SUPREME COURT VERDICT ON EDUCATION

Defeat The Underlying Philosophy

  K K Ragesh

THE recent verdict of the Supreme Court in the ‘TMA Pai Vs State of Karnataka’ case has, as expected, created chaos in the higher education sector. The judgement seeks to do away with whatever little control the governments have over the rapidly mushrooming private institutions. While offering private managements the right to fix a ‘reasonable’ fee structure and ‘advising’ them to keep away from profiteering, no mechanism has been specified that only a reasonable fee be collected.  The inevitable escalation in fees will – in some states it is already a reality – keep away scores of poor meritorious students from the field of higher education. Money, rather than merit, will become the eligibility criteria for joining a professional course.

The underlying philosophy of this retrograde judgement – those who seek professional education must pay for it and higher education is a “private good” that benefits the individual rather than a “public good” that benefits the society – is in tune with the liberalisation-privatisation-globalisation drive of the ruling classes. Despite this philosophy of the judgement being acceptable to both the private managements and the union/state governments (barring, of course, the Left governments), the actual interpretation of the judgement by the different state governments varied due to the inherent ambiguity in the judgement and also the political and democratic atmosphere prevailing in those states. This led to some private managements, who were impatient to suck more profits from the students, to again approach the court. Meanwhile, popular pressure had also built up against the free hand given to the private managements with students coming out in large numbers across the country. All this has led to the constitution of a 5-member bench by the Supreme Court to reinterpret its earlier judgement. However, it must be noted that this does not connote a reversal of the court’s earlier judgement. As had already been declared by the court itself, the new bench will only be concerned about the admission process-the number of seats to be filled by the government and by the management- and also about the fee structure. Without a reconsideration of the entire philosophy of neo-liberalism embedded in the judgement we cannot expect much from this latest exercise.

Of late, the impact of the increasing shift of the Indian state towards neo-liberalism is being starkly felt on the nature of the judicial pronouncements. The Supreme Court judgement in the TMA Pai case is a good example. For the last decade and odd, the human resources development (HRD) ministry and various state education departments have been striving relentlessly to enslave the education sector to market-capital forces. While the HRD ministry has been implementing an aggressive agenda of commercialisation of education through various academic bodies, including the UGC, the prime minister’s office (PMO) gave a prominent push forward by appointing the Ambani-Birla committee to prepare a report on the higher education sector. The main thrust of the recommendations made by this committee is towards ensuring the dominance of money power in higher education by privatisation and commodification of education. The report recommended strict enforcement of the “user must pay” principle and “credit market” for higher education.

The 146-page judgment of the eleven member Constitutional bench while echoing this “user must pay” principle, draws repeatedly on the specious and cruel philosophy of neo-liberalism in order to justify the basis of its verdict.  “It is well established all over the world that those who seek professional education must pay for it… private education is one of the most dynamic and fastest-growing segments of post-secondary education at the turn of the twenty-first century,” states the judgement.

UNNIKRISHNAN CASE AND SOCIAL CONTROL

Despite the fact that the petitions that came before the Supreme Court sought only to safeguard the special privileges of educational institutions owned by minority communities, the verdict went far ahead to rebuff the social control over private professional educational institutions and overrule the decisions in the Unnikrishnan case. The core of the pronouncement of the Supreme Court in the Unnikrishnan J P Vs State of Andhra Pradesh case was the social control over private educational institutions. The court primarily considered the extent to which the government can interfere in the functioning of private professional colleges. In this regard, the judgment in Unnikrishanan case had recommended explicit criterion regarding admission of students and charging of fees.

As per the judgment, a professional college could be established or administered only by a society registered under the Societies Registration Act or by a public trust registered under the Trusts Act. The verdict strictly prohibited any individual, group of individuals, firm, company from establishing and administering professional education institutions. Since Article 19(1) g provides the right to practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business, a question was raised before the court whether the right to set up educational institutions is a fundamental right or not. The court had opined that trade or business connotes an activity carried on with a profit motive and education has never been commerce in our country.

