EDUCATION IS A RIGHT, NOT A PRIVILEGE
Among the six Fundamental Rights granted to all citizens of India by the constitution, there is this “Right to Education” by virtue of which, all citizens are entitled to compulsory primary and secondary education. But how far is it in practice in today’s commercialized scenario is the question? In today’s technology dictated world where ‘knowledge’ is considered ‘power’, it’s actually money that is capable of buying knowledge, just like it buys any other form of power. Money precedes even merit to gain access to quality education.
Today anybody and everybody wants to opt either for ‘medical’ or for ‘engineering’, and if in a degree course then it’s nothing other than ‘Economics (Hons.)’. Not because they are very compassionate towards the suffering, neither because they have a knack for mathematics and science, and strikingly most of them might not even be knowing the full form of “G.D.P.”, yet it has to be nothing other than these few elite ‘considered’ courses and streams for them. This is solely because of the absence of proper professional counseling, lack of awareness, limited access to right knowledge, and concocted pre-conceived notions about market demand and supply that forces students to think that Medicine (especially neurology and cardiology), Engineering (especially computers and electronics), and Economics are the ‘only’ courses having the brightest prospects cause medical practitioners are minting money these days, engineers are going abroad by the dozen, and Economics graduates are supposed to fetch high paying bank jobs if done a management course after graduation. The Result : record number of students - 3,00,000 candidates for just 5,000 seats in total - appearing for I.I.T. this year after spoiling one full year in preparations, refusing admissions to other good colleges, and wasting a huge sum of money on coaching and tutorials for IIT JEE preparations. Some pseudo-educationists, coaching institutes and private colleges are shrewdly cashing in on this very imbalance between the ultra-high demand and the super-low supply of colleges and seats because of everybody’s preference for the same few courses.
The blatant acceptance of lakhs of money as donation by schools and colleges, which they prefer to call “building fund” or “capitation fee”, in order to upgrade the rank of a student so as to make him/her eligible for a better and more sought after course is in popular practice these days. A person, by paying a few lakhs, becomes eligible for ‘electronics’ or ‘computers’ (if doing engineering) and ‘cardiology’ or ‘neurology’ (if in medicine), who without the donation might not have been worthy even of a seat in the ‘metallurgy’ or ‘paper-pulp’ branch of engineering and in case of medicine for ‘physiotherapy’ or ‘dental’.
In a country like India which is progressing at such a steady pace and which presumably has the ‘highest youth population’, why ain’t there enough good and affordable government institutes and colleges to absorb the total number of aspiring students? The students who unfortunately could not make it to any of the top-ranking government institutes can’t afford to risk another year to gamble on the unpredictable and super-tough entrance exams as their pattern keeps on changing and the number of students appearing becomes just the double every year. Thus, the only option left for them is to get into whatsoever college they are getting admission in. At the most, they can upgrade their ranks by donations and that’s exactly what the financially sound ones do, or are rather compelled to do. This is also because some of the states like Karnataka have forbidden admissions of outstation students to government colleges, and this has given liberty to the private colleges to unduly exploit the students who at any cost desire to get admitted to some college that very year. Moreover, the cut-offs are sky-high and very few seats are allotted to the courses which are most in demand, just to maintain their ‘exclusivity’ and ‘elite’ status.
Even after the heavy initial donation, the private collages don’t spare the students. The annual fees of IIMs is Rs. 1,30,000 p.a. whereas private collages like IIPMs charge about 7 lakhs for 2 yrs (3.5 lakhs p.a.). The annual fee of IITs is just Rs. 50,000 as compared to the Rs. 50,000 per semester fee of the private colleges in Bangalore and Pune. The cost of study material is also sky-rocketing. Earlier, students had the option to use second hand books but now the publishers cunningly change the cover and the chronology of chapters, and sell the same book with a ‘revised’ and ‘next edition’ tag. The education institutes also make them compulsory and pressurize the students to buy the prescribed ‘new editions’ which are hardly revised, just because they get a percentage of the profit from the publishers. One won’t get a decent dot pen below five rupees these days which will last for just about three days, and a three hundred page register will cost about Rs. 30. With so many subjects and so much writing work to do, and teachers demanding a separate register for each subject, one wonders how long can the middle class and lower middle class continue to cling on to their dream of educating their children.
All this suggest that in today’s corrupt and highly commercialized scenario, to avail quality education from any premier institute, one either has to be ‘brilliant’ or a ‘genius’ to be able to crack the tough entrance exam and score above million others, or else he has to be a millionaire to be able to afford a few lakhs as donation to secure a seat. Hence, quality education instead of being a ‘RIGHT’ has become an unachievable dream whose essential pre-requisites are privileges like ‘money power’ and ‘mental brilliance’.
