PPP INITIATIVES ON EDUCATION
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    • PPP INITIATIVES ON EDUCATION
    The resources crunch faced by our Governments have made Private Public Partnerships a must  in building national assets. Education - Primary, Secondary and higher levels have always been in the domain of elected governments with philanthropists chipping in through a plethora of trusts formed to manage schools, colleges and institutions offering higher education. the earliest philanthropist was late JRD Tata who funded the Indian Institute of Science- to promote scientific education. The recommendation of HRD Ministry under Arjun singh to implement Mandal formula in admission to institutes of higher learning like IIT,IISc, AIIMS etc found stiff opposition until Supreme Court cleared the legality of such a step. At that point of time, it was pointed out by some academicians that the lacuna is non availability of high school education to a majority of our population which has a quality input.  The National Knowledge Commission commisioned by Dr.Manmohan singh was to advise the government to improve the quality of education provided by Government Schools across the Country. Unfortunately, the committee was beset with dissenting opinions with a couple of members putting in papers. The HRD Ministry under Kapil sibal has revoluntionised the system with a national level board for Higher and Secondary education bye passing State governments which has been resented by a couple of marxist governments and DMK government as being intrusive of their rights as Education is in concurrent list. Sunil Bharati Mittal vowed to start and fund schools across the country. The new Education policy envisages PPP initiative such that schools formed by companies/corporate groups shall be reimbursed cost of educating pupil by the State to the extent of 50% of intake while the remaining seats could be sold by the Management for a fee to be determined at market rates. This runs counter to the judgments of Supreme court which has invalidated the system of capitation fees in professional colleges earmarking a particular portion for general category to be charged Government notified fees while the other category shall be charged by the institution concerned commonly known as Payment Seats. 

     

    It is a mistaken notion that all our government schools are badly run. I had my primary and part of my secondary education in Government run schools. I had my Pre University in Government Arts College for it was subsidised by the government. This year , a door to door garment vendors daughter has scored state first marks in SSLC examination in Tamil Nadu. She has had her education in a Government School. Corporation Schools in chennai and Coimbatore are fast catching up with private schools in their vicinity. Most of those pupils are from lower strata of the society who toil day and night to excel. These Teachers toil to bring up these children. I think in stead of setting up schools, under PPP initiative, corporates could adopt these schools to improve infra structure. In coimbatore, CRI Pumps, a world class pump manufacturer has adopted a few corporation schools on their own initiative of corporate social responsibility. It is worthwhile to note that none of those in IT field who claim to be knowledge portals are involved in such community development activities. 

    State run schools should be provided with more amenities and these could be built up through funds earmarked for NREGS which seeks to build sustainable livelihood assets for the community. The dedicated education cess should be removed from consolidated fund of India and managed by an investment banking firm preferably in Public sector in order to avoid such funds being misused. 
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