The judgment also suggested that admissions to professional colleges should be from the merit list prepared on the basis of a common entrance test. A scheme for admissions was also suggested – 50 per cent of total seats should be designated as ‘free seats’ and the remaining 50 per cent as ‘payment seats’. The court reiterated that the constitutional obligation of reservations for SC/ST and PH students must be maintained in the admissions. While doing away with the management quota system, the judgment ordered that a certain percentage of seats should be reserved for the weaker sections of the society subject to the norms of the university to which the colleges are affiliated. The court also suggested to the state governments to constitute a committee to fix a ceiling on the maximum fees chargeable by a professional college and stated that the fee chargeable in each professional college in a state should comply with that ceiling.

However, the recent verdict of the Supreme Court while reiterating the ban on capitation fee and forbidding profiteering, now allows for generating of ‘reasonable’ surplus on the condition that it is to be spent for expansion of the institution or providing more facilities for students to ensure excellence. The fundamental problem with this latest verdict is that it accepts the plea that establishing and administering educational institutions is an “occupation” falling under fundamental rights. After giving education the status of “trade and commerce,” it is no surprise that the court went on to earmark 100 per cent seats as payment seats.

Instead of suggesting ways to avoid lacunae in the present entrance system, the court has unfortunately annulled the Unnikrishnan scheme. This effectively means shutting the door of the limited opportunity for higher professional education to economically weaker sections of the society.

INVERTED ‘AUTONOMY’

It is indeed strange that the judgment even misinterprets the report of Dr S Radhakrishnan Commission on University Education, 1948, to argue for removing government intervention in the admission process and complete autonomy for private managements in this process. The court finds that government control in admissions and in fixing a reasonable fee structure is against the concept of “academic autonomy” suggested by the Radhkrishnan Commission report!

The Radhakrishnan commission, while disapproving of government control in the realm of academics i e determining subjects and prescribing syllabi, had only suggested that academic autonomy for universities is vital because intellectual progress demands the maintenance of the spirit of free enquiry and the pursuit and practice of truth regardless of the consequences. This has been the ambition of all universities in post-independent India. The commission, while emphasising that imparting higher education is the responsibility of the state [it had also recommended the creation of the University Grants Commission (UGC) to provide financial assistance to universities], cautioned that this should not to be confused with state control over academic policies and practices. This stress on academic autonomy has now been inverted to pave the way for total commercialisation of education. By allowing the private managements unlimited autonomy in charging of fees as well as in admitting students, the latest verdict has jeopardised the educational rights of the people.

Another critical fallout of the verdict is the severe blow dealt to social justice. The constitutional norms for reservation in education have become void due to this verdict. In the Unnikrishnan case the court had recommended reservation of 22.5 per cent seats for SC, ST and other deprived sections. Annulling this, the latest verdict makes reservation mandatory only for those institutions which accept government aid. The Constitutional obligation of providing reservations for weaker sections is being silently eliminated in this process of  privatisation and withdrawal of the government from the education sector.

QUALITY OF EDUCATION WILL FALL

The centres of excellence like IIT, IIS and Roorkee, Jadavpur and Anna universities, the NIT and well established government or aided institutions have always ensured quality in professional education. But it is a fact that mushrooming of self-financing professional institutions, which offer only degree programmes with little infrastructure and inadequate faculty have resulted in a serious decline in the quality of professional education. In IITs, the government spends Rs 85,000 per student in a year while in NITs the government spends Rs 21,000 to Rs 35,000 per annum. The AICTE stipulates that a minimum of Rs 16,800 should be spent on a single student per year for professional education. Whereas the amount spent by more than 80 per cent of the self-financing institutions is only Rs 6,000.

It is a proven fact that increase in the number of self-financing institutions has failed to bring any qualitative progress in higher education. Instead, it has resulted in decrease in the quality of education. The net outcome is disturbing. For postgraduate and doctoral programmes, as high as 60 per cent of the seats are not being filled up because the students produced from private institutions do not have the academic rigour to get through GATE, the qualifying examination. This trend will soon result in the scarcity of qualified faculty in the technical education sector. With greater privatisation in store, the education sector is rapidly becoming a profit-driven industry where meritorious students without money power have no place. The Supreme Court judgement while hastening this process will also definitely result in the complete erosion of quality in higher education and the negation of the advancement that was made in the realm of science, technology and research till date.

The only way out for the student community and the working people of the country is to fight for a new legislation in the parliament to impose a total ban on the commercialisation of education, to halt and reverse the withdrawal of state from education and to put a leash on existing private managements.

(The writer is SFI president)