Monday, May 26, 2008

The Business of Education

Shantha Sinha

Poor parents see education as an indispensable asset and are willing to make enormous sacrifices to educate their children. But the government has let down the poor in spite of the constitutional guarantee of right to education.

It must be considered that sending their children to private schools is not the first option for poor parents as they have to make immense sacrifices to pay the school fees and other charges.

A large variety of private schools have emerged to respond to the parental demand for education. Thus, on the one hand there are the inefficient and wasteful government schools struggling for resources, and on the other are the fee-charging one-room English medium private schools with untrained schoolteachers. And at the other end of the spectrum are the air-conditioned corporate schools. Private schools, guided by the logic of the market, have begun to sell their wares "to each according to one’s ability."

This mushrooming of private schools has a profound impact on society as it produces class inequality, fractured society, freezes upward mobility thus causing divisiveness and disharmony.

Most private schools in the country today have emerged as commercial ventures, small or big, successful or limping. This scenario is vastly different from the private schools which had earlier emerged to serve the educational needs of children and were non-profit organisations and charitable trusts that depended on state aid.

Now, in a market framework, services are offered to those children who can buy education. Like any other product, it is now packaged, and comes with children in proper school uniform, English medium education, competition and home-work, discipline of learning, and if better endowed, with picnics, computers and state of the art technology. In their urge to acquire the "brand," clients begin to spend more than what they can afford, just as consumers of any other commodity.

Parallels are drawn from the telecom and airlines industries to show how efficiency was infused in these public sector institutions once they were threatened by the opening up of the sector to more competent players. It has been argued that government schools too have to face the jolt from private players, to make them accountable.

Encouraging private schools as commercial enterprises compromises the principle of universality, for it offers services only to those who can pay. Thus the deprived and the marginalised are automatically out of its net. If left unregulated, the higher end suppliers would foster further exclusion and reinforce class differentiation

Education being a public good must nurture and enhance the principles of inclusion, non-discrimination, equity and justice. It cannot be a commodity for sale to those who can afford it. It must be an entitlement and a right that is guaranteed by the state.

Prof. Shantha Sinha is the chairperson, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights

Courtesy: The Asian Age