Education- The licence permit raj
Indian Express, May 21 2006
- Ila Patnaik
Education, unlike most other sectors, has not been touched by
liberalisation. The removal of the licence permit raj, released
industry from the shackles that had prevented its growth. Telecom
blossomed after entry into the sector was liberalised. The aviation
sector gave consumers access and low prices. But education has been
left mostly untouched.
Consider this. To open a school an association or group of individuals
first has to register as a society with a non-profit motive. Next, the
society needs to apply for a licence called the "Essentiality
Certificate" (EC). The EC is like the industrial licence of the old
days which is issued if the government decides that there is a need
for another school in the area. The number of ECs the Department of
Education of a state decides to issue each year for each zone and each
kind of school -- primary, upper primary and secondary -- are decided
by the department in an arbitrary manner, without any objective
criterion. It is supposed to depend on its estimate of demand and
supply made by the deparment. This restriction on supply often creates
a situation where there are more children in the school going ages
than the number of seats available in schools. Students then have to
queue up for school admissions, little children have to take entrance
interviews and parents have to pay capitation fee. The well connected
always have recourse to political and social networks. This is
reminiscent of telephone connections in the days before telecom
liberalisation.
The story does not end there. After obtaining an EC, the school gets
land, then applies for recognition, then affiliation with a board, and
if it wants to become an aided school, for aid to the government who then
pays teachers salaries. After this the school management pays bribes to school
inspectors every year. It often takes more than Rs 1 crore and between
3 to 17 years to achieve all this.
It is hardly surprising that managements of existing schools today do
not want the licence raj to be removed. They have already paid the
costs. After all, when did the incumbents in any closed club want entry
to be freed up for all? Through restrictions on entry private schools
have acquired monopoly status. Nor are policymakers -- politicians and
bureacrats -- whose children get to study in private schools, thanks
to their connections and their money, fighting to take away the
exclusivity of such education.
The situation with higher education is no different. Both Indians and
foreigners are prevented from opening universitites and offering
education regardless of how large the demand might be. The rich can
always put money in and send their children to universities abroad. If
the government allowed universities like Harvard, MIT and Stanford,
which are reported to be interested in opening campuses in India, with
lakhs of seats at a cost much lower than what it takes to send a child
abroad, higher education would be accessible for lakhs of middle class
children who cannot afford to go abroad today. It is again not
surprising that our policy makers, the politicans and the bureaucrats,
Congressmen and Communists alike, who can today afford to send their
children abroad and get them degrees from universities like Harvard
and MIT are not keen to have such campuses in the country and make
such education available for lakhs of students across the country.
Removing licences and restrictions to entry will make education that
is exclusive today, available to the aam admi. But until the netas and
the babus have the will to crush entrenched interests in the sector,
take away the clear advantages their children have, and liberalise
this sector, good education in India will remain the exclusive domain
of the rich and priviledged.