Suddhabrata Deb Roy's Blog
February 3, 2014
THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY...OR PRIVATIZATION???
In this age of technology, the importance of science and technical studies has reached its zenith and in India, being a developing country, the importance is more than what it is in the developed(the USA, the UK) or underdeveloped countries(Ethiopia, Bangladesh). But to our much despair, this is also the field which is facing the maximum problems today. The government has become less student friendly and the previous plans which were a bit student friendly are not being executed well, as a result of that, the exploitation of the students has reached the sky , whether you consider the growing private college sector or the fees, it’s evident everywhere.
The neoliberal policies of the 90s have brought about a great change in the economy of the country and have put the accelerator in the science sector of the country more so to the technical sector. The market of the country had been then declared open to the foreign countries to invest freely, and this brought about the Multinational companies (MNCs) and put up the inaugural bricks of the private IT sector in the country. With ample assistance from the government on various grounds, the foreign companies’ sector reached an unperceived height. The booming IT sector in the country along with the growth of MNCs has triggered on a rapid increase in the number of students taking up science as their career in 10+2. Now, along with it , another problem has cropped up, the government has been unable to produce the required man power needed for the huge industry neither has it been able to put a brake on the unnatural growth of the private sector, whose demand for cheap human labor is also on the rise.
In the midst of all these to satisfy the huge needs of technical graduates to work in the growing market, the private colleges came up, the mushrooming of private colleges is directly connected with the growing private sector, since it has become such a large employer and not to forget, it also paves out a way to earn quick money, a large bunch of students aspire to get a job there. And since the openings in the government jobs have become very less in the recent times, which forces a student to seek employment in the private IT sectors, the blame cannot be put on the student since he has to get himself food to live for which he has to work and the failure of the government to provide him with employment forces him to go to the private sector , for which the rapid need of technical or science degrees arise ,and since the number of seats in the government colleges is unsatisfactory to the demand, many students seeking a good career have no other option but to seek admission in the highly paid private colleges, which provide him with the degree even if he fails to get himself a seat in the government institutes.
The students in the private colleges pay much more than what is justified, but the problem of fees is not only limited to them. This rapid privatization has caused many problems and since education sector does not provide the government with any direct revenue, the government too has been reluctant to stop the privatization. Today the number of private universities has reached almost twenty times the number of government institutions. The government colleges have also fallen prey to these privatization policies, there also the students are asked to pay fees which are on the rise more than ever. They are asked to pay even the fees for the laboratory instruments and buses, which according to government policies need to be paid by the government itself, since they have cleared the proposed exam to get into the reputed government institutes. This problem is not sole to the science sector only but to all the other sectors also, of course with their own dimensions.
The government sector has become completely saturated or the intake recently has been very low and the country’s job sector has become such that for a large part of the students studying the general degrees, the jobs have completely been soaked up, that is either there are no jobs or the jobs which are in fact there are not satisfactory to their degree. This has forced the students to give up their aspirations and study what the market decides for them. Even the branch which they choose has become directly linked up with the market, the choice and will of the students have taken the back seat and the market rules have taken the front seat. The student today aspires for a technical degree more than anything else and for that he does not even care for the huge donations that he has to invest while getting the admission in the private colleges, though the government has put up a ban on the taking of donations in the private colleges but the system is still prevalent in many private colleges of the country. The government colleges have become such that the seats have become very less and along with it, the reservation system has put on a great many limitations to the student intake.
The government on its part has also followed this era of privatization and has introduced numerous bills which have declared that the universities or the colleges which run on governments’ dispense should generate their own funds and it is beyond any doubt that the fund has to be generated in that case from the students only by increasing the fees and other fixtures. The bills such as the technical university bills have been instrumental in the shutting down of the government technical colleges in many technical colleges. Similar bill has been introduced in Assam too by the name of the ASSAM STATE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY ACT, in which the status of the government technical colleges has not been cleared still now; the important posts have been occupied by the members of the private colleges of the state and with no syllabus still being framed, the students have been left in the dark regarding the study materials. We have already witnessed the shutting down of the government colleges in the states of Orissa and Punjab by the growth of the PTU, BPTU , etc. Assam too has took the first step in following the path of Punjab and Orissa. We don’t deny the need of the technical university but the committee must clear out the confusions in the bill.
