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Police raj label on education by GC Shekhar

Three bills the Centre has lined up to regulate higher education have been described as “draconian” by private institutions, which fear their enactment will bring the segment under a “police raj”.

Two of the bills provide for jail terms and stiff fines to ensure that colleges and universities obtain accreditation before — and not after — starting courses and refrain from making exaggerated claims to attract students.

For instance, under the “unfair practices” bill, private institutions can be fined Rs 1 crore and their promoters sent to prison for publishing misleading brochures or charging capitation fees.

The third bill mandates that state-level and national tribunals, rather than the courts, should rule on disputes in the sector and imposes tough penalties on anyone flouting the tribunals’ orders.

Critics claim that under the unfair practices bill, promoters of institutions can be jailed for the smallest of oversight.

“If a college claims 50 lakh sqft area of facilities in its brochure but provides only 45 lakh sqft, it will be considered an unfair practice. Similarly, if an unqualified teacher is appointed, or a teacher claims he has not been paid the promised salary, even that would invite stringent punishment,” said G. Viswanathan, chancellor of VIT University in Vellore.

“A college can be accused of malpractice even over a student’s allegation that his exam paper has not been evaluated properly.”

Viswanathan, who heads the Education Promotion Society of India (an association of private educational institutions) as well as the Association of Self-financing Universities, contended that the bill would stunt the growth of higher education in the country.

“Since its implementation would ultimately be left to the state governments, which in turn will hand over the powers to police, it will leave every college and university at the mercy of the local police station,” he said. “Such a situation does not exist even in communist countries like China. In effect, higher education will be converted into a police raj.”

However, the bill makes the offences non-cognisable, which means the police need a court warrant to arrest the accused.

Viswanathan suggested the government should encourage competition in the private sector, which alone will bring down the cost of education while improving quality.

He said the dearth of medical seats was driving students to study in horrible conditions in Russia, China and Eastern Europe, and suggested the government open more medical colleges and hospitals in collaboration with the corporate sector.

“The entire higher education system needs to be delicensed and only accreditation based on the courses and infrastructure should be insisted upon. If the IIMs can fix fees, why not the private sector? If the government fixes the fee, there will be no competition,” Viswanathan said.

He said the unfair practices bill was initially aimed at abolishing capitation fees but had now been saddled with impractical clauses. He claimed it would be difficult to root out capitation fees without tackling government-level corruption: such as in the grant of building permission, university affiliation or accreditation.

The new accreditation bill is equally draconian, said Viswanathan, who had once been with the AIADMK and had served as a Tamil Nadu minister in the early 1990s.

Accreditation is now optional and institutions usually obtain it after teaching courses for a few years but the bill says accreditation must come first and teaching (and enrolment) later.

Viswanathan said the promoters of existing educational institutions, whom the bill gives a three-year window to obtain accreditation, can now be jailed for two years if their applications get rejected (unless they shut down shop). “Such a clause is unheard of in any country and will only prevent good people from entering education and drive away private investment from education.”

The education tribunal bill, Viswanathan said, would make dispute settlement a long-drawn affair because the tribunals lack the power to pass interim orders.

Viswanathan was particularly aggrieved that the Rs 1-crore fine under the unfair practices bill applies even to arts and science colleges and polytechnics.

“These colleges have a monthly salary bill of Rs 5 to 10 lakh. There is no sense of proportion in levying a fine of Rs 1 crore on such colleges,” he said.

He said the managements of arts and science colleges had not yet realised that they come under the clause “since the human resource development (HRD) ministry has not publicised these contentious issues”.

Ministry officials said the bills were meant primarily as deterrents. They said stakeholders from the private sector, such as the Viswanathan-headed Education Promotion Society of India and the Indian Council of Universities, had deposed before the parliamentary standing committee and the panel had conveyed their fears to the ministry.

They said the 11th Plan document had envisaged a mandatory accreditation system, and that the Sam Pitroda-headed National Knowledge Commission had in 2007-08 recommended institutional and department-wise ratings in higher education.

Similar suggestions had come in 2009 from the Yashpal committee, formed to look at ways to achieve “renovation and rejuvenation of higher education”, they added.

The assessment and accreditation will be done by recognised agencies on the basis of norms prescribed by the National Accreditation Authority.

Currently, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) has been rating institutions and the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) evaluating professional and technical programmes. However, they have had little to show for.

Till March 31 last year, the NAAC had accredited only 161 of the country’s 504 universities and 4,371 of its 28,000 colleges. The NBA had accredited 35 per cent of the nearly 17,000 professional and technical courses.

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