Recolonization of India: Circle is closing Faster Through New Education Policy dictated by WTO-GATS!
27th Nov. 2015
New Education Policy 2015 (NEP), which will be unleashed in Dec. 2015, is being drafted by the Government of India (GoI) on which opinions have been sought. In 1986, National Policy on Education was framed and amended in the wake of implementing neo–liberal policies in 1992. Now, NEP 2015 is a move of GoI towards the implementation of WTO-GATS [World Trade Organisation - General Agreement on Trade in Services] dictates before its ministerial meeting in Dec 2015.. While recolonializing our nation by implementing the WTO-GATS dictate, under that umbrella, Hindutva forces are planning to reestablish caste system and revive the brahminic hegemony. The composition of the 4 member NEP drafting committee itself is revealing in terms of what the government’s agenda: three members are bureaucrats and only one is an academician – who is none other than RSS and hindutva ideologue J. S. Rajput!
The implementation of LPG [Liberalization, Privatization, Globalization] policy and GATT [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade], for the last twenty five years, has had grave consequences of massive destruction of agriculture, lakhs of farmer suicides, firing of millions of workers, government employees and IT employees, almost elimination of small and medium scale industries, plundering and destruction of natural resources. After destroying productive sectors like agriculture and industry, now the imperialists’ evil eye has turned to the service sector. Essentials of human existence like food, water, land, education, health, sanitation, transportation and climate are now turned into fully tradable commodities under WTO-GATS for the unrestricted loot by MNCs and TNCs. By signing on WTO-GATS, it will be mandatory for GoI to restructure the system through legislative and judiciary measures by drafting policies and passing Bills and Acts accordingly. The New Education Policy 2015 is one measure in this game. Though, the LPG is introduced by the Congress around 90s, and had strived for it’s implementation, the Modi Govt is willing to complete the recolonization phase of INDIA as fast as possible. To the core, Modi’s “Minimum government Maximum governance” imitate the interest of WTO-GATS!
NEP themes mention that the existing educational establishment is incapable of and has failed in supplying skilled human capital to the labour market and complain about its inadequacy in systematic thinking. NEP is a move towards demolishing the academic establishment of the nation phase by phase. Phases will start with grabbing the power of the states to legislate and administer education through the unification and centralization of pedagogy and curriculum; dissolving the power of syndicates/senates and disaffiliating colleges from Universities, turning them into skill instruction based community colleges; stopping fund allocation and dissolving the UGC; free education only for 1 % for the so called meritorious and 1 % needy; liberalization and deregulation of foreign educational institutions, allowing them to grant degrees in India; importing subject experts from the industry and foreign academia through GIAN or ‘Teach in India’ for content generation for online repositories like MOOCs [Massive Open Online Courses] and trashing the job security of local teachers and gradually pushing them out as ‘an endangered species’; digitization of education and networking of institutes through ‘Digital India’, where students are no longer stake holders in education, but foreign universities, multi-national companies, corporates and private industries are (Though, students rush to MOOCs with an idea that it is ‘open’ and a public property which anyone can access ‘at anytime’, ‘from anywhere’, and ‘acquire knowledge as if they wish’ – similar to ‘water’, a decade later, the whole education establishment will be scrapped down, as MOOCs is a ‘disruptive innovation’ for the corporate like Coursera to loot); vocationalisation of school education from 8th std in the name of skill development, pushing majority of the children of toiling masses into informal labour. We need to ask the question whether ‘Make in India’ will ride on the back of exploitation of such unorganized informal labour. Finally it must be said that subjecting education to international trade rules would lead to the loss of authority of the national and the state governments to regulate education according to the nation’s needs and priorities.
Along with serving GATS, the NEP also seems to be a move towards grabbing state governments’ power; abolition or dilution of reservation; and perhaps even a reintroduction of traditional caste based occupation through vocationalisation of education from early childhood; suggesting to institutions to ensure safety of girl students through CCTV surveillance or to provide education through DTH at home, thus throwing girls back to the dark rooms of patriarchy; establishing Indology studies and departments for dead languages to promote brahmanical culture in the name of ‘cultural tolerance’ and imposing Sanskrit throughout India.
GATS removes the legislative authority of parliament and means a surrender of judicial power to trade tribunals, in which only corporations are permitted to sue. Workers, students, environmental and advocacy groups and labour unions are blocked from seeking redress in the proposed tribunals. The rights of corporations become sacrosanct. The rights of citizens are abolished. Re-establishing ‘slavery’ all over again. In this context, the New Education Policy is nothing but the spider’s web knitted over our nation as it terms human beings as ‘human capital’ and knowledge as ‘knowledge economy’ as mentioned in GATS. Perhaps WTO, controlled and directed by the trans-national capital and the Super Power - US, can legitimately be the policeman, guardian and rule maker of the international socio-economic-political and cultural system, which is locally supervised by existing brahminic hegemony.
It is the death knell for the sovereignty of our country. By demolishing agriculture, labour and services like education, health and restructuring it in accordance with WTO-GATS, does the government of India want to serve the lone super power, the US, and aid in a more rapid closing of the recolonisation circle in India? Scrapping of non-NET fellowship, implementation Lyngdoh committee recommendations and code of conduct, UGC’s circular on safety and security in campus and especially girl students, increase of fee in IITs and NITs, contractualization of teaching positions through UGC-FRP and DST-INSPIRE, self-financing of CSIR Labs and IITs, fund cut for R&D, appointment of RSS lackeys in FTII, ICHR, NCERT etc. are tip of the iceberg.
In the condition of systemic crisis, our resolve must be to trash the NEP which serves the interests of imperialists and Hindutva forces and let us strive to construct a new policy on education which is people oriented, indigenous and patriotic.
Kick out WTO-GATS! Defeat recolonization!
* * * * * * *
FEE HIKE - A MENACE TO IITs' HABITAT
11th April 2016
Dear Friends,
Fees hike for UG courses in IITs, announced by the MHRD, indicates that the Modi government has entered into the next phase in privatizing the higher education in India. The fees is now hiked by 120%, from Rs.90,000 to 2 lakhs per annum. MHRD justifies this hike as a step towards achieving financial autonomy of these institutions, which is nothing but reducing the role of government in these institutions and pushing them into the corporate fold. Though the fees for UG courses alone are increased now, this is not going to stop and the fees for the other courses (M.A., M.Tech, M.S., Ph.D) also to be increased sooner or later. Further MHRD has accepted the proposal to intake 10,000 foreign students in IITs to get global ranking and their fee structure is likely to be between 4-5 lakhs per annum.
MHRD has announced interest free loan under the ‘Vidya Lakshmi Scheme’ for all students. This will forcibly bring the students under the clutches of banks. The concept of educational loan is a failure throughout the world and would push students into a debt web. In U.S. 70% undergraduates are in debt with an average of $35000 per head. In U.K one in 20 students turn towards sex trade, just to pay their education debt.
