People's Democracy

Let Us Not Allow This To Happen In India

G Mamta

ACCORDING to a recent study by Kingston University, ‘an increasing number of female students in the UK are resorting to prostitution or other jobs in the sex industry to pay rising university tuition fees!’ Shame on the government that is squeezing people and is spending millions of pounds of their money on the military for acting as a junior partner to US in its ‘regime change’ drive across the world. The ill effects of the education reforms introduced by the Blair government are beginning to show.

The study states that students in UK ‘stripped, lap-danced, worked at massage parlours and escort agencies to support themselves since the fees have gone up’. Earlier we have heard of girl students in UK selling their ovaries to pay monthly instalments of the education loans that they have taken for the completion of their studies. Now they are selling their bodies, nay their souls, to realise the dream of obtaining knowledge and a degree. Imperialism wants the third world countries to join them in this debased path.

If this is the situation in a developed country with a supposedly strong public education system, what will happen to our country with its track record of privatisation and commercialisation of education? Don’t be cosy, thinking that India is not west. The commerce ministry of the UPA government in a recently released discussion paper repeatedly talks of increasing the fee that is collected from the students. The consultation paper argues for ‘removal of present market access limitations such as fees (that) do not lead to charging capitation fees or profiteering etc’. What will happen if these proposals are accepted? 

If we try to comfort ourselves thinking that the idea to increase the fee is just an idea of the commerce ministry and the HRD ministry has in fact opposed it, didn’t you hear what our prime minister has said recently: ‘to open up services for foreign trade’ and this includes education. The Approach Paper to the Eleventh Plan is also arguing for an increase in the fees. The Planning Commission is advocating ‘internal resource generation’ and ‘realistically raising the fees’ to meet the cost of education.

A recent study of 39 universities given in the CABE committee report on the Financing Of Higher Education In India states that more than half-a-dozen among them have raised fee rates in such a way that they cover more than 50 per cent of the total recurring income while another 13 universities could generate more than 20 per cent. And this is much above the recommendations of the dreaded Punnayya Commission. The report notes that the corresponding ratio in advanced countries hardly touches 15 per cent. So, the danger is already here, lurking around the corner. 

The Planning Commission and the commerce ministry want a further increase, which the CABE report has already warned as move that would adversely affect our education system. Today, only about 8 percent of the relevant age group go to university while in many developing countries the figure is between 20 and 25 percent and this situation would further worsen with the rising fees. 

We are already witnessing a spate of suicides of students who were unable to pay the exorbitant fees collected in various education institutes across the country. If we let the Shylocks have their way, it would be disastrous to our education system. Fate behold what is happening in UK might as well happen here. It is the duty of all the right-thinking citizens of the country to resist the attempts to commercialise and open up education for market.