SFS 2nd Conference

SFS 2nd Conference

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Join PROTEST MARCH from Students’ Center to University Market



SFS appeals all to Join PROTEST MARCH from Students’ Center to University Market against the “Offer” of Education Sector to WTO and other Anti-Student Policies of the Modi Government.
Date: 5th November, 2015.                                   Time: 5:00 pm.
RESIST THE PRIVATISATION, COMMERCIALISATION AND SAFFRONIZATION OF EDUCATION !!

In present times, when education is being sold as a commodity, it is important to look into the direction in which it is taken towards. Let us start from our campus’ AC Joshi library. In our library, situation is such that students from various fields, courses and with different degrees are preparing for same entrance exams (mainly UPSC, SSC). The situation has worsened to the point that the number of students competing for the competitive exams has increased to the extent that the entire day is spent in struggle to book the seats in the library. These students are either regular students or pass-outs from our university, who have managed to get admission in various courses by competing with the best students from Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh and other parts of the country.
The students of “Professional” courses (mainly engineering and management) take admissions through cut-throat competition with hope of good placements and large packages. Further they have to compete with their fellows for placements as the opportunity for jobs is even less than that was for admission. The students who don’t get jobs anywhere and also those frustrated from harsh and insecure private jobs are left with no option than to join their fellows in AC Joshi library. Even while studying in such a prestigious institute they don’t see the “bright” future that they envisioned while taking admission. Further, implementation of Semester System leads to a very tight schedule with 75% compulsory attendance, sessionals, assignments, pressure of reappears etc which hampers the overall growth of a student. The situation is similar in other state and central funded universities as well. In this way our universities are promoting Careerism, Self-centredness and Individualism rather than Rational and Critical thinking, which is the soul of Education.
The Entrance Exams and Competition has become integral to a student’s life and the present educational system. This is perpetuated as the need of the system to maintain “quality” and “standard”. No one talks about the incapability of present Education System to produce “quality”  at the lower level and why there is “need” to check it through entrance exams, either to take admission in successive courses or to get a job. Actually, these Entrance Exams are not “Quality Check” filter but a filter to quantity as the number of Public Universities and seats in established universities are not increasing according to growth of aspirants. The fact about jobs is that the policies of Free Market and Globalization cannot create job opportunities for all. Their own economists declared these policies as that of JOBLESS GROWTH.
On the other hand the Authorities make situation worst for students with their policies like opening of more self-financed courses and decrease in the number of seats in regular courses etc. Increment of mess diet rates and fees of courses has mounted the pressure on students’ pockets due to which some are studying on loan but most cannot even dream of this. While a few who tried to resist these anti-student policies of authorities were charged with false cases. As a result, parents, who are forced to manage by loan etc ask their children to concentrate on their studies instead of fighting against it. This whole situation pressurize students to thrive for jobs immediately after completing their course and some are even forced to work even in the student life.  But government, running like blind horse and mad dog, are putting pressure on our parents’ pockets and is closing the doors for the vast population.
It will be a surprise to know that we are among the 3-4% of this particular age group of students of entire country who are studying in a university. It will not be wrong if we call ourselves the cream of the society as the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in India is 20.8% for 18-23 years of age group that passed +2. The opportunities are scarce even for small section of youth that are can pursue higher education. What would happen if remaining vast majority of youth will have to be brought up to higher education and shouldn’t it be made possible?
