universities on trade lines bypassing all
existing norms including reservations, procedures of appointment of teachers
and admission of students with the only condition that they enroll 50% students
from within the country. These universities will bypass all other rules of
recognition. Another proposed Bill would legislate on the regulations for
Public Private Partnership - a euphemism for siphoning public funds to private
agencies.
Since the 1990’s it has
become very well-known that ‘reform’ in any sector only means privatization,
globalization and liberalization of trade regulations. The current agenda of Kapil Sibal is to bring
these ‘reforms’ into the education system and convert it into a market for
domestic and foreign capital. That is why the singular purpose behind all the
higher education bills is to bypass regulation by the legislative, judicial and
executive systems and clear the path for unrestrained trade in education.
The crisis in the educational system, its institutions
weakened over time due to corrupt practices under the pressure of profit
oriented private institutions on the one hand, and a failure to invest public
funds in a sustained manner, on the other, contributed largely to dereliction
of duties at different levels. What is required at this stage to bring about
genuine reform is to ban trade in education on one hand and decentralize and
democratize regulatory bodies on the other. Again, the expansion of the system
(only about 12% of young people in the relevant age group are in higher
education institutions) and ensuring greater access to students from
marginalized and weaker sections of society must form the basis for improving
and reforming higher education. However, the Kapil Sibal guided reform process
is going in the opposite direction.
Commercialization of education and concentration of
regulatory powers are aimed at restricting entry into this sector only for the
wealthy elite and with the onset of global trade in education, the Indian
education system will lose whatever democratic nature it has been able to
retain till date. Public Private Partnership will result in dissolution of
public institutions and establishment of a few elite institutions and many
`teaching shops’ in the private sector. Public money will be siphoned off to
private agencies while the poor and disadvantaged will have to pay for poor
quality degrees.
The NDA government had already ‘offered’ the higher education
sector as a tradable commodity to be regulated by World Trade Organization. The
UPA is continuing the ‘offer’. In fact, the current Bills are aimed at putting
in place the legal structure that would facilitate implementation of the regulations
of the WTO. If the offer is not withdrawn before the completion of the Doha
Round of trade negotiations, Indian higher education would be governed, in
perpetuity, by multinational trade regulations.
This would pose a grave threat to academic independence and national
sovereignty.
It is high time for students, teachers, educationalists
organizations and activists and for all people to stand against
commercialization of education and wage a determined struggle for common school
system and public funded education from KG to PG. It is time for all to
struggle for a truly democratic education system that excludes inequalities and
includes diversities, an education system that liberates individual creativity
and strengthens society to stand against any threat internal or external to the
democratic rights and freedoms of the people. Let us all unite and resist higher education bills. Make success the
all India protest day on 16th of February, 2012
With Compliments from
All India Forum for
Right to Education
306,
Pleasant Apartments, Bazarghat, Hyderabad -4,
Ph: 04023305266,
E-mail: aifrte.secretariat@gmail.com …………………………………………………..……….……..……………………………………………………………………………………………
Presidium, All India Forum For Right To Education :: Prof. Mehar Engineer (Chairperson), Ms. Madhu
Prasad, Prof. Anil Sadgopal, Prof. Wasi Ahmed, Prof. Haragopal, Sri Kedarnath
Pandey, Sri Prabhakar Arade, Sri Sunil
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………Name and address of
the local Organization………………………………………………
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