02dec04dch3

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/dec022004/edst.asp
Deccan Herald, December 02, 2004

Commodification of education
BY SUDHA SITARAMAN

Our present market-friendly education policy will damage the pursuit of higher learning

In the heady aftermath of Indian independence, the idea of modernisation took on the dimensions of a national mission. It was an integral part of the Nehruvian vision of modernisation that declares stridently its intentions of building an egalitarian society that is based on the Constitutional injunction to ignore all differences of caste, creed, religion, region, gender and so on. Thus, it was believed that education could offer the possibility of coming closer to such ideals. It was therefore made mandatory that the welfare state takes upon itself the task of providing education for all.

Traditionally, investment in education was considered more of a social obligation, which the state had to fulfil. However, ever since economic reforms were introduced in India in the early 90’s, resource allocation for higher education has consistently followed a downward trend. With the Government’s ability to finance higher education reaching a saturation level, it was argued that higher education may be considered as a ‘non-merit good’, as the benefits accrue more to individuals than to the society in general.

‘Non-merit’ goods
Non-merit goods are not deemed worthy of government subsidies. The limited resources that are now available (recommended Mukesh Ambani and Kumar Mangalam Birla) would be better spent if they were directed to primary and secondary education. It further recommended that education can only be made sustainable by means of privatisation and commercialisation of its components, which basically means the promise of ways to enable the system of education to pay its own way.

Drawing from such recommendations from the industry, in 2001 the Government of Karnataka mooted the idea of withdrawing GIA, which are essentially the salaries of the teaching staff. The State-wide protests against this recommendation by the teachers deferred the implementation. The Medium Term Fiscal Plan for Karnataka 2003-04 to 2006-07 of the Finance department, clearly states that there is no justification for carrying on with the current GIA, for, it claims, in many cases grants are adding profit to institutions and therefore require phasing out.

While the general courses such as BA, BSc, Bcom, etc, are being run with the government GIA, there are a number of courses that have been newly introduced at the graduate and post-graduate levels, including BBM, Women’s Studies, Bio-Technology and Computer applications, which are funded by the respective managements. That the managements are adding profits to their coffers, which often does not trickle down to the pockets of the teaching staff, indicates that this system may not be ideal for the general courses. The obvious fall-out of this has been an ever-soaring fee structure that is affordable only by the wealthy. The task force that was set up to look into the reordering of the system of education, feared that the fees would have to be increased some 21 times more than what they are at present.

Further, courses in the pure sciences, such as Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Zoology or social sciences and humanities like Sociology, History, English or Kannada may be dumped for being non-market friendly. It would become no longer appropriate to read Shakespeare, while courses like Communicative English, Professional writing or Business English would become the order of the day. The economic non-viability of certain courses cannot become a justification for their withdrawal.

Govt’s intentions revealed
While the justification for the withdrawal of the GIA at the higher education level was based on the premise of an efficient utilisation of the available funds, the intentions of the Government are betrayed for there is an initiative to extend the withdrawal of funding to the primary and secondary levels of education as well. This would have severe implications on the choice of who in the family needs to go to school, with the axe probably falling squarely on the girl child.

That we have strayed and that there exists a crisis in education in the country, requiring institutional restructuring, is a cliché. Of course, in all fairness, we could agree that in order to cater to the rising aspirations of the people in the era of globalisation and liberalisation, a wide range of reform measures had to be mooted in order to make the system more vibrant and responsive to the changing socio-economic scenario.

What is new however, is that the new rhetoric on improving education proposes to recast it by cleansing it of its non-competing students and incompetent teachers who are unwilling to improve education. It believes that the state of affairs could be corrected only through market solutions. The key to those market solutions, it says, is through privatisation and by turning every aspect of education into a commodity. Myopic policies like this take away the benefits of refined education that could emerge though higher learning. Non-emphasis on the pursuit of higher learning and creativity could only plunge India into the sweatshop model that the new economy doggedly pursues.