The complete fee waiving for students from the SC/ST category is foul play of the BJP to regain the Dalit support which they lost the ground after the complete expose in APSC-IITM and HCU issues. The same govt. stopped the fellowship to Rohit Vemula and forced him to die for his stand on anti-hindutva policy, is now announcing fee waiver to SC/ST category is nothing but an absolute mockery. This seems more like a divide and conquer approach, which is bound to intensify anti-reservation attitude among students and would easily divert attention from the main issue of hand-over of IITs to global capital. The step is nothing but a larger push for privatizing the Indian higher education sector. During the 10th ministerial conference of WTO held in Nairobi last December, the Modi government has agreed to complete privatization in higher education, according to GATS. Based on this, the New Education Policy – 2015 is prepared and is yet to be presented in the parliament for approval.
MHRD's attitude towards the higher education in the last six months, and actions such as scrapping of Non-NET fellowship, implementation of Lyngdoh committee recommendations, increase of fee in IITs and NITs, contractualization of teaching positions through UGC-FRP and DST-INSPIRE, self-financing of CSIR Labs and IITs, fund cut for R&D, importing 1000 foreign professors for GIAN courses, dismantling of UGC etc., are part of this agenda. Recently HRD minister Smriti Irani said “good research is possible even with less funding” but rhetorically the same Modi government has announced 5,51,000 crore tax waiver for corporates.
Friends, we had already put forth the possibility of a fee hike amounting up to Rs. 2 lakhs, in our protest against the 2013 fee hike. We also discussed about the influence of WTO and World Bank in our higher education policy at our seminar by Anil Sadgopal on WTO-GATS, in Nov 2015. Kakodkar Committee recommendation for IITs (proposed in 2011) is now completely implemented. Higher education will be completely privatized as per GATS provisions in the near future. The fee hike is a part of this larger move. This political move by the government and IIT admin can only be countered by acquiring political awareness. We are in a critical period, if we neglect to react now the government will wash its hands off education in near future. We must unite and protest against it.
Let us unite and defeat the privatization of higher education!
* * * * *
Recolonization
Circle is closing faster!
NEW
EDUCATION POLICY UMPIRED BY
WTO-GATS AND RSS IS
A DEATH KNELL TO
OUR NATION’S SOVEREIGNTY
27th
April 2016
Our
Nation’s whole education sector is under severe irrecoverable
systemic crisis. This is evidenced from the prevailing deterioration
in central universities, state universities and their affiliated
colleges (where 95% of the students study) due to inadequate
financing by government, leading to poor infrastructure, poor
governance, corruption and bribe in appointments of teachers and
government intervention in the appointments of VCs.
Since
1970 – after the government declared that, it is incapable of
providing free quality education to all its citizens[i], it opened
the doors of education sector to private entities to plunder. The
result starkly visible in the current condition of thousands of
engineering colleges and B-Schools. On one side lakhs of B.E. and MBA
seats are vacant, while many of the students who aspire for education
are either denied entry or drop out due to their social and economic
condition. The status of R&D has not to be mentioned separately
as its umbilical cord is connected with the interest of none other
than the corporate industries.
The
school education is has also not fared any better. When a middle
class parent has to spend 50% of the income for their wards
education, it is not even plausible for the toiling mass to dream
off. The quality of education, for those who can afford is also poor.
It made the younger generation a mere ‘mark generating machines’
with low moral values, lack of creative and critical thinking and
without self-esteem, social consciousness or calibre to dissent. Thus
we say, even after 180 years of implementation of Macaulay education
by British in association with the already existing caste-based
hierarchical discriminative system, the State staggered, failed and
run counter to its own on its education policy.
Ruling
class also admits the State’s failure with a lament. A recent
national employability report[ii] by a private rating agency is
squalling that only 18% of the engineering graduates churned out each
year are employable and warns such unemployable candidates are not
only inefficient but socially dangerous. Likewise, the 33 themes and
questions floated by the New Education Policy (NEP) on higher
education and school education initially analyse the crisis prevalent
in education sector. While criticising that the existing educational
establishment is incapable of and failed in supplying skilled human
capital to the labour market and complaining about its inadequacy in
systematic thinking for a reform, NEP seeks consent from the citizens
of India for its proposal.
New
Education Policy 2015 (NEP) which is been drafted by the Government
of India for which opinions on 33 themes are sought. After the
framing of National Policy on Education in 1986 which was amended in
the wake of implementing neo – liberal policies in 1992, the NEP
2015 is a move of GoI towards the implementation of its commitments
given in WTO-GATS during the ministerial meeting in Dec 2015. The NEP
draft committee is constituted with 3 bureaucrats and the only one
academician in the committee is J.S. Rajput who is pro-RSS.
In
order to improve the quality of education, NEP propose the
unification and centralisation of pedagogy and curriculum by
implementing choice based credit system (CBCS) in all higher
educational institute. But this move is to abolish the uniqueness of
regional educational institutions and to grab state governments’
share of power in education. By de-affiliating the colleges from
state universities and dissolving the power of syndicate, all
colleges will be made autonomous in academic, administrative and
financial matters. Already ruling class is lamenting on the lag in
production of skilled youth by these colleges. Eventually all the
arts, science and engineering colleges will be converted to community
colleges. The state universities will be opened for the plundering of
private through public private partnership. Hence NEP plans to grab
the power of state governments on education and decentralise the
administrative power to respective local bodies, CSO or to For
implementing this, the Universities Act will be amended.
NEP
projects, the whole crunch is because of poor performing teachers, it
proposes to eradicate permanent positions in teaching. By quality
assessment cells in each institute, it plans to evaluate teachers and
students occasionally and oust them in the name of ‘poor
performance’. The quality cells will be networked with NAAC and NBA
for further accreditation. Those who get top rating alone will be
getting financial assistance. For instance, UGC is to be dissolved;
instead Rashtirya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) is proposed
established as funding body. So far, UGC through its five year plans
was funding for the infrastructure, subsidy for students and salary
of staffs of the colleges and universities established under specific
sections of Universities Act. Instead of UGC’s subject demand based
inspection governed funding, NEP announces norm (performance) based
funding only for top rated institutes through RUSA. i.e. funding is
subsumed to the ‘leveling of playing fields’ as proposed by
WTO-GATS. Thus it says government should not be partial towards
public institutes alone. The tax payers’ money should be
partitioned based on rating. Then only private institutes can compete
with public institutes. On other words, there will be no more public
institutes.
A
single window clearance system is proposed for the finance and
clearance of foreign educational institutions .Regulating mechanism
of State and the society over the education institutes is stripped
off and made ‘self-regulatory’. The institutes are asked to be
left ‘free from interference’ by framing necessary legislative
frameworks like Bills and Acts. Self-regulation is in entry and exit
of foreign educational institutions, operation, decision on intake of
students and faculty, fees, programmes, placements, governance,
finance, business tie-ups and ownership and hence transforming the
role of State from command and control to just evaluate and steering.
All
kinds of scholarships will be scrapped and free education is only for
1% meritorious and 1% needy, (Ref: Annexure II – Themes and
Questions for Policy Consultation on Higher Education- Theme XVI.
