Muses of Murari

I had this idea for a long time, given the pathetic primary schooling and skewed higher education in India. We need to get the government out and give some independent body full power to bring in what is needed. This is exactly Mr. Kapil Sibal, new HRD minister, echoed in his interview to CNBC TV18 -

..we need to create an authority like Sebi in the education sector, which actually deals with regulation and we need to have an independent and credit rating agency that accredits at the entry point by giving a provisional certificate and when the institution is built to give a final certificate so that the intake can take place and we need to get the government out of this and give it to an independent regulator but all this needs a lot of work and a lot of consensus across the board and I think that once we do that then anybody should be able to enter…

Transcript here.

Will this actually happen or will it be just a pipe dream. I’ve doubts because, if this scheme is implemented, many of our private colleges admission process will come under scanner and this would be a potential danger to the income for many our netas (political leaders). Recently ToI carried out an article on Medical seats scam. The article talks on medical seats sold for Rs. 12 to 40 lakhs each and medical PG courses for Rs. 2 crores. Of course, college themselves don’t’ need that much funds. Imagine, there are 200 medical seats. If for each seat, Rs. 20 lakhs collected and you have Rs. 4000 lakhs. In addition, each student pays around Rs. 10 lakhs per year. Assume there are five batches in any single year, so the figure boils to Rs. 1000 lakhs. And in total, Rs. 5000 lakhs or Rs. 50 crores (Rs. 500 million). A single college needs this much every year for operations? Obviously no. So where this money goes. It could go to netas who helped the institutions to come up and in turn expect some kind of royalty (bribe) in return every year to fund their party or own activities. Or it could be our netas themselves running these private institutions. According to one of the bloggers, what he has learned, I am quoting here:

Here’s a story that I recently heard which illustrates the engineering of scarcity in education and the resultant bribes and low quality. No names are mentioned because the people involved are powerful people in the government.

A very rich businessman who had made his massive fortune in a major city in India wanted to give back something to society by financing a world-class university in the state in which that city is. He submitted a proposal to the state government. There was no response. Months later the chief minister of the state admitted in private to the businessman that the proposal of a good university in the state was unwelcome competition to other politicians of the state who run private engineering and medical colleges.

So it looks like some of our netas’ income will be in danger, if an independent body is setup to look over things. Will our netas ever pass any law that will effect their incomes? I really doubt it. If they were so selfless, then they would have abolished qoutas, which I think not necessary in the current scenario. Regulation and reforms in Education sector, unless pursued in pure interests of the country, will remain a pipe dream.

No introduction needed for the pathetic school education across country. Especially in rural areas. In my opinion, the quality of courses in schools and in few courses, the relevance to the present context is completely out of sync. I think, the way world is functioning, in few years, students need to be trained to handle this ever increasing competitive world.  In rural schools, the infrastructure and quality teachers left to be much desired. And the quality in higher education is nowhere going upward. We have huge numbers to quote, for number of students passing out each year in different streams. Think of quality, we will remember only handful of institutions and its students.

What we need is some kind of masive reforms in education field. Of course our politicans need to be selfless to let go, their own interests in interests of nation and actually bring what is the need of the hour.

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