Our government makes several ‘arguments’ or excuses for not making higher education free and accessible. Of all the ‘arguments’, the most widespread and persuasive argument has been the lack of resources i.e. the government has no funds! If this is the real reason, then the opportunities should have something to do with the growth of wealth of the country. If we compare the GDP of the country which is also a parameter of “Development” of a nation and public funding of education sector, there is a huge disparity. V.C. Kulandai Swamy, one of the eminent educationists of India pointed out that all over the world, particularly the developed countries are allocating 5.5% of their GDP in education, the middle-income countries stands at 4.5% and the low-income countries at 3.5%. In India it stands at 3.2% despite the recommendation of 6.0% by Kothari Commission. On one hand the government is cutting the budget of social sectors claiming the lack of resources, on the other hand it has reduced the corporate tax from 30% to 25%. One wonders with whom the loyalty of our government lies. It is the responsibility of every government to ensure the provision of education, health and other services to its citizens. The income generated by the government through taxes constitutes more than 80% of indirect tax (VAT, Service tax etc.) which is paid by every citizen while buying anything and availing any service from the market. It is therefore the right of every citizen to avail the basic facilities that the government is bound to provide. However, in the era of globalization, every sector is being negotiated for trade to earn profits.
Another justification against universal access to higher education is “need of maintaining quality and standard” as its role also includes Research Work and Technical Advancements. Till now in India access to higher education is very limited and competitive then what stalled the growth in this field?
 Actually the crisis in higher education was rooted in the failure of the government to universalize school education and provide common education to all masses irrespective of caste, class, religion and gender. At School level, minority of private schools (21.59%) charge high fees and provides “good” education to only top 10% of people. But majority of “poor” government schools (78.41%) are being utilized by the rest. Thus good education instead of being available to all children from every stratum of society is available to small minority usually selected not on the basis of “talent” but on the basis of capacity to pay fees.
[The situation in govt. schools is such that there is only 1 teacher for 5 classes. To show development, government has passed a law that till 8th class no one will be failed, so that government can show their hollow development in terms of literacy but not education in essence.]
The focus of education today even in the so called “good” private schools revolves around “learning by rote” which is a hurdle to the growth of critical and rational thinking that is reflected in higher education as well. In fact Free and Universal access to school level and higher education would make possible to develop and enrich standard and research in real essence.
As Mao Zedong said Let a hundred flowers blossom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.” Education is not a homogeneous process but heterogeneous method of sharing ideas and experiences i.e. larger the participants in research and discussion from different backgrounds with different life experiences, the results would be more fruitful. This can be understandable from the fact that no invention in field of any sciences is not a work of a single scientist or person but product of already existed theories and his companions along with his huge efforts.
We have three major needs regarding Higher Education i.e.
1. Equal opportunities in every field for all those reach up to higher education.
2. To make Higher Education free and accessible to vast majority of youth who are deprived of it till now.
3. To promote Rationality and Scientific Temperament in content of higher education.
Contrary to the need of the hour, in the name of “reforms” in Education Sector the Indian government has been gradually backing out of its responsibility to provide equal opportunity of Education and jobs to all. Further instead of developing rationality and scientific temperament in content of education, the government is promoting its agenda of Vedic “Science” and the idea of a Homogenous Hindu Nation.
The unwillingness of Indian state to provide education to masses is not new, no matter whose government is in power. Even up to 1984, where the rate of increase in number of students was more than 9% per year, government expenditures increased by just 2% per annum (source: Dalip Swamy and Badri Raina in “Subversion of Universities”, 1984). However, rather than correcting and compensating for this neglect, ministers, policy-makers and the media claimed that the public sector is inefficient to provide higher education. Education was thus left a “PRIVILEGE” to approximately 10-12% of the relevant age group, one of the lowest levels among all countries in 1998. The failure itself was used to propagate the idea of privatization of higher education and the withdrawal of the state from this sector as well. The government refused to notice that the cause and eventual solution to the crisis in higher education was rooted in the failure of the government to universalize school education and lack of required public funding in education sector.
Eventually, then Minister Human Resources Development (MHRD), Murli Manohar Joshi advised institutions of higher education to “raise their own resources by raising the fee levels, encouraging private donations and by generating revenues through consultancy and other activities.” (Address to the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education, 1998). This eventually paved way for the present policy of commercializing and privatization of higher education.