Financing of higher education) thus wipe out social justice based
reservation. Others fate are left to educational loans. As the state
government’s role in education is taken away, these institutions
will be starving with fund deficiency. In such a case, it is proposed
to mobilise fund from students’ fee, alumni fund, corporate
investment or seeking the corporates to spend 1% of its CSR in such
institutes.
In
the name of integration of skill development in education and
promoting technically enabled learning, it is proposed to impose
certificates in vocational training for school dropouts after 8th std
through online. Introduction of service-sector courses rather than
manufacturing based courses in schools and counselling the students
at school level is nothing but forcing them to do their traditional
caste based labour. Already the National Skill Development
Corporation (NSDC) has already introduced Paddy Farmer, Dairy Worker,
Sugarcane Cultivator, Hatchery Production Worker (Fishery), Tailor,
Mason, Plumber, electrician, Painter, Blacksmith, Fitter, Machinist,
Welder, Carpenter, house keep, beautician – kinds of sector skill
training in which school students are trained and certified along 8
states. For this, they are introducing multi grade –multi level
(MGML) model of education. NEP mentions that India has targeted
skilling five hundred million people by 2022 and exporting them to
global labour market. i.e. such a huge skilled work force will be a
commodity in the globalised labour market. Hence NEP projects the
vocational education and skill development as mean to increase the
productivity of individuals, profitability of employers and important
human capital for development of nation. For this flexibility in
entry and exit at any stage of education is promoted. Instead of
putting effort to increase the gross enrolment ratio in higher
education it paves way for increased no. of dropouts. Targeting the
informal service sector, the school education and higher education
including physical and adult education are brought under an agency
NSDC. The vocational trainings conducted are based on the National
Occupational Standards set by NSDC through its Sector Skill Councils
(SSC) who will be certifying the secondary vocational education which
is controlled by none other than the Corporates.
As
admitted by the NEP itself, pursuing education for socially and
economically marginalised youth is unaffordable. The world of caste
in contemporary India is governed by the same logic as the world of
caste in the past, that is, inequality of access to the all means and
resources. Instead of addressing this and inclusively framing the
policy, the present proposals are formulated in such a way as to
further deny access to general education for socially and
economically excluded children. Through vocationalisation of
education, NEP is imposing the traditional work on the children of
socially deprived castes. Yes! Its nothing but Doctor’s son should
be a Doctor while Manual Scavenger’s son should be none other than
a Manual Scavenger – re-establishment of caste system and
imposition of Brahmanical Hegemony. Accordingly, the Child labour
abolishment act has been amended recently[iii]. On talking about
gender, NEP is talking in a tone of reactionary patriarchy. It
suggests women to be safeguarded through surveillance or else they
will be given education through distance mode, thus trying to veil
and throw them back to the dark rooms of patriarchy. The
establishment of Indology department for cultural integration and
department for dead languages (Sanskrit) in every institute are
nothing other than imposition of unified Bramanical culture and
Sanskrit throughout India. English and Hindi will be the medium of
instruction in education as they serve the needs both corporates and
hindutva.
To
internationalise the education and promoting technically enabled
learning, the traditional chalk and talk method of teaching will be
abolished. Instead, already they have initiated Global initiative for
academic network (GIAN) to import 10, 000 academics and industry
people per annum from foreign to teach in India. The courses will be
converted to e- modules and large scale content will be generated and
uploaded in NPTEL or Coursera like Massive Online Courses (MOOCs).
Though, students rush to MOOCs with an idea that it is ‘open’ and
a public property which anyone can access ‘at anytime’, ‘from
anywhere’, and ‘acquire knowledge as if they wish’ – as that
of ‘water’ to living beings, even the so labelled ‘not for
profit’ EdX is generating revenue out of MOOCs through its
“university self-service model” and “edX-supported model”[iv]
In less than a year, Coursera – a corporate offering commercial
MOOCs has attracted $22 million in venture capital is the sample for
dimension of business turn over in this area. Monetization is not the
most important objective for this business at this point of rapid
accumulation of content that could be attracting universities that
want to license it for their own use and familiarisation to common
mass by giving hands-on training on usage of electronic gadgets and
online courses and networked through Digital India, a decade later,
the whole education establishment will be scrapped down as MOOCs is
notorious in academic and business circles as ‘disruptive
innovation’[v]. Then the teachers will be the endangered species;
College and University buildings will be rented off for commercial
purposes; The repository of e-modules will be sufficient for the
corporates to have hi-handness on the entire knowledge resources.
IITs
like centrally funded institutes (CFI) are projected to be
established as academic incubators in the zonal level to pick 1%
meritorious students from school level and nurture them as
think-tanks to serve the corporates rather than our nation.
Whether
the crisis in education as criticised by NEP can be rectified by just
implementing the above recommendations? IIT is the best example for
proto-type failure model of NEP 2015. After implementing the
recommendations of Kadodkar committee report in 2010, the
academicians are excluded in the Board of Governance and corporate
CEOs occupy the chairs. The fees for students raised exponentially –
around Rs. 3 lakhs, which is not even affordable for a middle class
student. Majority of the students are having huge education debts in
the form of bank loan or other. The hostel zones are separated from
the academic zone and are been opened for private players. The
Gymkhana entry fee raised exponentially. In IITM, A-Diet Express like
caterers are allowed to plunder students’ money and health while
they are exempted from regulation by admin. Starting from
house-keeping to security and clerical works are outsourced. Now it’s
the time for teaching and research to be outsourced. Though a huge
sum of money was spent for 10,000 teachers trained in IIT Bombay for
content generation in NPTEL, in Nov 2015, around 25 courses are
offered by foreign professors and industrialists through GIAN in IIT
Madras alone thus making the professors jobless. The no. of
foreign students in campuses is increasing exponentially while a
draft committee is constituted by MHRD to further tighten IIT-JEE,
conduct it abroad and thus to seal the entry of Indian students.
On
the other hand, majority of the government funding bodies have not
released even the sanctioned research grants and hence the professors
are striving hard to go ahead with on-going research. The fund
allocated for departments are also declined. Hence most of the
faculties are advised to implement austerity measures for academic
activities. Simultaneously BoG is pushing for the fixation minimum
wage for teachers and they have to rely on projects fund for further
salary. It also plans for rating the performance of professors and
bring them to tenure basis. Meantime, MHRD has announced IITs to rely
on corporates for funding and CSIR labs to go self-financing. How
such moves can increase the quality of education? Rather it can only
serve the corporate plundering.
New
Education Policy should be renewing the commitment to the development
of education of our nation as ‘public mandate’ whose mission and
objective must be to serve the social, economic and intellectual
needs and priorities of the nation while contributing to the ‘global
creation, exchange and application of knowledge’ in accordance with
Accra Declaration. Instead, under WTO- GATS regime, NEP reduces our
education to a “tradable commodity” and students as “consumers”.
Thus making the education subject primarily to international trade
rules and lose of authority of national government to regulate
education according to national needs and priorities.
