Before the Minister dissipates his energy on doing too many things at the same time he needs to concentrate on finding out why schools are in short supply. Why is it so easy for officials to set up a fine school (Sanskriti) for their children on expensive real estate in the heart of Delhi and so hard for ordinary citizens to do the same? Why should a country that needs millions more schools not be able to build them? What blockages are there?

When he finds the answers to these questions he should turn his attention to higher education and find out how many major politicians own colleges and why. On my travels during the recent election campaign I was astounded to find that nearly everywhere I went there were colleges and institutes of technical training owned by some local political nabob or other. How and why did this come to happen? Why should politicians have anything to do with higher education? Is it because there is big money involved? Is it because they are the only ones who can get licences? Could this be the reason why we have not been able to summon the political will to end the licence raj in education?

The new Minister of HRD has spoken out strongly against ‘capitation’ fees being charged by private colleges. Why should this be any business of the Government of India? When seats in medical and engineering colleges are in such short supply why should colleges not auction them to the highest bidder and if someone is prepared to pay, so what? The solution is not more controls but less. There is plenty of private money available to build more colleges if government would stop poking its nose into every little detail of the process. The best universities in the world today are in the United States and they have nothing to do with government. They raise their own funds, set their own standards and make their own decisions on professors’ salaries and students fees. They even give their own scholarships and student loans.

... contd.