The year 2000 brought with it the policy initiatives that represented a complete reversal of fortunes for the higher education sector in India. Firstly, the Birla Ambani Report which was not a product of any committee of academics, but of Prime Minister Vajpayee’s Council on Trade and Industry, explicitly stated that privatization and commercialization were the chief instruments of reform for the higher education and that the corporate sector should be invited to invest rupees 11000 crores to double the higher institutions by 2015. Ironically, the present Modi government deducted the budget of the same amount of rupees from the education sector in the 2015 budget. The Report strongly argued to ban the Student Politics in Campuses to tackle the resistance against the drive of privatization. The report was dropped due to strong opposition from the academicians and teacher unions. But the policies that followed the report pursued the same agenda of privatization of higher education. It is evident that the number of private universities has been on the rise with consistent decline in the number of regular seats in public universities. Instead the public universities have started to open self-financed courses in them. One cannot ignore the consistent hike in the fees of regular courses too in public universities.
[ To further met the recommendations of report to depoliticize the universities, in 2006 govt. came up with lyngdoh Norms & recently UGC put forward security guidlines to curb the remaining democratic space. The police chowky in PU South Campus, Sector-25 is build under these security guidlines. ]
 Actually the root cause of our problems lie in the year 1991 with the introduction of policies of Liberalization, Privatization, and Globalization (LPG). After that government started disinvestment in major public and core industries to open market for Multinational Corporations (MNCs) to invest, under the pressure of World Bank and IMF (International Monetary Fund) as the India failed to repay IMF loan taken in 1981. Even the crucial sectors like Education & health were eventually opened for Private & Foreign investments.
The huge claims were made that foreign investment would lead to development and creation of job opportunities, but despite of GDP growth (which is parameter of “development” for government) employment growth was still a distant dream as Foreign and private investors don’t come for “Nation Building” but to earn profits. Also, jobs in public sector has been declining due to disinvestment by government.
Education was therefore rendered a commodity by the government whose sole purpose would be profit of the investors in the sector. Commodities are produced primarily for exchange, for profit rather than for intrinsic use value. Education once had value, now it had price too. To make corporate investment profitable, it was necessary for government to disinvest. This is the actual reason for slashing funds from education in union budgets. 
Escaping from all these situations, if anyone was able to access higher education, it compromised scientific approach and rational thinking. Rational and critical thinking is the soul of Education whereas our education system is being regularly communalized and is amended under the name of “bhartiyakaran”. With every passing day since the Modi government has come to power, various RSS men are appointed as the heads of various institutes like NCERT, ICHR, FTII etc. And on the other hand our history books are being rewritten from a communal angle and irrational Vedic ‘science’ is being introduced. Apart from this, government has recently proposed central university bill, in which cultural plurality of entire country is sacrificed, as in this, the 70% of the syllabus will set up by center while only 30 % syllabus will be set by respective universities. With this the professors will also be taken under control. With this government will force only one type of culture on students, that is, brahmanical culture. Modi government is thus killing scientific temperament which is a precondition for every country to develop.
[To further deteriorate the condition Modi Govt. recently slashed Rs.11000 CRORE fund from the education sector which translated into increment of NITs fees by 300% & attempt of UGC to revoke non-NET fellowship]
To add to the damage already been done to the students, WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION (WTO) AND GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TRADE AND SERVICES (GATS) made an entry into the arena of higher education in India as India offered its Higher Education to the WTO as a tradable commodity in the year 2005. The intervention of WTO in the education sector in India would have adverse effects on the students seeking higher education. The offer of higher education to WTO-GATS would become a commitment with far-reaching consequences for the nation when the WTO’s ongoing Doha round of trade negotiations is concluded in December 2015. In the name of making trade “easy”, the WTO regulations will threaten the sovereignty of nation and the rights of its people.
