SFI Gives Memo to HRD Minister, Urges Prompt Action

ON June 24, a delegation of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) met the union minister for human resource development Arjun Singh and submitted to him a memorandum highlighting the burning problems facing the Indian students. The demands raised by the SFI included the following.

1) Detoxification of school education. Immediate steps are required to rectify the damage done by the NDA government to the secular and scientific character of school education in our country through its communally motivated tampering with textbooks and curricula. We demand that:

1. The textbooks brought out by the NCERT during 2002-04 should be de-prescribed by the CBSE and their printing and distribution should be immediately stopped.

2. All NCERT textbooks prescribed by the CBSE until the academic year 2001-02 should be restored without modification and with immediate effect in the current academic year until a new decision is taken. This is particularly essential for all social science books, which have a history component, and all history books.

3. The NCERT's National Curriculum Framework for School Education (2000) and the syllabi and textbooks prepared during 2001-04 should be reviewed. An action plan should be formulated for preparing an alternative curriculum in consonance with the secular, egalitarian and pluralistic framework of the Indian constitution.

2) Restoration, restructuring and reconstitution of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) in order to ensure that educational policy making takes place within the federal framework of our constitution. Make CABE a statutory body with an appropriate composition.

3) Removal of all communally tainted individuals from positions of responsibility in educational and research institutions. Review all appointments, promotions and transfers made in the past five years in violation of applicable norms and rules. Strengthen the professional, autonomous and secular character of bodies such as UGC, NCERT, ICSSR, ICHR, AICTE, India Institute of Advanced Studies, etc.

4) Withdrawal of obscurantist and retrograde courses like Jyotirvigyan and Pourohitya that go against the spirit of rationalism and scientific enquiry. A committee should be set up to identify and review all courses in higher education introduced by the NDA government.

5) Increase in public spending on education. The present level of public spending on education is grossly inadequate for the task of providing education to all and building up institutions of higher learning necessary for our intellectual autonomy. The consistent decrease in funding for education has starved public institutions of essential resources and has led to massive fee hikes. As a result, the vast proportions of potential students who belong to deprived sections of society are being denied access to education. We demand that the government fulfil its responsibility of providing school education for all and equality of access to higher education. To begin with, government spending on education must be increased to 6 per cent of the GDP and 10 per cent of the union budget. This level would be in keeping with the recommendation of various expert bodies and the norms followed by many other countries, including developing ones.

6) Enactment of a central legislation to redress the situation arising from the Supreme Court's judgement in the T M A Pai case. The Supreme Court’s judgement in the T M A Pai case as well as its interpretation by another bench of the apex court has provided enormous scope for profiteering to private unaided professional institutions by dismantling the regulatory mechanism earlier put in place by the Supreme Court itself in its judgement in the Unnikrishnan case. Across the country, institutions of this nature have increased their fees manifold, causing great hardship to the students community. To redress this situation, we demand the enactment of a central legislation which would allow state governments to regulate these institutions. Among other things, this legislation must provide that:

1. All admissions to private unaided professional institutions should be through a common entrance test conducted by the government.

2. The government should have powers to prescribe the maximum fees chargeable by these institutions.

3. The constitutional provision of 22.5 per cent reservation for the SC/ST students as well as other provisions for representation of students from deprived sections should be upheld.

7) Withdrawal of the UGC's proposed 'Model Act for Universities'. The proposed act was part of the NDA government's attempts to open up the education sector to exploitation by domestic and foreign capital and to subvert the autonomy of academic institutions. It seeks to give statutory legitimacy to privatisation and commercialisation by making it the responsibility of universities to raise their own resources and substituting academic goals with commercial ones. At the same time, its provisions include the curtailment of the democratic rights of the academic community and transfer of decision making powers from representative bodies to a corporate-like hierarchy. Such an Act can have no place in a democratic educational set-up and the UGC's proposal must be withdrawn forthwith.

8) Withdrawal of the Private Universities Bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 1995. Also withdraw the 'deemed university' status provided in an unscrupulous manner to private universities and establish norms for the conferring of 'deemed university' status to ensure that this provision is not misused. Take stringent action against unrecognised universities. Stop the entry of multinational educational corporations in our country.

9) Modification of the 86th amendment to the constitution.

1. The present amendment makes it the duty of parents/guardians to provide education to their wards. Modify it to reflect the constitutional directive, which requires the state, rather than parents/guardians, to provide free and compulsory primary education to all children.

2. Provide the right to free early childhood care and education to children, up to 6 years of age, who are at not presently covered by the amendment.

3. Ensure that the provisions of the act do not provide scope for the spread of sectarian and private educational institutions.

10) Restoration and guarantee of the autonomy of all institutions of higher and professional education including universities, IITs and IIMs. Revise the fee structure of these institutions to ensure that they are accessible to students from deprived sections of society.

11) Ensuring the democratic rights of the student community. An overwhelming proportion of the students of our country are at present denied even the basic rights of association and collective action. We demand that this situation be redressed without further delay. Students union elections must be held regularly in all colleges and universities. Elected representatives of students and faculty must be made part of the decision making process at all levels.

12) Implementation of the SC's guidelines against sexual harassment. Though more than five years have passed since the Supreme Court's judgement in the 'Vishakha' case, most educational institutions in our country still lack a functioning committee against sexual harassment. We demand that that such committees be constituted on an immediate basis with democratic representation of students, teachers, karmacharis etc. Moreover, this committee must be given adequate powers and autonomy to be able to take action against sexual harassers regardless of their position in the institutional hierarchy.

13) Recognition of the right to education and employment as fundamental rights. The fundamental right to life enshrined in our constitution can have meaning only if every citizen is able to lead a life free of want and is provided equal opportunity to develop her or his abilities to the greatest extent possible. In light of this, we demand that the constitution be amended to make the right to education and the right to employment fundamental rights of all citizens. This should be accompanied by a suitable legislation to provide a suitable framework for the enforcement of these rights and policies for providing jobs and education for all.

The SFI delegation, which met the minister and urged him for immediate and necessary steps on its demands, was based on SFI president K K Ragesh and joint secretary G Mamata. On June 25, the SFI also held a press conference with a view to popularising its views and demands. Apart from the two delegation members, the press conference was also addressed by SFI vice president R Arun Kumar.