People's
Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of
India (Marxist) No. 05
February 02, 2003
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of
India (Marxist) |
Vol.
XXVII No. 05 February 02, 2003 |
IN
the
context
of
the
increasing
attacks
by
the
government
on
the
state
funded
higher
education
system
and
the
back
tracking
on
written
agreements
with
the
teachers’
unions,
the
Delhi
University
Teachers’
Association
(DUTA)
organised
an
All
India
Teachers’
Convention
on
Higher
Education.
The
Convention
was
held
on
January
18,
2003,
at
the
Delhi
University
Campus,
and
was
attended
by
representatives
of
teachers
associations
all
over
the
country
with
a
view
to
evolving
a
common
platform
of
demands
and
action.
The
Convention
was
significant
for
many
reasons,
not
least
among
them
that
it
brought
to
the
fore
the
many
ways
in
which
not
just
the
BJP
government
at
the
centre
but
also
many
state
governments
are
determinedly
following
the
directives
of
the
WTO/GATS
regime
in
pushing
through
an
agenda
of
disinvestments
and
privatization
and
commercialization
of
education.
The
reports
from
different
states
presented
a
dismal
picture
for
the
future
of
higher
education
in
India.
Shaswati
Mazumdar,
president
of
DUTA,
introduced
the
resolution
which
noted
that
the
assault
on
education
has
assumed
“such
alarming
proportions
today
that
it
threatens
to
dismantle
the
entire
public
funded
higher
education
sector
and
destroy
its
social
role
of
creating
the
knowledge
base
and
the
educated
manpower
that
are
necessary
to
tackle
the
severe
problems
of
mass
poverty,
widespread
illiteracy,
rising
unemployment
and
increasing
economic,
social
and
cultural
subservience”.
The
resolution
also
expressed
grave
concern
at
the
decision
of
the
government
to
bring
higher
education
under
the
WTO/GATS
regime
by
2004,
which
would
mean
essentially
that
grounds
would
be
created
for
so
called
education
providers
who
view
education
as
commercial
and
business
enterprise
to
step
in
on
terms
more
favourable
than
the
fund
starved
public
sector
of
education
to
turn
education
into
a
billion
dollar
expensive
marketable
service,
depriving
the
less
privileged
of
their
right
to
a
fulsome
education.
The
recent
policy
statements
of
the
prime
minister,
which
aimed
at
giving
over
the
public
infrastructure
in
education
to
private
institutes
in
the
name
of
making
India
a
favoured
destination
for
foreign
students,
and
generally
ignoring
the
needs
of
the
people
of
the
country
to
benefit
those
who
want
to
transform
education
into
a
lucrative
business,
came
in
for
strong
criticism.
Shaswati
Mazumdar,
president
of
the
DUTA,
pointed
out
that
the
first
step
towards
such
a
system
is
across
the
board
disinvestments
in
education
which
has
been
taking
forms
of
contractualisation
of
the
teaching
profession,
a
freeze
on
further
recruitment
of
teachers
as
well
as
non
teaching
staff
and
reduction
in
the
existing
staff,
apart
from
the
downgrading
in
teachers’
service
conditions.
The
attack
on
teachers’
service
conditions
has
taken
on
unprecedented
forms,
she
said,
underlining
the
need
for
sustained
agitation
beyond
the
frontiers
of
teachers
to
include
students,
parents,
and
the
general
public—something
which
speaker
after
speaker
emphasized
as
well.
ATTACK
ON
TEACHERS’SERVICE
CONDITIONS
The
resolution
passed
at
the
Convention
outlined
the
attack
on
service
conditions
as
follows:
the
withdrawal
of
the
facility
for
promotion
to
professorship
in
colleges
and
the
subsequent
move
to
also
deny
such
promotions
in
university
departments
through
arbitrary
changes
in
procedure,
the
backtracking
on
written
agreements
on
the
third
promotion,
the
downgrading
of
librarians
and
DPEs,
the
reduction
of
pensionary
rights,
and
denials
of
reemployment.
Vijay
Kumar,
general
secretary
of
AIFUCTO,
reported
that
in
almost
all
state
universities
there
has
been
a
decrease
in
the
percentage
of
state
funding.
