Why Fund Cuts for Education, When Crores Looted in Scams and Black Money?
Resist Corporate-Run, Corrupt Government and Corporate Dictated Education Policies!
Reject UPA-II’s Education Bills that are a Blueprint for Fee Hike and Privatization!
The UPA Government is hell bent on privatizing and corporatising education on the pretext of a ‘fund crunch.’ However, it is the same government whose every arm is immersed in scams – each fresh scam dwarfing the other. The Government is willing to allow thousands of crores of rupees to be plundered in mega scams and black money stashed in Swiss banks – at the cost of the rights of India’s young generation. The 2G Spectrum scam (which resulted in a loss of a whopping Rs 1,76,379 crores of public funds) and other such scams expose the falsity of excuses used by the powers-that-be: the amount lost due to the 2G Spectrum scam alone equals an astonishing 3% of our GDP. With this money, the government could have ensured education FOR ALL for next five years (as per the estimates of National Institute for Educational Planning and Administration, NIEPA). The amount of black money estimated to be stashed away in Swiss banks is nearly Rs. 1.5 trillion, nearly one-and-a-half times India’s GDP.The spate of mega scams have been a direct result of the Government’s willing surrender of various sectors such as telecom and mining to the whims and diktats of corporates. Now the UPA Government is preparing to offer up the education sector to the same corporate loot, with a slew of legislations which are nothing but a blueprint for massive fee hikes and privatization (see overleaf for details of the proposed Bills). These proposed legislations (which include the Universities for Innovation Bill and the Foreign Educational Institutions Bill) come close on the heels of the farcical ‘Right to Education’ (RTE) Act which in its final form is a diluted version of a genuine ‘right’ to education.
No matter how the UPA tries to couch its agenda, the fact remains that all the proposed legislations will lead to institutions of higher education becoming exclusive enclaves of the rich. Their main agenda is to increase privatization and commercialization, expand the grip of foreign educational institutions (FEIs), and nullify the potential of social justice in higher education. Moreover, even the limited public funds made available for education are being siphoned off to corporate capital (including foreign) through Public Private Partnership (PPP).
These legislations are neither the need nor the demand of the people of the country. Rather, they are being forced on us by the diktats of the World Bank-WTO-IMF and corporate lobbies like ASSOCHAM, according to whose estimates education market in India stands at $25 billion and is projected to reach $50 billion by 2015. These Bills are evidently pre-requisites for bringing higher education under the WTO-GATS regime and are aimed at by-passing the legislative, judicial and executive processes that constitute the foundation of democracy as per the Constitution. It is to be noted that these “offers” made by the UPA to bring higher education under the WTO-GATS regime are entirely voluntary; there is no need for India to liberalize the education sector. Educational institutions in the US and the UK are currently facing an acute crisis due to the global economic meltdown, and are desperately in need for newer markets. It is a shame that the UPA is making India a willing partner in this attempt to bail out neo-liberal policies.
At a time when the UPA is planning to push through several anti-student policies, it is necessary that all those who aspire to see a democratic, inclusive education system in India – including students, teachers and parents – come together to express their demands and protest against the agenda of the government to further commercialize education. It is in this context that a ‘People’s Parliament on Education’ is being organized in New Delhi on 21st Feb 2011, which is the first day of the upcoming budget session of the Parliament. People’s Assemblies will also be organized in various state capitals.
The Agenda
At this ‘people’s parliament’, students, teachers, parents and democratic voices from across the country will debate and discuss policies related to education and put forward their agenda. There are several issues at hand, which urgently need to be discussed and addressed:
School-level Education: Primary and secondary education has to be universalized and made truly accessible to the poor. For instance, for years, concerned educationists have been highlighting the need for a common school system as well as increased state funding for primary education.
Higher Education: The existing regulatory structure in higher education is being demolished altogether in order to allow unregulated fee hikes, as is already becoming evident in school education as a result of the farcical Right to Education Act. Moreover, current budgetary allocation on higher education remains abysmally low.
Scuttling of Inclusion and Social Justice: Though SC/ST/OBC reservations are now legally mandatory (at least in government aided colleges and universities), we are nevertheless witnessing systematic attempts to keep students from deprived backgrounds away from the ambit of the higher education through blatant scuttling of the law of the land by university administrations. In the latest set of Bills, the Govt proposes to bid an official good bye to all kinds of affirmative action and reservation in higher education.
Students at the Mercy of Profiteering Swindlers: The deemed universities in India or sham institutions like the ‘Tri-Valley University’ of California are only a small foretaste of what is to come if higher education is opened up to profiteers both Indian and foreign. The various fake medical colleges approved even by regulatory bodies like Medical Council of India showed that ‘regulation’ is quite ineffectual in a system structured around profit-seeking. Remember, such sham educational institutions like Tri-Valley are not cell-phones that one can discard if one if dissatisfied with their quality! Even if they are exposed and thrown out, it will not be before irreversibly devastating the lives of thousands of hapless students.
Scuttling of Campus Democracy: Democratic participation of students in decision-making processes is also shockingly poor. Campuses across the country are witnessing a virtual emergency: administrations routinely crackdown on protests, student union elections have not been held in most colleges and universities, and the Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations are being used to scuttle organised student movements.
The common people of the country therefore have to demand an answer from the elected representatives: When will the loot of public resources end? When will all the illegally siphoned off money be retrieved and used for funding education and health? When will students’ right to education be a priority in public spending?
At the ‘People’s Parliament on Education’, we intend to set off a debate and discussion on the Policies, Bills and Acts in education, that people in the country truly wish to see, and would expect the elected representatives in the Parliament to take up, instead of merely endorsing the corporate-market led Bills that the government has been pushing. ADF appeals to you to participate in this nation wide campaign and in the People’s Parliament at Jantar Mantar on 21 Feb. 2011.
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