All
the themes of NEP are in accordance with the four modes of trade in
education articulated in GATS i.e. cross-border supply, consumption
abroad, commercial presence, presence of natural persons. All though
all the four modes seek liberalisation of Indian education market for
the sole benefit of corporates, off all four, the first and foremost
priority is to cross-border supply in hi edu, adult edu and training
and testing services. That is, in the name of skill development the
imperialism is with an eye to exploit the unorganised informal labour
which constitutes more than 90% of Indian labour force. For this the
GOI has launched the programme ‘Reorganisation of Prior learning’.
In
Dec. 2015, before the Ministerial Meeting of WTO-GATS at Nairobi, GoI
committed itself to restructure the whole system according to WTO.
After the implementation of neoliberal policies in 1990s, the
imperialists are in a rush to get hold of the essentials of human
existence like food, water, education, health and sanitation, and
climate and thus thriving to re-establish the inhumane ‘slavery’
over the mankind. GATS remove legislative authority of parliament and
surrender judicial power to trade tribunals in which only
corporations are permitted to sue. Workers, students, environmental
and advocacy groups and labour unions are blocked from seeking
redress in the proposed tribunals. The rights of corporations become
sacrosanct. The rights of citizens are abolished. In this context,
the New Education Policy is nothing but the spider’s web knitted
over our nation as it terms human as ‘human capital’ and
knowledge as ‘knowledge economy’ as mentioned in GATS. Yes! their
plan is to ‘blur and disappear entirely’ the lines between
academia and the labour market simultaneously to serve the ‘consumer
of ‘ready-made’ human capital’ – the corporates, by pushing
the toiling mass to uncertain livelihood to get certified and work
life long. Perhaps WTO, controlled by the trans-national capital and
supervised by the Super Hegemony – US, can legitimately be the
policeman, guardian and rule maker of the international
socio-economic-political and cultural system. Thus it rings the death
knell to the sovereignty of our country which is nothing but the
recolonisation. By demolishing establishments like agriculture,
labour and services like education and health and restructuring it in
accordance with GATS, Brahmanism is in service of US Super-Hegemony
for the faster closing of recolonisation cycle of India.
In
the era of systemic crisis, our duty is to litter new education
policy which serves the imperialism and brahmanic hegemony and we
have to implement a people’s policy on education.
[i] Ref: Ramakant
Rai, Challenges in implementing the RTE Act, Infochange News &
Features, May 2012
http://infochangeindia.org/education/backgrounders/challenges-in-implementing-the-rte-act.html
[ii]
Ref: 3rd edition of the National Employability Report, Engineering
Graduates – 2014; TOI, Jul 15, 2014 ‘Only 18% engineering grads
are employable, says survey’
[iii] Ref: Hindustan Times Apr
08, 2015; Govt planning to relax laws to allow children below age 14
to work in select family businesses
[iv]
http://chronicle.com/article/How-EdX-Plans-to-Earn-and/137433/
[v]
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/education/massive-open-online-courses-prove-popular-if-not-lucrative-yet.html
* * * * *
Fee
hike in IITs – Towards IITs into Indian
offshoot of Multinational
corporate
8th
May 2016
Fees
hike for UG courses in IITs, announced by the MHRD, indicates that
the Modi government has entered into the next phase in privatizing
the higher education in India. The fees is now hiked by 120%, from
Rs.90,000 to 2 lakhs per annum. MHRD justifies this hike as a step
towards achieving financial autonomy of these institutions, which is
nothing but reducing the role of government in these institutions and
pushing them into the corporate fold. Though the fees for UG courses
alone are increased now, this is not going to stop and the fees for
the other courses (M.A., M.Tech, M.S., Ph.D) also to be increased
sooner or later. Further MHRD has accepted the proposal to intake
10,000 foreign students in IITs to get global ranking and their fee
structure is likely to be between 4-5 lakhs per annum.
MHRD
has announced interest free loan under the ‘Vidya Lakshmi Scheme’
for all students. This will forcibly bring the students under the
clutches of banks. The concept of educational loan is a failure
throughout the world and would push students into a debt web. In U.S.
70% undergraduates are in debt with an average of $35000 per head. In
U.K one in 20 students turn towards sex trade, just to pay their
education debt.
The
complete fee waiving for students from the SC/ST category is foul
play of the BJP to regain the Dalit support which they lost the
ground after the complete expose in APSC-IITM and HCU issues. The
same govt. stopped the fellowship to Rohit Vemula and forced him to
die for his stand on anti-hindutva policy, is now announcing fee
waiver to SC/ST category is nothing but an absolute mockery. This
seems more like a divide and conquer approach, which is bound to
intensify anti-reservation attitude among students and would easily
divert attention from the main issue of hand-over of IITs to global
capital. The step is nothing but a larger push for privatizing the
Indian higher education sector. During the 10th ministerial
conference of WTO held in Nairobi last December, the Modi government
has agreed to complete privatization in higher education, according
to GATS. Based on this, the New Education Policy – 2015 is prepared
and is yet to be presented in the parliament for approval. MHRD's
attitude towards the higher education in the last six months, and
actions such as scrapping of Non-NET fellowship, implementation of
Lyngdoh committee recommendations, increase of fee in IITs and NITs,
contractualization of teaching positions through UGC-FRP and
DST-INSPIRE, self-financing of CSIR Labs and IITs, fund cut for R&D,
importing 1000 foreign professors for GIAN courses, dismantling of
UGC etc., are part of this agenda. Recently HRD minister Smriti Irani
said “good research is possible even with less funding” but
rhetorically the same Modi government has announced 5,51,000 crore
tax waiver for corporates.
Friends,
we had already put forth the possibility of a fee hike amounting up
to Rs. 2 lakhs, in our protest against the 2013 fee hike. We also
discussed about the influence of WTO and World Bank in our higher
education policy at our seminar by Anil Sadgopal on WTO-GATS, in Nov
2015. Kakodkar Committee recommendation for IITs (proposed in 2011)
is now completely implemented. Higher education will be completely
privatized as per GATS provisions in the near future. The fee hike is
a part of this larger move. This political move by the government and
IIT admin can only be countered by acquiring political awareness. We
are in a critical period, if we neglect to react now the government
will wash its hands off education in near future. We must unite and
protest against it.
Let
us unite and defeat the privatization of higher education!
* * * * *
Road
Map To Financial Autonomy: Mortgaging
Our Future Generations To The Global Capital
21st
July 2016
When
MHRD announced the revised academic fee in April (from Rs 90,000 to
Rs 2 lakh per year) for the B.Tech. course, in the name of removing
burden over students, it also announced interest-free loan under
“Vidya lakshmi scheme” to all students. But as per the MHRD order
issued last week, interest subvention for students will be only
provided during the course period plus one year and the loan will be
restricted to only tuition fee. Further Vidya lakshmi scheme is only
for students with family income below Rs. 9 lakh per year. This is
going to add shade to the dreams of students, especially to the
students who want to pursue higher education. Recent hostel and
institute fee hike will intensify their burden, as the student has to
find an extra amount of about Rs. 55,000 per year which will not be
covered under this loan. MHRD has also directed IITs to bear the
payment of interest subvention for the students those who borrowed
education loan, from its internal accruals. According to an estimate,
the interest on a loan of Rs 8 lakh for the four-year undergraduate
course, works out to Rs 2.8 lakh, and IIT will have to bear this. Now
as IITs are on the road to achieve financial autonomy, the natural
choice will be to collect the interest money from the student under a
new head, i.e. burden over burden. Government is not able to fulfill
the mere promise of interest-free education loans.
