The mushroom growth of Techinical Colleges who earn a lot of money during admissions promise students to make them Technocrats by assuring them placement services( a type of match-fixing)
In fact such students are unfit to become technicians also.
I opine that unless and until the corruption in the Educational field is rooted out ,our Nation cannot improve.Many Indian students who are from well-to do families rush to other countries for education and jobs, thereby facing racial discrimination which is fatal to them.
Let us promise our Indian children a good and secured life in future in India.
Let us save our motherland and our children. Jai Hind and Jai Bharat. Shiva Durga

i was helped in figuring that out by pro-school-choice advocates here in india and elsewhere. let me quote a few lines from the website of an american pro-school-choice advocacy group from wisconsin, u.s.a., ( http://www.schoolchoiceinfo.org/facts/index.cfm ):

“Choice is everywhere in American education. It is manifest in the residential choices made by families [and] in the housing prices found in neighborhoods [and] when families, sometimes at great financial sacrifice, decide to send their children to private schools…. [I]n all instances, these choices…are strongly shaped by the wealth, ethnicity, and social status of parents and their neighborhoods.”

school choice is being justified on the grounds that choices (along the lines of wealth, ethnicity, social status and location) are made even in the absence of a school choice program- so why block a government sponsored program that only acknowledges existing economic, social and ethnic differences? i wouldn’t even like to think about how many income-wise, religious, sectarian, casteist, regional, linguistic choices a school choice program in india would allow people to make.

parth shah of ccs ( http://www.ccsindia.org/parth_FENew1.asp ) says:

‘The government should give the freedom to all professional institutions—public and private—to set their own fee structures. By requiring public institutions to charge very low fees, the government actually subsidises professional education for the middle and upper classes. A better system would be where all institutions set fees that make them self-financing and then give merit and need-based scholarships to those who cannot afford to pay those fees.’

he’s talking about professional institutions but i don’t think his prescription for schools would be any different. let the schools set their own fees: let each income segment of the market find its own right price band. and also let each sectarian, caste, religious, regional, linguistic niche of the market also finds its own choice. that’s how it seems to work in the u.s., too where most voucher students attend religious schools.

like i said, i can’t even start to think about the choices that will be offered to the indian consumers in this government-sponsored market.

How do you figure that? Would you please elaborate how financially assisting someone who is unable to pay for primary education bring that about?

‘First consider primary education. Very poor people cannot afford to pay market prices for primary education. They need financial support. This can be delivered via vouchers that allow them to choose among various supplier of primary education.’

which means different schools for different classes. and also communities, castes, sects.

‘Once universal primary education has been ensured, the same method can be used for secondary education.’

variation in quality at the primary school level will again ensure that many of the ‘poor’ students would again drop out. so, universal primary education would remain an as impossible a goal as it is now.

‘And as for tertiary education, it should be entirely merit based. That is, if *everyone has had an equal opportunity* to be educated to the secondary level, they can compete for entry into tertiary education.’

in the scenario you describe, can we really say that ‘everyone has had an *equal opportunity* to be educated to the secondary level’?

Your analysis is at the other extreme of mine. For a while now I have been writing about education in India on my blog. There are around 100 posts. I don’t expect you to read them all. But perhaps you could read a brief series of 10 posts I did, the first of which is at http://www.deeshaa.org/2007/04/30/the-indian-education-system-part-1/

The others in the series can be sequentially accessed.

Sincerely,
Atanu

It is with anguish that I sit down to write this column. Two years ago, I met a distinguished friend in Delhi, who is the president of a prestigious American university that has produced several Nobel laureates. He loves India and he told me with some pride that India is increasingly perceived as a future knowledge capital of the world. He thought he would contribute to this future by setting up a branch campus here so that Indians could acquire his university’s degree at a fourth of the cost in America. I was delighted. Here’s a chance for a world-class education for our young, I thought.

Two years later I heard this tale of woe. His university’s application to the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) for an equivalence certificate went unanswered despite three reminders. Their meeting with the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) resulted in the demand for a huge bribe. Their efforts with the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Ministry entangled them in miles of red tape. After knocking about like this for a year they concluded that their only hope was to go to Chattisgarh, which allowed private universities. Just as they were about to acquire 25 acres of land and make the Rs 2 crore mandatory deposit came the infamous Supreme Court ban on Chattisgarh universities.

. . .

Along with his letter, my friend has attached draconian new AICTE guidelines for private universities, which he says “will decide our fees, student intake, and even the size of our buildings, and prosecute us like criminals for non-compliance. Even if we get their approval, it’s only for a year, and meanwhile the courts could overturn things as they have done in Manipal’s case.” Sadly, he concludes that India is a hopeless cause and he has decided to set up a campus in China. After reading his letter I felt like weeping.