The
Madhya
Pradesh
government
has
already
enacted
a
law
that
grants
will
be
steadily
decreased
by
20
per
cent
each
year,
and
that
by
2012
there
would
be
no
grants
to
aided
colleges.
In
Karnataka,
although
no
such
law
has
been
passed
a
similar
intention
has
been
made
clear.
In
Andhra
Pradesh,
there
are
almost
no
permanent
appointments,
contractual
tenures
being
the
norm.
In
Orissa,
those
appointed
after
1986
have
not
yet
got
the
UGC
scales,
and
the
government
is
going
forward
with
private
universities
despite
opposition
from
the
academic
community.
Contractual
appointments
are
the
norm
in
Maharashtra
as
well
and
most
such
teachers
are
given
only
basic
pay
without
other
benefits
and
allowances.
Himmat
Singh
Ratnu
from
Rohtak,
Haryana,
underlined
the
need
for
the
teachers’
movement
to
reflect
on
social
issues
as
well.
The
plight
of
teachers
is
not
very
much
different
from
that
of
other
sections
of
society,
with
right
wing
political
leadership
across
the
world,
ranging
from
Bush
to
Vajpayee,
sending
out
the
message
to
people
that
they
just
do
not
care
for
people.
In
this
context
the
teachers
must
shed
the
illusion,
he
said,
that
any
of
us
as
individuals
or
organisation
can
escape
the
onslaught.
Therefore,
there
is
no
alternative
but
to
reach
out
to
people,
and
express
solidarity
and
support
for
the
struggles
for
a
dignified
life,
which
characterize
all
anti
globalisation
and
anti
communal
campaigns.
He
also
pointed
towards
the
erosion
of
democratic
governance
within
universities
and
other
public
bodies
and
the
attacks
on
intellectual
expression,
and
wanted
that
this
demand
be
included
in
the
resolution.
T
Kumar
from
Madhya
Pradesh
gave
details
on
the
ways
in
which
the
freeze
in
grants
is
effecting
higher
education
and
the
functioning
of
colleges,
and
asserted
that
teachers
must
demand
10
per
cent
GDP
for
education,
and
also
involve
students
apart
from
teachers
from
“KG
to
PG”
level
in
the
agitation
for
a
better
deal
for
education
in
this
country.
Dr
Jagirdar
showed
how
contractualisation
of
the
teaching
profession
and
creation
of
autonomous,
self
financing
units
has
led
to
the
fragmentation
and
multiplicity
of
once
united
teachers’
organisations,
and
how
appointments
on
a
“clock
hour
basis”
at
Rs
75
per
day
is
breaking
the
back
of
the
teachers’
movement.
James
William
from
Tamilnadu
gave
a
run
in
on
the
havoc
that
autonomous
self-financing
colleges
have
been
wrecking
on
the
educational
structure.
With
handing
over
of
government
colleges
to
universities
already
starved
of
funds
the
ground
has
been
prepared
for
a
rise
in
fees,
denial
of
education
to
those
less
privileged,
and
opened
the
doors
for
consultancy
and
market
oriented
courses
with
little
regard
for
humanities
and
social
sciences.
The
trend
is
already
much
headway
in
Tamilnadu
as
compared
with
other
states
he
pointed
out.
Not
to
speak
of
the
erosion
of
service
conditions,
the
very
existence
of
a
viable
educational
system
is
threatened,
he
said.
He
also
stressed
on
the
vindictive
attitude
and
ruthless
suppression
of
unions
and
struggles,
and
argued
that
the
education
policy
of
the
government
emanates
from
its
economic
policies,
which
must
be
staunchly
opposed
if
the
teachers
are
to
achieve
a
reversal
of
the
attacks
on
education.
“We
must
join
other
trade
unions,
otherwise,
we
can’t
move
an
inch
on
our
service
conditions”
he
said.
For
Himachal
the
news
is
that
colleges
are
being
opened
privately
as
business
enterprises
after
the
chief
minister’s
call
for
a
college
in
every
electoral
constituency,
then
being
‘handed
over’
to
the
government
so
that
funds/grants
may
be
received
for
building
infrastructure,
while
the
same
private
management
continues
to
hold
its
reins
completely
In
other
words,
in
Himachal
the
ruling
government
has
devised
new
ways
of
spending
government
money
on
promoting
private
business
interests
in
education,
and
it
does
not
take
much
guessing
to
predict
that
having
built
their
infrastructure
they
will
pursue
private
aims.