After
graduating, one has to repay their loan along with interest. But,
there is a high level of uncertainty in getting placement. While
average placement is little higher than 80%, in some departments it
is as low as 65%. Also, 41% of students get placed in the pay range
of 4-8 lakh. One has to spend a good share of their salary for five
to seven years to just repay their education loan. The worldwide
shrinking of job opportunities due to the global economic crisis and
automation in industries will sink the hope of students and their
parents.
Further,
students of lower and middle stratum of society will be alienated
from pursing higher education. Also, there is no mention about the
students who like to venture into startups. On the other hand public
banks are in urge to clean-up their education debt. To reduce the
burden of their non-performing assets, banks resort to ‘asset
reconstruction’. Recently, State Bank of India has sold a large
share of its ‘bad’ education loans (840 Cr) to Reliance Asset
Reconstruction Company (350 Cr). Over the last few months, education
loan defaulters are being tortured by Reliance ARC, to pay back their
debt or face legal action. On 15th of this month K. Lenin (23), an
engineering graduate, committed suicide after he was allegedly
pressurized by a nationalized bank to repay educational loan (1.90
lakh).
Uncertainty
in employment, ‘private money lender’ attitude of National banks
and reduction in the budget allotment in higher education stamp the
students to turmoil. Despite these vulnerable situations, the
government is adamant on complete withdrawal of its funding to higher
education institutions. HRD minister Prakash Javadekar asked the IITs
to prepare a road map to complete financial autonomy by 2030. Inputs
to the National education policy – 2016 encourages the “investment
in education by philanthropy and corporates” in accordance with
WTO-GATS agreement that reflects the interest of global capital and
Indian comprador capitalist. One cannot get the education without
money.
We
are in a critical period, if we neglect to react now the government
will wash its hands off education in near future. We must unite and
protest against it to save the IITs for our future generations.
Let
us unite and defeat the privatization of higher education!
* * * * *
Old
Wine In New Bottle
IMPOSING
SANSKRIT, VEDAS and YOGA
Another
step towards Hindu Rashtra
21st
August 2016
The
regime of Modi is going to achieve its long term goal. Yes, at any
cost the versatile Indian culture will be converted into
monocultured, Hindu-Hindi-(H)India. The recent moves of the ruling
BJP proves this quick phase change, without a doubt. It is very well
known fact that, for the spast two years the various hindutva
activities are imposed with the help of its state authority. Starting
from, the change of name boards of various departments of IITs from
English to sanskritized Hindi, Teachers day into “ Guru Utsav ”,
steps towards changing official language as Hindi-Sankrit in all
central government offices, celebrating and promoting the
international Yoga day as a launch vehicle for Sanskrit imposition,
promoting the RSS ideologues as chairpersons or HOD’s of various
educational and research institutes etc. Particularly, for the past
six months the BJP government’s move towards this sankritization of
Indian education system is very fast than ever.
During
mid of February 2016 the MHRD constituted a committee, headed by
retired IAS officer N.Gopalsamy, submitted its document with ten
years perspective plan to prepare a vision and roadmap document along
with action plans for the development of Sanskrit in India. The
committee also suggested promoting Sanskrit as a scientific lingua
franca from Kindergartens to research level. Later this, on first
week of April 2016 the HRD Ministry has dispatched an advisory notice
to all Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) to consider the idea of
offering Sanskrit as an elective course to their students. It also
advised the IITs to create posts and appoint teachers for the above
purpose with the approval of their respective Board of Governors.
Immediately
after the previous announcement, on May of 2016, the ruling BJP
government proposed to form of the vedic education board (Veda
vidya), that will be set up under the Maharshi Sandipani Rashtriya
Veda Vidya Pratishthan (MSRVVP), a Vedic education organization that
operates out of Ujjain. This will be the country’s first Vedic
education board. According to the report, this will be a fully-funded
autonomous body under the HRD ministry that will conduct programmes
to promote the Vedas. To set up the board, a five-member government
panel has suggested an initial fund of Rs 6 Crore. The proposed Vedic
education board will function much like the Central Board of
Secondary Education, the report added. “Ved Vidya” is practised
at various gurukuls and ved pathshalas across the country. The
government’s proposal will bring these under the ambit of a Central
board, which could eventually cater around 50,000 students, the
report claims. As we mentioned in our previous talk given by Dr.Anil
sadgopal on “Recolonization of India: Circle is closing Faster
through New-Education Policy dictated by WTO-GATS!”, the hindutva
and corporates will join together for the fastest recolonization of
India. Now, the new education policy (NEP-2015) has changed into the
brand new draft on National education policy (NEP-2016) evidently
confirms our previous statements, the ways of infiltrating hindutva
ideology with the aid of multinational corporates (The full report on
draft of NEP-2016 is available with us).
Aforementioned
points are the moves suggested by N.Gopalsamy committee within a
short period of six months. By imposing Sanskrit as one of the
primary teaching language, the minds of school or college leaving
students will be as like as RSS ideologues. This will further help to
institutionalize the concept of Hindu nationalism. Other than this,
there is no easier way to achieve their monocultured
Hindu-Hindi-(H)India, the ultimatum is Hindu Rashtra, the longtime
dream of Swayam Sevaks. Already, most of the Indian people are
enslaved by English mania with imperialistic degenerative culture.
The ruling BJP government imposing vedic culture and Sanskrit for
further enslavement with the establishment of its long term goal for
Akant Bharath. To validate their moves, the BJP, RSS and all Hindutva
outfits are claiming that, our ancient society was made out of, one
and only vedic culture. But in reality ours is multifaceted culture
were many of our ancestors practiced lokayata (nothing but ancient
Indian materialism) an anti-Vedic philosophy called Nashtika which
includes Charvaka, Ajivika, Buddhism and Jainism.
It’s
a high time to join hands together with, students-youths, democratic
progressive forces and working classes to fight against these
atrocious derogative moves of current ruling government. Otherwise
the multifaceted Indian education system will be in the hands of
forces which dictate monocultured Hindu Rashtra where the fundamental
humanity will cease to survive.