[  To make our education system in compliance to WTO, CBCS(Choice Based Credit System) is passed, which will pave the way for foreign universities as most of the universities (including our Panjab University) are already in a “financial crisis” to provide “choice”. Accordingly, the students will have to run to private universities to fulfil their credits. ]
IF OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM IS BROUGHT UNDER THE WTO-GATS REGIME, IT MEANS:
·       High fees and an end to reservation quotas and government scholarships will mean that the poor, SCs STs OBCs, minorities, women, disabled and other marginalized sections will not be able to enter such institutions. Educational loans are no answer. The world over students and their families are being pushed into debt-traps as globalization promotes “jobless growth”. The U.S. itself has a $1.26 TRILLION Student LOAN Crisis at hand.
·       Government will be legally bound to protect the profits foreign and domestic corporations trading in education even when these interests go against the academic and democratic requirements of India’s students and teachers.
·       Bringing our educational institutions in line with the demands of WTO-GATS will also lower the level of course content, teaching and evaluation to meet limited market needs. The market requires development of skills suited to the economic functions demanded of workers, it is not concerned with the fullest development of one’s personality.
·       There is no guarantee that foreign universities would provide comparable or even accepted standard of education and research facilities. A World Bank survey has shown that “well-known universities of developed countries established low standard branches in backward countries.
·       All educational institutes will be regulated through accredited bodies formed under the Trade Policy review Mechanism (TRPM), a legal instrument under WTO. This is an outright infringement of the sovereign freedom of people and nations to formulate their own policies.
In all cases, Indian students are the customers, and private foreign and domestic providers earn profits because India “opens up” a “market” for them. Our education system will become a part of a trade dominated and controlled by global corporate forces. This is not a global exchange of ideas or knowledge. But this is to create a market under global trade regulations to generate profits for foreign and “national” corporate investors. Central and union State governments in India will have to provide them with facilities, land, grants etc., at par with State funded Indian universities.
The present era of Globalization, in which institutions like World Bank, WTO and IMF are the representative of developed nations, is new form of colonialization of developing countries like India. After globalization, the education policies are guided by these institutions according to market needs of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) of developed countries. The Bangkok conference of World Bank in 1986 argued that there is no need for third world countries to spend on higher education. The prescription here is that money spent on basic research are an unconscionable waste of resources, when technology – no longer of value in the 'developed' west - may easily be imported with due regard to intellectual property rights. In one theoretical fiat, a strategy for the intellectual and technical impoverishment and enslavement of developing countries is thus laid down. Eventually our governments, being a puppet at the hands of these World Powers, has been drawing policy line in same direction. Rather than concentration on research and scientific temperament in higher education, focus is on just skill development programs and irrational Vedic “Science”. The skill development programs are just to fulfil the requirement of cheap skill laborers for MNCs. It is nonsense to imagine that foreign universities will upgrade the standard of our higher education. In essence there would be MNCS, not universities, which would invest in education sector & earn huge profits from our pockets.
There is need to expose the nexus of Indian state, Hindutva forces and MNCs. In order to save our education from the web of privatization, we need to fight against the “offer” of education to WTO and build resistance against any form of anti-people policies of the State. The talks will be finalized by December 2015, so understanding the gravity of the situation, we need to intensify our struggle against it. We should force the government to fund education and other service sectors. It is not a privilege, it is our right and let’s all fight for it together.
NEED OF THE HOUR
There is a dire need of resistance against the policies that are driving education sector towards privatization.
·       The government should immediately withdraw the offer of higher education in WTO-GATS.
·       The public universities should regularize self-financed courses.
·       One should resolutely oppose any trade in education and stand firmly against the undemocratic system of education.
·       The state must immediately take the financial responsibility for universalizing free and compulsory education.
·        Facilities for all to access higher education in fully public-funded universities and colleges must be rapidly developed.
·       Non-NET fellowships should be Increased and Extended to other State and Central Universities.
·        The Central University Bill, Choice Based Credit System(CBCS), UGC Security Guidlines should withdraw.