In
Kashmir
too,
as
told
by
the
president
of
the
Kashmir
University
Teachers’
Association,
shopkeepers
and
other
such
people
were
opening
colleges
and
entrenching
themselves
in
the
educational
‘enterprise’.
A thorough analysis of the WTO/ GATS prescriptions and their implications for the Indian education system were made by Vijendra Sharma, Executive Council member of Delhi University from the DTF, who also said that it is necessary to ensure that the present government is not elected again as this government is more than keen to implement the dictates of these imperialist agencies.
The
resolution
passed
at
the
Convention
reflected
this
critique
of
the
Indian
government’s
capitulation
to
the
WTO/
GATS
regime,
and
resolved
“to
carry
out
a
mass
campaign
aimed
at
preparing
the
ground
for
such
a
countrywide
agitation
as
to
force
the
government
to
reverse
its
policies
of
privatization
and
commercialization
of
higher
education,
defend
higher
education
from
the
WTO/GATS
and
concede
the
long
standing
demands
of
teachers.”
It
also
adopted
a
Charter
Of
Demands
and
initial
plan
of
collective
action,
which
included
the
mobilization
of
support
of
other
sections
of
society
as
well.
The
Convention
also
reflected
the
spirit
of
unity
so
necessary
for
collective
action,
and
there
were
demands
that
AIFUCTO,
FEDCUTA
and
all
university
and
college
teachers
and
even
school
teachers
and
students
work
in
unison
to
save
education
in
this
country.
However, from our vantage point of the Left, it would not be out of place to recognize here that the All India Convention reflected the strengths as well as weaknesses of the teachers’ movement in the country, with far greater concern for service conditions and broader issues only to the extent that they impinge on service conditions and life in the educational institutions, with Left members pointing towards the shrinkage in access to education but barely a mention of the other kinds of attacks on education that are making news all over the world.
It
is
a
reflection
of
the
nature
and
character
of
the
teachers
movement
in
this
country
that
the
assault
on
the
content
of
education
in
the
form
of
taking
over
of
all
significant
institutions
of
learning
by
the
Sangh
Parivar,
the
change
in
the
school
curriculum
to
reflect
Hindutva
priorities,
the
sabotaging
of
the
Bill
making
education
a
fundamental
right,
the
suppression
of
secular
opinion,
the
vilification
of
our
secular
historians
and
other
such
issues
which
amount
to
the
reversal
of
the
aims
of
education
in
this
country
and
are
in
many
ways
an
infringement
of
the
Constitution
hardly
caused
a
ripple
at
the
Convention.
It
is
a
reflection
of
the
reality
today
that
taking
on
such
issues
makes
unity,
so
essential
to
us
today,
impossible.
But
then
it
is
a
weakness
that
must
be
squarely
accepted
by
a
teachers’
movement,
and
not
passed
over
in
silence.
And
for
Leftists,
it
is
time
we
remember
Lenin’s
proposition
in
his
celebrated
What
Is
to
Be
Done?
in
his
debate
with
the
Economists
and
later
Mensheviks:
that
through
their
every
day
trade
union
experience
the
workers
can
only
derive
a
more
militant
trade
unionism.
Political
consciousness
must
come
from
‘without’.
Militant
trade
unionism,
he
again
said,
can
only
create
political
consciousness
to
the
extent
demanded
by
the
workers
in
their
fight
for
economic
struggles,
not
beyond
that
to
include
an
opposition
to
the
entire
system
as
well.
It
is
for
the
Left
organisations
within
the
teachers’
movement
to
fight
for
a
more
secular
system
of
education,
without
which
there
cannot
be
a
more
equitable
system
of
education
either.
After
all,
communalization
serves
the
interests
of
privatization
in
this
country,
just
as
privatization
and
erosion
of
the
formal
school
system
has
contributed
to
RSS’s
strength
as
a
private
player
within
our
educational
system.