Who could be against enlightened regulation of private higher education? We all wish for a body that ensures standards. But if this is how we regulate-with corruption and red tape-isn’t it better to give universities autonomy and leave it to parents and students? A private education costs less than a car, and we don’t protect car customers via AICTE or UGC. Rather than fall into the trap of case-by-case approvals, good regulators everywhere provide lots of information-such as our magazines, who now rate colleges by polling students and faculty. These ratings are not precise but they help students make an informed choice. A free society must offer autonomy to its universities — only then will minds be able to fly.

“The answer, of course, is our education system, which stifles all creativity through rote learning. It was modelled on the British system, but the British have moved on and reformed theirs, partly under American inspiration. But our kids are still stuck in a world of cramming and coaching classes. The disease lies in the lack of autonomy. The ministry of HRD and its children, University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have a stranglehold. A college cannot decide what courses to teach, what fees to charge and what salaries to pay its professors. How could creativity emerge from this servitude? Creating new universities, as the PM proposes, is not the answer unless you give them autonomy.

“Forget creativity, Indian companies are frightened by the shortage of basic skills which is currently driving up salaries unhealthily. Of the 400,000 new engineers that graduate each year, roughly 100,000 have the skills to enter the job market. It is tragic that over 400,000 students strive for 6,000 IITs and IIMs seats annually. The answer, of course, is to increase the supply of good colleges. As it is, we lose 160,000 students to foreign universities and parents pay $3 billion in fees and costs. Indian ‘edupreneurs’ and foreign universities have repeatedly tried to start high quality campuses but the HRD ministry’s ‘licence raj’ drives them away. AICTE even wants to close down the prestigious private Indian School of Business which offers a better education than even an IIM. The draft foreign universities bill doesn’t provide autonomy either and ensures that no decent foreign university will enter India. “

While vouchers have been implemented successfully in Singapore and other countries, they are no where as complex as India. This very system can be misused to deny poor people education. Paper schools will be able to purchase these vouchers for half their price, denying people education while making a profit at the same time.

If profit is indeed the motive of every business, does this proposition not make sense?

Anoop is also right about huge public investment in every country that has done well educationally. For instance, Japan started its educational reform in the 1850s and these investments paid off during the early part of the 20th century when Japan started industrializing.

If we look at education from a business perspective, why would I want to invest in some parts of Assam for instance where profits are zero and threats of militancy loom?

If the government absolves itself of the responsibility of delivering education, how will it protect the rights of people? Education could have been a fundamental right for Indians if Gandhiji had had his way. At any rate, it is at least a Directive principle.

That said, perhaps the private sector has a part to play in higher and vocational education – organizations such as NIIT and ICFAI and even the Indian School of Business are definitely contributing to enrichment of our talent pool.

At the same time, we cannot forget that businesses have exploited the educational system by running universities out of basements in some Indian state.

a. Education is neither a commodity, nor an investment. It is a human right, and the state must secure the right of its citizens. That comes from definition.

b. The reason for poor standard in Indian education has nothing to do with monopoly practices and market economics. The reason behind it is poor investment by the government. In our federal setup, despite the central government allocating most resources and taxes to itself, the role of education was delegated to the state governments. Devoid of cash, the education setup deteriorated in most states.

c. What mattered most was the dedication and focus of respective state governments. The progressive nature of Kerala and Mizoram governments ensured that these two states achieved the level of education for its population that is comparable to the best in the world.

d. There is a huge class differential in the access to education in India at present. That means that both quality and quantity of education decreases exponentially as we move down the class ladder. The voucher system will only accentuate the problem by creating different schools for different social strata. Even now there is a legislation that makes private schools in Delhi to admit a certain percentage of students from economically poor sections in return for concessional land rates. Hardly any school is following the rule.

e. Give me one example in the world, where the country has improved the education without huge public spending in both running and maintaining the school system. We need the same. The share of education must go up to 10% of the GDP.

The apparent contradiction you point can be resolved if you distinguish between “the business” and “the sector.”

An analogy may emphasize that distinction. Automobile companies are businesses in the automobile sector. The government has a role in regulating the sector; the government should not be in the automobile business.

Regulators are a necessary institution. To avoid conflict of interest, the regulator has to be independent of the government. Governance includes empowering regulators and not messing with their charter.

I am afraid that the subject of regulatory independence is broader than what can be reasonably addressed in the comment to a brief post.

The same goes for explaining how a voucher system would work. But let me see if I can in a few sentences convey the essence. Most likely you, just like me, did have the means (through our parents) to pay to go to a school of our choice. The poor lack that choice. If we give them financial support, they too can exercise the choice we had. That removes what is called “the credit constraint” and helps those who need it the most.

and

The regulator must be independent of the government.

Sorry. I didn’t get how you reconcile these apparently contradictory statements.

Also, could you explain how the voucher system you propose for the poor in primary (and secondary) education would work?