* * * * *
A
Critique of the recent MHRD draft on National
Education Policy (NEP) 2016 “Neo-Macaulay
+
Neo-Manu dharma”
21st
Sept. 2016
Education
plays a vital role in enlightening the society. However it is also
one of the power tools in the hands of State through which a
particular domain of knowledge is transferred to working masses and
thus serves the ruling class interest and lays the foundation for
seamless exploitation. The Modi government’s “New education
policy (NEP) 2016” is another step towards this. The recent draft
on NEP is heavily stressing on “skill development” for the
workers in our country. It is committed to produce a skilled bonded
labor for global capital by denying education for 80% of working
masses and by infusing the Brahminical values which is referred as
“global citizens, with their roots deeply embedded in Indian
culture and traditions” in the preamble of the draft. Last year
Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) formed a five-member
committee headed by T. S. R. Subramanian to draft the New Education
Policy (NEP) 2016. Four among these members are bureaucrats and the
sole academician is J.S Rajput who made NCERT as a courtyard of RSS
while serving as chairman. The committee submitted the NEP report on
April 30th. Subsequently MHRD has released another 43-page document
titled “Some Inputs for Draft New Education Policy 2016” and
sought public opinion.
The
committee claims that the quality of school education, in terms of
learning outcomes, is deniably poor, particularly in government
schools. The committee proposes dreadful recommendations to improve
the outcomes by excluding majority of working masses. The draft says
that “Alternative school (evening schools) will be provided for
children from slums and migrant labor background; no-detention policy
will be limited up to class V and detention will be restored at the
upper primary (6th-8th); Open schooling for the school dropouts, 10th
exams will be at two levels: Part-A at a higher lever and Part-B at a
lower level; Only 10 lakh scholarships for higher education” and so
on;
As
per RTE Act-2009, free and compulsory education is the fundamental
right of children till the age of 14. But the implementation of NEP
will lead to denial of school education for slum children who are in
socially and economically deprived condition. According to the annual
Status of Education Report -2014 (ASER) survey nearly 50% of Class 5
students and 25 % of class 8 students were not able to read at Class
2 level text and their basic arithmetic skill is poor. Mere
restoration of detention policy above 5th class without assuring the
quality will further increase the dropouts in upper primary. As per
NEP class 10 has two levels: Part-A at a higher lever and Part-B at a
lower level. Students who feel that science, technology, engineering
and mathematics (STEM) is difficult can choose Part-B. But they are
not eligible to pursue the higher education in STEM stream. Further
NEP recommends the national talent test after class 10th to receive
the higher education fellowship. Currently 33.3 million students are
enrolling in higher education but NEP will be offering only 1 million
fellowships. i.e. mere 3% of students can get fellowships. Moreover
these exams will be mostly based on the CBSE frame work which will
turn out to be beneficial for children of urban elite and those from
rural area will be worst affected. Only a small section comprising
the upper caste and upper middle class will have access to higher
education. The District Information System for Education-2014
statistics reveals that level wise school drop outs for Ist –Vth,
Ist- VIIth and Ist-Xth are 20%, 36.3% and 47.4% respectively. The
recommendations of NEP instead of enhancing the learning outcomes,
will presumably double the dropout level and the dropouts will be
tactically pushed to skill training. As per Prof. Anil Sadgopal
(AIFRTE) “this policy will be aggressively pursued to exclude more
than 80% of the Indian population comprising SCs, STs, OBCs and
Muslims from education, and push them into skill shops.”
Along
the same line, Modi government introduced the Child labor
(Prohibition and protection) amendment act 2016. It allows the
children to “help the family in the fields, do home-based work or
work in a forest” after the school hours on a holidays and even
allows children to be engaged in the entertainment industry. “Home
based work” is nothing but caste based occupation. Instead of
abolishing child labor, RSS-Modi governmentt is pushing the children
into caste based occupations which in turn leads to compartmentalized
caste system once again. The old Manu dharma denies the education for
Panchamas and Shudras and legitimizes the exclusive education for
Brahmins which makes them so powerful in the Brahminical system and
also made them the exploiters in feudal system. Similarly in the
Neo-Manu Dharma, New Education Policy 2016, creates a new division of
laborers by denying the education for 80% of Indian population and
training them as skilled wage labor to serve the imperialism and
reserving the knowledge based work for small section of people, a
regeneration of caste compartmentalization NEP recommendations in
higher education section are in line with WTO-GATS agreement. NEP
acts as the strategic framework to implement the GATS agreement
completely. CEO in the governing bodies; educational tribunals;
curbing the student politics in campuses; cutting funds in the name
of financial autonomy; compulsory intake of foreign students and
faculty in higher education institutes; GIAN, dismantling the UGC and
AICTE; MOOCs; allowing foreign universities; centers for excellence;
incubation centers; fees hike; allowing foreign direct investment
(FDI) and so on. More than half of the recommendations have been
already implemented in IITs. For instance, MHRD singed a MoU with
U.S. to import 1000 faculty every year to teach in Indian
institutions under GIAN program. Each U.S. faculty salary is being
paid 7.2 lakhs for 20 sessions. India signed similar MoU with
Germany, Canada and other European countries. Further, MHRD decided
to conduct a job fair in top foreign institutions (mostly from U.S.)
to recruit faculty for IITs and MHRD claims Indian students (PhDs
from IITs, NITs) are not up to the mark. However 2,600 faculty
positions are vacant in IITs and altogether 16,000 faculty positions
are vacant in IITs, NITs, IIITs, IISERs and central universities.
NEP/MHRD worries more about foreign faculty than the qualified
Indians. Any country who committed its education to WTO-GATS, mode-4
“Movement of natural person” should give importance to
teachers/professors from other countries. Indian education system is
now effectively controlled by the WTO-GATS. Similarly trades in
goods, services and intellectual property rights are also controlled
by the WTO through various agreements (GATS, GATT, TRIPS) to serve
the interest of the imperialists. This is nothing but recolonization.
Macaulay
education system trained Indian people who were British in their
thought process but physically Indian so that they will serve British
imperialists without any hesitation. Now NeoMacaulay Education Policy
(NEP) will produce the millions of skilled work force as a cheap
labor for global capital and will welcome the foreign educational
monopolies in the name of quality education providers to loot the
Indian education market. At last NEP recommends that Sanskrit must be
a compulsory subject in schools. Already, MHRD has initiated several
activities with an agenda, to saffronize young minds such as imposing
Sanskrit in central government schools and Sanskrit cell in IITs with
an intention to achieve their long term agenda of ‘Hindu-Hindi-Hindu
Rashtra’. The text book will preach Rama as the greatest king,
Mahabali as demon, artificial intelligence were discovered in Vedic
period, aerodynamics laboratory was first established in Ayodya and
so on. Such an unscientific, irrational nonsense will be taught in
class rooms as the Indian history and our ‘glorious past’. Our
future generations’ minds will be flooded with the conservative
thoughts and superstitious beliefs which will numb the rational and
scientific thinking and nurture the slave character in the thought
process. Naturally, such an employee in a factory won’t understand
and question the limitless exploitation of global capital. During
feudal era what caste system does for the feudal exploitation, in the
recolonization era, Hindutva will play the same role in
protecting/justifying the exploitation by the imperialists. Therefore
Hindu Rashtra is not merely a Hindu state. It is a state which
assures and remains subordinate to perpetual exploitation of U.S.
imperialist on Indian working mass and natural resources. Such an
anti-people education policy must be burnt at any cost. We the
students of one of the premier institutes in the country must be the
front runner in the process of demolishing the ‘Neo-Macaulay
Neo-Manu dharma’ National education policy 2016.
