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Should Education be made free ?

- Pranav M. Doshi

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself. This is what Galileo Galilei had to say about education, and this dictum holds true even today. Education is enshrined as one of the basic human rights; it stands for respect towards the dignity of a human being, by allowing him to obtain the intellectual tools to lead and decide on the course of his life in an intelligent manner.

The on-going debacle between the Union HRD Ministry and the Indian Institutes of Management has been remarkably dragging on. The IIMs have come in for sharp criticism from the government for being elitist and of charging exorbitant sums of money from students under the bane of quality education. In danger is the autonomy that these institutes have enjoyed since their creation. The IIMs have stood as proof of excellence and demonstrate the heights that education in India can achieve. Is the government's stand really justified? Would just reducing the cost really make the IIMs more accessible to the poor? If this was the case, why doesn't the government just make education free and thus open the gates to everybody, to even the poorest of the poor.

The truth is, our government has failed miserably in providing this most basic of necessity to its people. It is shameful that they continue with their hypocrisy, on one hand, they have completely neglected the education sector and on the other, they still cheekily use the same excuse to gain more power for their own vested interests.

The IIMs undoubtedly meant for an elite, an educated elite, less for an economical elite. There are several instances where many of their bright students come from poor families, but who have through their hard work have rowed through by taking education loans, and once having graduated from the IIMs, paying back the money is really the least of all problems. The elitist argument of the government is therefore redundant as there has never been any student who has been barred from admission due to his financial background, that this discourages such students is still a question that can be debated. Admissions have been based almost entirely on meritocracy, the highest and the most ideal of all virtues. This factor has made the IIMs shine out, to truly make India Shine, producing some of India's best managers, creating a new image of India and that of education in the country.

Higher fees allow universities to go beyond their operational expenses and generate surplus revenue, which in turn allows it to channel resources towards research purposes. This enables them to experiment with new kinds of courses and conduct cutting-edge research, which is the hallmark of any world-renowned institution.

The debate boils down to a simple question, should education be massified or should it remain an exclusive club. Adhering to humanist principles, education should shed its garb of exclusivity and embrace "mass-ification". But then most universities in India already believe in this principle, they represent the great Indian grindstone churning out millions of graduates every year with a clear and definite compromise on the quality. Corruption, quotas and politics have eaten their way into almost every domain of education.

Why then should we not leave at least a section of our education institutions, those that still adhere to appreciable principles of equality and merit?

In developing countries like India, it is tempting and somehow, assumed that the government should subsidise education. However, faced with a resource crunch, the government is not always able to maintain the same level of support. Also, it is the individual who would gain economically from higher education; hence it is logical that the student should fund it, at least in part. The government could as well take some burden off the taxpayer.

There is another issue that has not been enough focussed on. A large number of students of the IIMs leave India to go abroad for work and invariably end up settling down there. What is the final benefit that India gets of this subsidisation? Should there be any reason why Indian taxpayers should pay for an education, the benefits of which, in a large number of cases, go to foreign countries. A government that is so hell-bent on propagating swadeshi and nationalist issues should surely give a thought to this.

Education is the noblest of causes, and its free access should be the cornerstone of every civilised society. A vast majority of Indian Universities do live upto this principal. However if there are institutions that demand high fees while providing quality education, the final choice should be left on the individual. The Indian government has more than often shown that it does deem the people capable of taking mature decisions, through various agencies, the most notable of them being the Film Censor Board. It is time that this attitude of belittling the decisions of the people should be discarded.

Making education free, or reducing fees is finally not the way out. It smacks of the government's intentions in making these institutions dependent on it; is it finally the hunger for more power that the government is craving for? The government should first prove its commitment to education for the poor by investing in basic education, eliminating gender bias in education, making teaching a more respectable and remunerative profession, creating infrastructure where it is absent and strengthening it where it already exists. It should currently refrain from any reforms, but focus on expanding the education network to the towns and villages of India, which have been in perpetual dearth of such facilities. By indulging and meddling in such issues, it is clear that education has been reduced by them to a mere political game play and a battlefield to flaunt their over bloated egos.

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