“Education is the
transformation of civilization”.
Gone are day when education was keepsake, benefaction…and
Guru’s were so keen to educate their students to make them the best of the
world…
We still remember teachers who seemed to be on a mission, a
sort of camping to educate, who wanted kids to open their minds to the
possibilities around them. They were our counselors, our mentors, the ones who
guided us and listened to our sometimes extremely ridiculous ideas.
But it seems really pity that in today's competitive world
education has taken new face that is business. Now everything is becoming
business. Donation of the college, school, or institute is such that it is not
possible for middle class person to afford it, and at last left uneducated,
hence, called as illiterate…
Education has become a business – not that ‘business’ is a
bad thing. It is just that schools and universities have become such commercial
enterprises that everything is measured in terms of profits, no matter how it’s
going to turn…
This is the truth that we hears at several universities in
the country – that although fee structures are high and universities are very
profitable, they do not want to invest in improving quality education, adding
on more professors and teaching assistants. Instead they want to retain more
and more of the profit. Is it any wonder then that the quality of education is
not what it used to be a few years ago?
“Is there a way out of this situation”?
Maybe we need to raise the consciousness of the University
management. Maybe we need to work on improving the teacher-student ratio. Maybe
more project work is required. We certainly need to tackle this situation, and
we need to do it now- the status quo is just not acceptable. Today most
teachers can teach whatever they have been asked to! We wonder how? Teachers
must only teach what they can efficiently…
National Education Finance Corporation - But the MHRD
abandoned it?
The HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal, proposed the idea for a
National Education Finance Corporation in early 2010, and expanded on it in the
Rajya Sabha by making a persuasive case for it. This seemed like a very good
idea.
Under the present policy framework if you want to set up an
institution there is no Government agency that can finance you. So, there is no access to finance to setting
up a new educational institution. So, he
will have to go to the bank to actually get financing from the bank at the
lending commercial rate. Now, human
resource development is not considered as an infrastructure development and the
Supreme Court has said that this is charity, this is for public service. So, an activity which is for public service
has to borrow if he wants to set up an educational institution at commercial
rates. But, an activity which is in the
infrastructure sector, namely physical infrastructure, you can borrow at softer
rates because that is priority sector.
So, what the policy framework within which we are working is, that
anybody who wants to set up an educational institution should have access to
finance. That is the first purpose. This
has nothing to do with UGC. Secondly, if
you set up an educational institution, under the present guidelines you will
get grants from the UGC or from the Government or under schemes of the
Government only when you have achieved certain milestones. Now, in the meantime if you want to enhance your
infrastructure -- and nowadays, with research and development expanding
exponentially -- you need new capital investment. There is no way that you can get
finance. You have to cross many
milestones. So, when you want to set up
an educational finance corporation, our objective is that anybody who wants to
set up an educational institution should have free access to finance as a
priority lending sector. What happens
is, when you call it charity, State Government control fees. Once it is charity, State Government control
fees and they cannot increase fees in their institutions. Many of them do the kind of practices that
they are doing and that are the root cause of the problem. When they will have free access to finance
and every child has free access to loan why will he need to sell the family
silver to enter into an educational institution? So, I think it is the need of the hour and I
would require you to give me suggestions as to how we must move forward because
unless we build that infrastructure and capital we will not be able to move
forward.
Kapil Sibal's proposal was welcomed by a few other MPs
during the discussion in the Rajya Sabha.
Proposal for setting up of National Educational Finance
Corporation (NEFC) was prepared and sent to Planning Commission for
concurrence. Planning Commission has raised certain objections to the proposal.
Therefore the proposal was not taken forward." Source: Lok Sabha Un
Starred Question No. 4410 Answered on 21.12.2011.
Reference taken from:- http://prayatna.typepad.com/education/business_of_education/
Presenting some videos for our readers reference about the
school fees structure in our metro cities…
A must watch videos for today’s parents whom are sending their kids to
good school expecting a good future for their kids…
Last but not the least that most of you
might have heard our elders saying that “those you actually and really want to
educate themselves can do that sitting under the tree too”…
E.g. is Swami Vivekananda…
"Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire."- W B Yeats
Therefore This a humble
request to our government that they must incorporate strict policies for the
education sector for their fee structure, it must be under certain limits that
even poor people can also think of
admitting their kids to good school for their better future and also for the
better future of our country too…
On one hand we talk of Right to Education and on the other hand affordability of higher education raises eyebrows.
ReplyDeleteMaybe because they are playing on the psychology that says - no one can snatch what you have learnt.
Nice read!