Let
us unite to defeat the NEP-2016
* * * * *
EPIDEMIC
OF PRIVATIZATION HITS INDIAN
HIGHER EDUCATION
4th
April 2018
For
the last one week, Delhi has been witnessing a series of protests
organized by teacher and student associations who are fighting for
protecting the public-funded institutes. The teacher and student
community have been fighting against the Modi government’s recent
announcement of graded autonomy for publicfunded universities. On
March 20, MHRD announced graded autonomy for five central
universities including JNU and HCU, 21 state universities which
include Jadavpur University, Anna University and Madras University,
and 23 deemed universities. This graded autonomy allows the
universities to start new courses, offer new degrees, create new
departments, recruit foreign faculty and admit foreign students,
without any approval from any regulatory body such as UGC or AICTE.
The institutions are free to fix the fees amount for foreign
students. The government will not be providing any funds for running
these new courses, degrees or departments. The Union HRD minister
Prakash Javadekar claims this as a ‘historic step’ and will give
autonomy and freedom which will improve the quality of higher
education. However, this move will increase the academic fees.
Through this autonomy, the government may actually wash its hands off
its responsibility to provide education and give these public
institutes to the hands of private players.
Modi
government has also announced a new scheme called Higher Education
Financial Agency (HEFA) to lend centrally funded institutions such as
IITs, NITs, IISERs, etc... HEFA is a finance company which will
generate Rs. 20,000 crores from the debt market. Central institutes
can then borrow this money from HEFA that must be repaid within 10
year duration. MHRD claims that the loans from HEFA will be useful to
develop world-class infrastructure in IITs and NITs. Recently, HEFA
gave loans to five old IITs and NIT Suratkal totaling around Rs. 2066
crores. IIT Madras alone borrowed Rs. 300 crores, which should be
repaid in installments of 30 crores every year over a period of ten
years. There is still confusion on who is going to pay the interest
of more than 8%, whether it is the central government or the
institutes. The Government suggests that the money should be repaid
by generating the revenue through tuition fees, mess fees and
research earnings. IIT Madras director says that “[HEFA repayment]
uses the fee income at the IITs….Nobody will disagree that the fee
income is guaranteed and stable and as sure as sunrise as long as
IITs run.” It is evident that as borrowing from HEFA continues,
fees paid by the students will also keep increasing. The reduction of
budget allocation to IITs in the recent years naturally forces the
institutes to borrow more money from the HEFA. Eventually, this leads
to further increase in academic and hostel fees and bringing in new
modes of collecting money from students for all the services in the
institute. Thus, these measures are converting IITs into very
expensive and de-facto private colleges. The “Institutes of
National Importance” are now becoming “Institutes of Revenue
Importance”. Already, IITs are in the race to get into another
scheme called “Institutes of Eminence” in which 10 government and
10 private institutions will be selected, with an aim to get them
into top 500 of global rankings. The government will give Rs. 1000
crores to each of the government institute selected. These institutes
will be completely out of the government control with respect to fee
structure, syllabus, faculty appointments, etc... i.e. they will be
like the “Special Economic Zones” (SEZ) of the higher education
sector. There is no mention about the existing reservation policy for
the students from socially downtrodden sections and close to 30%
students would be from foreign countries.
In
India, the public-funded institutions are at the forefront in
providing quality higher education. Through nominal fees,
reservations and scholarships, these institutions provide access to
higher education for the rural and economically and socially deprived
students. Through the schemes explained above, the Modi government
has now created a roadmap to privatize all these institutions. State
universities and centrally funded institutions are already under deep
financial crisis. Now, this privatization through cutting government
funds, graded autonomy and HEFA forces these institutions to depend
on the finance market for their functioning. Due to this dismantling
of public-funded education, the students from the economically and
socially downtrodden sections will be very openly pushed out of the
higher education. In the recent past, students from institutes such
as IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, and IISER Mohali have held
huge protests against the hikes in academic fees and hostel fees.
Currently, DU and JNU are continuing their strong protests against
graded autonomy and HEFA. To safeguard the public-funded institutions
and the future of the higher education in our country, as student
community, it is our responsibility to organize and protest against
the devastating privatization policies in the higher education.
* * * * *
APSC
Condemns M.Tech. Fees Hike - Stipend Cut
&
Partial Exit For B.Tech. Students
29th
Sept. 2019
The
53rd IIT Council meeting headed by MHRD minister has met three days
back to discuss some important policy decisions on financial
autotomy, internationalization of IITs, world ranking etc. As an
outcome, the council has approved a tenfold increase in M.Tech course
fee, discontinuing the stipend to M.Tech. students and a partial exit
program for underperforming B.Tech. students.
Current
tuition fee for M.Tech program in IITs may vary between 10000 to
20000 rupees per year. All M.Tech students are now getting 12400
rupees monthly stipend. Now the council has decided to increase the
M.Tech course fee to Rs. 2 lakh/year, to discontinue the stipend
given to M.Tech. students and to encourage more industry-sponsored
M.Tech. students. The revised fees is even higher than tuition fee in
self-financing institutions. The rationale of IIT council to increase
the fee and discontinue the stipend was reported as measures to check
students using IIT seats for “parking” themselves before joining
in a public sector undertaking. This is dubious. The above concern
can be easily addressed either by not allowing PSUs to recruit from
GATE or the PSUs can recruit before the admissions to IITs begin. In
reality, these two policies will discourage the students from
socially and economically backward communities from doing M.Tech. in
IITs.
The
financial autonomy is the guiding light for such fee hikes with an
aim (driven by the global financial capital) to commercialize the
higher education in India. Recently IIT-M received the Institute of
Eminence (IoE) status with one-time grant of Rs. 1000 crores. IoE
regulations impose financial autonomy on the higher education
institutes(HEI) that lead to stoppage of the annual grants from MHRD.
These HEIs are forced to meet their expenses through fees hike or
loan from Higher Education Financial Agency (HEFA). This burden of
loan will reflect as further fee hikes for students. This move is in
the direction to transform the public funded non-profit HEIs
(including IITs) into profiteering ‘world class institutes’.
To
promote ‘internationalization’ of higher education, the Modi
government has been spending many thousand crores of money. It has
offered to fund 1000 students from South East Asian countries to do
PhD in IITs, with an initial funding of Rs. 300 crores. In addition,
150 crores has been allotted to promote more foreign students in
Indian HEIs under ‘Study in India’ programme. These funds from
the tax-payers’ money is also used to line the pockets of corporate
players like Mukesh Ambani’s Jio university, Sunil Mittal’s
Bharti university, etc...
