PRIVATISATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN INDIA

PRIVATISATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN INDIA

Mr. Z. Zayapragassarazan, Senior Lecturer
and
Dr. S. Ganapathy, Senior Lecturer

Department of Education
Pope John Paul II College of Education
Puducherry-605 010.

E-mail: zprazan@yahoo.co.in


Introduction
The basic character of education is that it informs the person and enlightens him about things he does not know and thus initiates him into asking all sorts of questions about nature, about life, about society and its organizations. Thus education makes a person capable of thinking for himself and finding answers to questions that are significant for one’s life. So education is said to be a liberating force.
Higher education refers to education in post-higher secondary institutions, colleges and universities. Since it constitutes the top most stage of formal education, it is called as higher education. More importantly it is concerned with processes in the more advanced phases of human learning. The entrants are about 18 years of age, mentally matured and capable of performing at the abstract level.
The three aspects of higher education are:
1. Socio-economic and industrial development has created a pressure towards greater specialization.
2. As societies grow more complex, more selective and efficient means of cultural transmissions evolved resulting in formal institutionalized system.
3. Research has emerged one of the most significant dimensions of higher education today.
Till nineties higher education in India was mostly funded and governed by the state and central government. Since nineties the output from the higher secondary/intermediate courses has significantly increased the growth of private colleges is being witnessed. This growth of private colleges has mainly in the field of arts and science rather than professional /technological colleges. This has created a big gap in purview of nation’s knowledge which is more important for the all round development of the nation. In this context it would be worth mentioning about the concept of liberalization, privatization and globalization (LPG). The LPG has forced India whether to go for Privatization in General or Privatization of Education in particular.
The wave of Privatization is sweeping across the world. It is aimed at breaking the monopoly of the public sector in a number of are as including education. The essence of Privatization lies in the induction of Private ownership and publicly owned enterprises. This can lead to zero-public ownership to various degrees of private ownership in form of joint-ventures. This is in narrow sense in which the concept of privatization is used. In a broader sense, it connotes besides private ownership, introduction of private management and control in public enterprise.
“Privatisation is the general process of involving the private sector, the ownership or operation of a state owned enterprise”. Since the impact of privatization of penetrating in all sectors of the economy, it is bound to affect education sector as well. The question arises why is privatization being recommended in education?



Causes of Privatisation
The major causes of privatization of education includes the following:
1. The expansion and establishment of education institution is increasingly high and the same has been shouldered mainly by the state. A stage has now come when the state is finding it very difficult to meet the democratic aspirations of the people for further expansion of education system due to paucity of resources. It is therefore felt that the private sector be inducted in education so that it can share the burdens in funding education.
2. Knowledge explosion is taking place in the world and underdeveloped economies must keep pace with this knowledge explosion. Education or knowledge industry is becoming the key factor in the process of development. This being so education is no longer viewed as a social service rather it is considered as a necessary economic input. In this effort the private sector is also considered to play its part since it is a major beneficiary of the knowledge industry.
3. The world is passing through fourth industrial revolution. This consists of information technology, bio-technology, nano-technology, robotics, application of lasers and new industrial materials. The growth of satellite TV has further strengthened information revolution in the world along with development in computer technology. These technological developments have increased the requirements of educated and technical manpower at a much higher level. Since the public sector due to limitedness of resources allocated to education cannot meet the needs of industry and other sectors of the economy, it is vital that private sector is initiated in the programmes of skilled manpower to take advantage of growing technologies.
4. Privatization can respond to market signals or market demand for labour in the more efficient and prompt manner than the public sector, which finds it very difficult to introduce flexibility in operations of human resource development.
5. Over years, the public sector has failed to generate resources from the recipients of education, it has become more or less free public good and this has devalued the education in the eyes of recipients. Privatization may lead to changing for the service provided which is likely to generate great responsibility among the recipients of education. This results in greater efficiency in teaching learning and improvement in its quality.
6. Privatization by generating more resources from students’ fees will help to reduce fiscal burdens of the government.
Components of Privatization
1. Establishment of institution imparting education and skills in the private sector namely schools, colleges, polytechnics, research laboratories, professional colleges in agriculture, engineering, medicine, management and research organizations.
2. Introducing full cost on the individuals or on the institution may be a burden or both. So the withdrawal of subsidies can be then over a period of time, with the help of state support in the interim period and finally the state support can be completely withdrawn over a period of time.

