Education is for all and indeed it should be for all. Basic education, graduation or higher education, accessibility and more than eligibility is a concern in India. Indian students mba are known to be brighter than the rest giving them an edge in the criteria of eligibility. What really bogs them down is their inability to make it to institutes that offer expensive programs. This is one the hardest truths the education system in India has witnessed with no concrete solution to it as well.
This was one of the driving reasons why the quota system in India was developed. Dr Ambedkar, while building the constitution gave the low income groups and lower sections of the society special cess and advantages in all spheres especially education, at all levels. This mitigates the effect of the costly higher education courses like mba. Consider a general category student of an upper middle class family who faces fund constraints. A very bright student after being called from a prestigious B-school discovers that his father can’t pay the fees, the scholarships are taken away, seats are bought out leaving him with no option but to let go off the call and probably choose another lower ranked college or simply stop himself for aiming for the said program. Are we moving towards restricting education only to rich and indirectly forcing the poor to remain poor?
The Reality
In times when the job scene is not fantastic, students don’t expect enormous salaries. So, if they have an education loan to pay off it is going to make it even tougher for them to sustain a decent living. Education was supposed to have a social role to play, it was for the public, it was meant to be for all. But surprisingly in India, education, the good quality education is being privatised. It has its own market of the niche richer section students. However, it must be noted that this is not the fault of the private education entrepreneurs as they see market and make a business out of it.
Solution
The problem, at least to some extent, lies with the government. It is the job of the government to make education more inclusive in nature. Talking about India, the financial diversity of the students’ needs to be taken into consideration. The Education Ministry needs review the ranked higher education institutes and put caps on the fees, the institution should be funded by the government partly, if not wholly. Even foreign institutes setting their ground on the Indian soil should be made to follow certain rules and regulations when it comes to sizing and pricing their courses if education and not revenues from the expensive courses is the final goal for Indian education.
India is losing out on the real value of its demographic dividend to its growth process if it does not make education more public in nature.
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