The
council has also approved an ‘honorable exit’ program for
academically ‘weak’ B.Tech. students. Those who fail to get the
necessary credits after their first year will be pushed into a B.Sc.
programme. These students will not be able to take up post-graduate
technical courses such as M.Tech. and M.E. after graduating. This is
an anti-student move and the students from socially and economically
backward communities will suffer the most. In most of the IITs there
is no support system for such underperforming students. The
affirmative action starts and ends with admission. If this new policy
is introduced, by the time students are able to overcome their
initial difficulties with the new environment, language, culture,
etc. in the IIT system, their destiny will be fixed. When IIT Roorkee
dismissed 73 students because of low grades in their first year, 90%
of them belonged to socially backward communities. In the last two
years, there have been 2461 drop-outs from IITs. These many students
were not able to cope up with their courses despite clearing the
entrance exams. Without addressing the problems that make these
students perform low academically, IIT administrations are covering
it up by filtering or throwing them out of the system, resulting in a
new form of Manu-dharma.
On
one side, the Modi government is spending huge money to commercialize
higher education in the name of promoting ‘world class institutes’.
On the other side, this is pushing out majority people of this
country from higher education calling them as non-meritorious and
underperforming. APSC condemns these policies of the IIT Council,
which will reserve the education in IITs to only the socially and
economically privileged. APSC requests the students of this country
to stand against the attack of global financial capital on the Indian
higher education.
* * * * *
In
Solidarity with Student Protest in IIT-BHU
and
IIT-Bombay Against M.Tech Fee Hike
7th
Nov. 2019
On
26th of September, the 53rd IIT Council meeting headed by MHRD
minister has decided to implement a tenfold increase in M.Tech course
fee and to discontinue the stipend to M.Tech. Students.
Current
tuition fee for M.Tech program in IITs may vary between 30000 to
50000 rupees per year. All M.Tech students are now getting 12400
rupees monthly stipend. Now the council has decided to increase the
M.Tech course fee to Rs. 2 lakh/year, to discontinue the stipend
given to M.Tech. students and to encourage more industry-sponsored
M.Tech. students. The revised fees is even higher than tuition fee in
self-financing institutions. The rationale of IIT council to increase
the fee and discontinue the stipend was reported as measures to check
students using IIT seats for “parking” themselves before joining
in a public sector undertaking. This is dubious. The above concern
can be easily addressed either by not allowing PSUs to recruit from
GATE or the PSUs can recruit before the admissions to IITs begin or
appointment of the PSUs made through a single-window alongside the
admission to different IITs. In reality, these two policies will
discourage the students from socially and economically backward
communities from doing M.Tech. in IITs.
The
financial autonomy is the guiding light for such fee hikes with an
aim (driven by the global financial capital) to commercialize the
higher education in India. Recently IIT-M received the Institute of
Eminence (IoE) status with one-time grant of Rs. 1000 crores. IoE
regulations impose financial autonomy on the higher education
institutes(HEI) that lead to stoppage of the annual grants from MHRD.
These HEIs are forced to meet their expenses through fees hike or
loan from Higher Education Financial Agency (HEFA). This burden of
loan will reflect as further fee hikes for students. This move is in
the direction to transform the public funded non-profit HEIs
(including IITs) into profiteering ‘world class institutes’.
To
promote ‘internationalization’ of higher education, the Modi
government has been spending many thousand crores of money. It has
offered to fund 1000 students from South East Asian countries to do
PhD in IITs, with an initial funding of Rs. 300 crores. In addition,
150 crores has been allotted to promote more foreign students in
Indian HEIs under ‘Study in India’ programme. These funds from
the tax-payers’ money is also used to line the pockets of corporate
players like Mukesh Ambani’s Jio university, Sunil Mittal’s
Bharti university, etc...
On
one side, the Modi government is spending huge money to commercialize
higher education in the name of promoting ‘world class institutes’.
On the other side, this is pushing out majority people of this
country from higher education calling them as non-meritorious and
underperforming. Fee hike and stipend cut will reserve the education
in IITs to only the socially and economically privileged.
We
express our solidarity with students of IIT-BHU and IIT Bombay who
are conducting a protest today in their respective campuses against
M.Tech fee hike and stipend cut. Collective action like this is
urgently required to oppose the attack of global finance capital on
the Indian higher education.
* * * * *
ONLINE
DEGREES IN CENTRALLY FUNDED
INSTITUTES -
A NEW TOOL FOR REVENUE
GENERATION
10th
July 2020
Increasing
the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) and youth employability is one of
the key objectives in the National Education Policy 2019 draft, and
the same was mentioned in the finance minister's budget speech for
the year 2020. The government policy to realise this objective is not
through establishing new colleges, institutions and universities or
by reducing the tuition fees which can make the higher education
accessible to all, but through online degree programs. For example,
last month, IIT Madras launched the country's first online degree
programs, BSc in Programming & Data Science and Diploma in
Programming/Data Science with flexible exit/entry options.
Over
the recent years, MHRD has been aggressively pushing online platforms
supposedly for improving the educational outcomes in schools and
colleges. More recently, this is being done under the false pretext
of the COVID-19 lockdown. Online education is projected as the
inevitable tool, particularly in higher education, to enhance the GER
to 50% before 2030. According to the All India Survey on Higher
Education (AISHE) report, the current GER is around 28%. To really
achieve the 50% GER, the government needs to spend several lakhs of
crores in infrastructure for education. But, the government follows
the diktats of the international financial institutions, World Bank
and IMF, and does not want to spend on public education. To overcome
the limits on social spending imposed by these foreign institutions,
MHRD has proposed Information & Communication Technology (ICT)
based solutions to increase the GER. This will further intensify the
commercialisation in higher education due to the lack of
infrastructure and poor access to the internet and electronic
gadgets. India's spending on education is already the lowest (around
3% GDP) among the BRICS nations. During the Modi regime, this
spending was further reduced from 4.14% to 3.4% of the total
government expenditure. On the other hand, households which have
students going to higher education spend 18.4% of their total
expenditure on average in urban areas and 15.3% in rural areas.
In
the 2020 budget, the finance minister announced that online courses
could be started by the top 100 institutions in the NIRF ranking.
Despite the tall claims by the government on GER and employability,
the main intention behind the online degree programs is revenue
generation. Since the BJP-led NDA government came to power, the
centrally funded institutions are forced to generate revenue to meet
their expenditure and encouraged to borrow through HEFA for
infrastructure developments. There are 46 Centrally Funded Institutes
(CFI) institutions in the top 100 rankings and the rest are private
and state institutions. As per the government guidelines, these
institutions are eligible to start an online degree program,
preferably market-driven courses, and the fees will be very high and
exclusionary. For instance, IIT Madras has fixed 2.5 lakh rupees as
the fee for its online B.Sc. Program. Each institution can come up
with several such online degree courses with high fees that may help
the institution to meet its expenditure without government funding.
This
explains the government's affinity towards the commercialisation of
education both in school and college level. Now, with the help of
technological development, the government rolls out further
commercialisation and its exclusion agenda. Certainly, supplementary
technological tools may help to enhance the educational outcomes, but
regardless of the technology, until we destroy the commercialisation
agenda, we cannot provide quality and free education to everyone.
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