Opinion Licenced to keep India back

It is in every way a bigger scandal than anything that has come out of the selling of airwaves but we pay no attention to it because the problem is chronic and rarely makes headlines. Except,in that season when frantic parents try to find schools for their children and discover that they have to subject them to an ordeal amounting to child abuse because there are not enough schools in any Indian city or town. In Delhi alone,an estimated 14 lakh children seek school admissions every year and there are never sufficient seats to go around because education remains controlled by a licence raj. So we are subjected every year to the heartbreaking spectacle of toddlers,who have barely learned to speak,going through the torture of admission tests to get into nursery school. It is inexplicable that an intelligent,educated minister like Kabil Sibal has been unable to come up with a policy that makes it easier to build schools.

At the moment,according to the Educational Society of India’s website,‘opening a school is a herculean task’. You first need to set up a trust,you then have to get government permission to buy land,then there is a long rigmarole of permissions and inspections and at the end of it,you still might not succeed in getting official recognition for your school. In villages,on my travels,I constantly meet people who say all they want is guaranteed official recognition and they are prepared to build schools with their own money.

On account of the complex regulations and the rock solid layers of red tape that throttle the process of setting up educational institutions in India,the only people who know how to beat the system are politicians. If you check in your own city,you will probably find that behind every private school or college is the hand of some politician. Why? Is it because this is one way of getting land out of government at throwaway prices?

When Kapil Sibal became HRD Minister,he admitted that India needs at least 1,500 more universities just to cope with demand. Getting into college is so ‘herculean’ a task that more and more Indian students are forced to go to foreign universities. There is enough money in the country to build the universities,medical schools and technical colleges that India needs. And,foreign investors waiting at the gates. But,as long as government continues to operate its licence raj,there is no chance of an exponential increase in private investment in education. Government meddling is of such an absurd degree that faculty salaries and fee increases are subjected to controls. Why does government need to interfere so much in private educational institutions when it is so inept at running those that are directly under it?

On my travels in rural India,I make it a point to visit the village school. It is always a saddening experience. In Rajasthan,some months ago,I was in a small village in which the two private schools were beehives of activity at eleven in the morning. In the government school,on grounds twice as large as the private schools,children waited with their schoolbags outside closed classrooms because the teachers had not yet arrived. Since school education is now on the concurrent list,there is much that the HRD Minister can do to bring about urgent,crucial change. It is in his hands to end the licence raj,in his hands to open the doors for huge private investment,in his hands to make a million schools and colleges bloom.

Follow Tavleen Singh on Twitter @ tavleen_singh