BY : SHUBHRO SEN
Today anybody and everybody wants to opt either for ‘medical’ or for ‘engineering’, and if in a degree course then it’s nothing other than ‘Economics (Hons.)’. Not because they are very compassionate towards the suffering, neither because they have a knack for mathematics and science, and strikingly most of them might not even be knowing the full form of “G.D.P.”, yet it has to be nothing other than these few elite ‘considered’ courses and streams for them. This is solely because of the absence of proper professional counseling, lack of awareness, limited access to right knowledge, and concocted pre-conceived notions about market demand and supply that forces students to think that Medicine (especially neurology and cardiology), Engineering (especially computers and electronics), and Economics are the ‘only’ courses having the brightest prospects cause medical practitioners are minting money these days, engineers are going abroad by the dozen, and Economics graduates are supposed to fetch high paying bank jobs if done a management course after graduation. The Result : record number of students - 3,00,000 candidates for just 5,000 seats in total - appearing for I.I.T. this year after spoiling one full year in preparations, refusing admissions to other good colleges, and wasting a huge sum of money on coaching and tutorials for IIT JEE preparations. Some pseudo-educationists, coaching institutes and private colleges are shrewdly cashing in on this very imbalance between the ultra-high demand and the super-low supply of colleges and seats because of everybody’s preference for the same few courses.
The blatant acceptance of lakhs of money as donation by schools and colleges, which they prefer to call “building fund” or “capitation fee”, in order to upgrade the rank of a student so as to make him/her eligible for a better and more sought after course is in popular practice these days. A person, by paying a few lakhs, becomes eligible for ‘electronics’ or ‘computers’ (if doing engineering) and ‘cardiology’ or ‘neurology’ (if in medicine), who without the donation might not have been worthy even of a seat in the ‘metallurgy’ or ‘paper-pulp’ branch of engineering and in case of medicine for ‘physiotherapy’ or ‘dental’.
In a country like India which is progressing at such a steady pace and which presumably has the ‘highest youth population’, why ain’t there enough good and affordable government institutes and colleges to absorb the total number of aspiring students? The students who unfortunately could not make it to any of the top-ranking government institutes can’t afford to risk another year to gamble on the unpredictable and super-tough entrance exams as their pattern keeps on changing and the number of students appearing becomes just the double every year. Thus, the only option left for them is to get into whatsoever college they are getting admission in. At the most, they can upgrade their ranks by donations and that’s exactly what the financially sound ones do, or are rather compelled to do. This is also because some of the states like Karnataka have forbidden admissions of outstation students to government colleges, and this has given liberty to the private colleges to unduly exploit the students who at any cost desire to get admitted to some college that very year. Moreover, the cut-offs are sky-high and very few seats are allotted to the courses which are most in demand, just to maintain their ‘exclusivity’ and ‘elite’ status.
Even after the heavy initial donation, the private collages don’t spare the students. The annual fees of IIMs is Rs. 1,30,000 p.a. whereas private collages like IIPMs charge about 7 lakhs for 2 yrs (3.5 lakhs p.a.). The annual fee of IITs is just Rs. 50,000 as compared to the Rs. 50,000 per semester fee of the private colleges in Bangalore and Pune. The cost of study material is also sky-rocketing. Earlier, students had the option to use second hand books but now the publishers cunningly change the cover and the chronology of chapters, and sell the same book with a ‘revised’ and ‘next edition’ tag. The education institutes also make them compulsory and pressurize the students to buy the prescribed ‘new editions’ which are hardly revised, just because they get a percentage of the profit from the publishers. One won’t get a decent dot pen below five rupees these days which will last for just about three days, and a three hundred page register will cost about Rs. 30. With so many subjects and so much writing work to do, and teachers demanding a separate register for each subject, one wonders how long can the middle class and lower middle class continue to cling on to their dream of educating their children.
All this suggest that in today’s corrupt and highly commercialized scenario, to avail quality education from any premier institute, one either has to be ‘brilliant’ or a ‘genius’ to be able to crack the tough entrance exam and score above million others, or else he has to be a millionaire to be able to afford a few lakhs as donation to secure a seat. Hence, quality education instead of being a ‘RIGHT’ has become an unachievable dream whose essential pre-requisites are privileges like ‘money power’ and ‘mental brilliance’.
BY : SHUBHRO SEN
posted by Shubhro at 10:35 AM
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