The student today has become so politically unconscious that they fail to understand the clauses of the bill and never ask the question “why?” but rather provide themselves directly with the answer “lets carry on, nothing can be done.”
The neoliberal policies of the 90s have brought about a great change in the economy of the country and have put the accelerator in the science sector of the country more so to the technical sector. The market of the country had been then declared open to the foreign countries to invest freely, and this brought about the Multinational companies (MNCs) and put up the inaugural bricks of the private IT sector in the country. With ample assistance from the government on various grounds, the foreign companies’ sector reached an unperceived height. The booming IT sector in the country along with the growth of MNCs has triggered on a rapid increase in the number of students taking up science as their career in 10+2. Now, along with it , another problem has cropped up, the government has been unable to produce the required man power needed for the huge industry neither has it been able to put a brake on the unnatural growth of the private sector, whose demand for cheap human labor is also on the rise.
In the midst of all these to satisfy the huge needs of technical graduates to work in the growing market, the private colleges came up, the mushrooming of private colleges is directly connected with the growing private sector, since it has become such a large employer and not to forget, it also paves out a way to earn quick money, a large bunch of students aspire to get a job there. And since the openings in the government jobs have become very less in the recent times, which forces a student to seek employment in the private IT sectors, the blame cannot be put on the student since he has to get himself food to live for which he has to work and the failure of the government to provide him with employment forces him to go to the private sector , for which the rapid need of technical or science degrees arise ,and since the number of seats in the government colleges is unsatisfactory to the demand, many students seeking a good career have no other option but to seek admission in the highly paid private colleges, which provide him with the degree even if he fails to get himself a seat in the government institutes.
The students in the private colleges pay much more than what is justified, but the problem of fees is not only limited to them. This rapid privatization has caused many problems and since education sector does not provide the government with any direct revenue, the government too has been reluctant to stop the privatization. Today the number of private universities has reached almost twenty times the number of government institutions. The government colleges have also fallen prey to these privatization policies, there also the students are asked to pay fees which are on the rise more than ever. They are asked to pay even the fees for the laboratory instruments and buses, which according to government policies need to be paid by the government itself, since they have cleared the proposed exam to get into the reputed government institutes. This problem is not sole to the science sector only but to all the other sectors also, of course with their own dimensions.
The government sector has become completely saturated or the intake recently has been very low and the country’s job sector has become such that for a large part of the students studying the general degrees, the jobs have completely been soaked up, that is either there are no jobs or the jobs which are in fact there are not satisfactory to their degree. This has forced the students to give up their aspirations and study what the market decides for them. Even the branch which they choose has become directly linked up with the market, the choice and will of the students have taken the back seat and the market rules have taken the front seat. The student today aspires for a technical degree more than anything else and for that he does not even care for the huge donations that he has to invest while getting the admission in the private colleges, though the government has put up a ban on the taking of donations in the private colleges but the system is still prevalent in many private colleges of the country. The government colleges have become such that the seats have become very less and along with it, the reservation system has put on a great many limitations to the student intake.
The government on its part has also followed this era of privatization and has introduced numerous bills which have declared that the universities or the colleges which run on governments’ dispense should generate their own funds and it is beyond any doubt that the fund has to be generated in that case from the students only by increasing the fees and other fixtures. The bills such as the technical university bills have been instrumental in the shutting down of the government technical colleges in many technical colleges. Similar bill has been introduced in Assam too by the name of the ASSAM STATE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY ACT, in which the status of the government technical colleges has not been cleared still now; the important posts have been occupied by the members of the private colleges of the state and with no syllabus still being framed, the students have been left in the dark regarding the study materials. We have already witnessed the shutting down of the government colleges in the states of Orissa and Punjab by the growth of the PTU, BPTU , etc. Assam too has took the first step in following the path of Punjab and Orissa. We don’t deny the need of the technical university but the committee must clear out the confusions in the bill.
The student today has become so politically unconscious that they fail to understand the clauses of the bill and never ask the question “why?” but rather provide themselves directly with the answer “lets carry on, nothing can be done.”