3. To introduce the culture of private organization by granting the management the right to hire and fire academic and other supporting staff.
4. To grant the right to the management to start or stop a course or courses depending upon market signals.
5. To persuade the users of the output of the educational institutions to contribute towards the funding of the education expenditure.
Scenario at Higher Education Level
The higher education institution in India can be grouped into four:
a) Those founded funded and run by the state governments.
b) Those founded funded and run by the private agencies.
c) Those founded and run by the private agencies but funded by the government.
d) Those founded and run by the private agencies but funded partly by the government and partly by non-governmental sources.
Majority of the institutions in the India belonging to the category ‘c’, it is evident higher education institution are largely run by the state or are heavily aided by the state though they operate under private management. All colleges whether run by the university or state or private trust charge the same level of fees and pay the same scales of pay to their academic and non-academic staff. Thus even the private colleges are being funded by the state to the extent of 95%. Similar situations prevail in most part of the country. Thus higher education predominantly funded by the state, though it may operate under labels of private trust. This was the scenario until last decade. This scenario has been changing tremendously during this decade. The UGC has given approval to more number of self financing colleges deemed universities, etc., and the number has been increasing due to the above explained factors such as knowledge explosion, industrialization, internationalization of education, GATT, etc.,
Forms of Privatization
In this juncture it would be relevant to consider the following forms of privatization in education:
1. Zero privatization of education with total responsibility to be taken over by the state at all levels.
2. Mild privatization of education by gradually increasing recovery cost of education by way of fees to 50% level. The remaining cost should be subsidized by the state.
3. Intensive privatization by insisting at least 75% cost is covered by students’ fees and employers’ contribution.
4. Total privatization with total freedom to private sector to establish educational institution and recover full cost from the beneficiaries or even charge cost plus pricing and generate profit from investment in education – the so called commercialization of education.
Out of these forms 1st and 4th cannot be feasible. Remaining the 2nd and 3rd can be made feasible along with increased state intervention in private sector institutions in par with the interest of the socially, economically, linguistically, ethnically, geographically, etc., deprived groups.
Merits of Privatization
1. The burden of the state is reduced as a consequence of privatization in establishing educational institution.
2. The democratic aspirations of the people for further education are many times disturbed due to the paucity of resources. This can be overcome by privatization of education.
3. The knowledge divide among the rural and urban between backward states and advanced states, developed nations and developing nations, can be minimized through privatization, which opens door for more number of people and for easy access for knowledge.
4. This will proceed India to meet the challenges of modern industrial revolution in the global scenario.
5. This would easily help India to advance well in the areas of information technology, bio-technology and nano-technology.
6. Since the fiscal burden is partly shouldered by private sector, the government will be less burdened to meet the other needs of the nation. Thus the economy of the nation could easily recover and rise along with the economic trends of the other fast developing nations and developed nations.
7. This will also attract foreign students from under developed, least developed and developing nations and even from developed nations and paves way for foreign exchange.
8. Privatization may lead to international standard of infrastructure.
9. Privatization provides more opportunities to develop teaching and learning competencies. Hence there will be an improvement in the quality of education output.
Demerits of Privatization
1. Quality assurance is not guaranteed through privatization.
2. Accountability in education becomes a question mark due to privatization.
3. Intercultural and inter social changes may take place which may not be easily acceptable by Indian minds.
4. The public sector institutions at higher level have much better record of responding to the societal needs of SC/STs and other backward sections of the society than the private sector institutions. There is no assurance for the socially underprivileged groups in the higher institutions of private concerns.
5. There may not be any limitation in the fee structure and the fee structure may be depending upon the richness of the institution.
6. With respect to the faculty selection, the private institution may acquire the right to hire and fire both the academic staff. The same is case for the starting and stopping a course.
7. Autonomy of students and teachers, teaching learning freedom and the democratic set up may not exist.
8. Privatization may lead to more autonomy of institutions. The degree of acceptance of the Degrees obtained from these institutions is unknown by the job market or industry and institutions of higher learning. These institutions may not go for compulsory assessment and accreditation of national boards.
Conclusion
Whether we accept privatization or not is not a question. Rather, it is good for the nation to experiment privatization in a rational and judicious way for a selected period of time in selected areas and resources. But it is not advisable to keep away ourselves from the process of privatization. When there are good role models of developed nations, having become developed nations because of privatization. To put it in a nut shell privatization is inevitable in this world of new industrial and technological revolution and to meet the growing needs of human power.

References
Amartya Sen (1990), Socialism, Markets and Democracy, The Indian Economic Journal, Vol. 37, No. 4, p5.

Amrik Singh (1985), Redeeming Higher Education , Ajantha Publications, New Delhi.

Barbara Lee and John Nelis (1990), Enterprise Reform and Privatization in Socialist Economies, World Bank Discussion Paper No. 4, p.1.

Ghosh and Mathew Zachariah (1987), Education and the Process of Change, Sage Publications, New Delhi.

Ruddar Datt (1993), Privatization Bane or Panacea, Pragati Publications, Delhi.