With an increase in India’s demand for higher education, there’s a heavy rise in the privatization of higher education institutes. Overall, 60% of the colleges and universities are today privately managed. Privatization has been the center of a lot of intense debates, not only in India but internationally. Democrats in the US are demanding to ban the privatization of educational institutes. But India is probably going in the other direction at this moment.
Hiding behind the masks of autonomy, private institutions have been increasing the tuition fees all these years. This may well be called as ‘corporization’ of education instead of privatization.
How’s privatization hurting India?
In India, Higher Education Financing Agency was established in April 2018, with an aim to fund the infrastructure of higher education institutions. The Ministry of Human Resource Department (MHRD) approved government equity of 1000 crores (more US $140 million) to fund the agency. After this HEFA is supposed to get its funds from investing in equities, bonds and other similar securities.
Now HEFA will replace all the government grants that were given by the government to develop new universities. In order to develop any new infrastructure, universities will need to borrow from HEFA and put up their lands or buildings for collateral. Ultimately, at the end of the cycle, to repay the loan, universities will look up to the students to pay for it. Hence an increase in the tuition fees.
With the extreme privatization of these universities, courses like liberal arts or humanities or social sciences will take a tough hit, as the universities will encourage marketable and job-oriented courses more. India has been known for its diversity in terms of the diversity of education it provides but it seems that India might lose this title in the coming future.
The primary and secondary organizations over the country have already been privatized to a very large extent. Parents prefer to send their children to a costlier private school rather than a much cheaper state-funded school. State-funded schools in India have been known for having a poor education system, low-quality education and a very poor infrastructure generally.
Developed nations have realized this fact and they are trying to move away from it. In such a scenario, shouldn’t India put an end to this ‘corporatization’?
