Page 36 - EW FEB 2022

Cover Story

Corrupt practices: status quo plus vasive licence-permit-quota rules
and regulations; teacher recruitment
n 2004 when this sui generis publication promoted with the mission to “build the pres- and transfer rackets in government
Isure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda”, was schools; kickbacks in government
five years of age, we published a cover feature titled ‘Dirty Dozen Corrupt Practices schools construction; textbooks print-
Destroying Indian Education’. Sixteen years later those dirty dozen practices flourish ing and distribution rackets; negligible
unchecked. On the contrary several ingenious new corrupt practices have mushroomed investment in school infrastructure,
as the establishment including academics and the media stand idly by. The dirty dozen especially libraries and laboratories
practices of yesteryear were: and ubiquitous inspector raj in private
1. Pernicious licence-permit-quota regime schools (see box).
2. De rigueur kickbacks in school construction contracts Almost two decades later, not only
3. Denial of information: Opaque state/local government education budgets are the dirty dozen corrupt practices
4. Unchecked textbooks publishing, printing and distribution rackets of the early millennium omnipresent,
5. Teacher appointments in state government and municipal schools several new ones have been added to
6. Teacher transfer and salary payment rackets the list. Among them: quota admis-
7. Negligible investment in infrastructure — especially libraries and laboratories sions under s.12 (1) (c) of the historic
8. Inspector raj is pervasive and flourishing Right of Children to Free & Compulso-
9. Examination paper leakages and correction rackets ry Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which
10. College entry and admission rackets endanger idealism devolved part of the State’s obligation
11. The great merit hoax and coaching classes boom to provide free and compulsory pri-
12. Obsolete syllabuses and sub-standard teaching in higher education. mary education upon private schools;
reimbursement of prescribed tuition
Source: EW October 2004
fees to private schools under s.12 (2);
imposition of arbitrary fees ceilings on
communists, the prime factor behind school promoters and managements. private schools by state governments;
this commendable (by our own stan- Following the Supreme Court having imposition of dominant state languag-
dards) increase in GDP is almost en- ill-advisedly condemned “commer- es as media of instruction in private
tirely due to the private school system cialisation of education” in the 1970s primary schools despite a Supreme
which has educated the country’s 300 when it was packed with socialist and Court judgement mandating parental
million middle class. Mainly because leftist judges by prime minister Indira choice. Meanwhile, promulgation of
the quality of education provided by Gandhi, private schools (and private the National Education Policy, 2020
India’s 1.2 million public (govern- higher education institutions) are sub- which mandates a plethora of commit-
ment) schools is grossly inadequate. ject to the full rigour of neta-babu con- tees and commissions with wide dis-
According to State of the Sector Re- trolled licence-permit-quota regimen cretionary powers to supervise public
port on Private Schools in India, a de- which has cabined, cribbed and con- and private education institutions, is
tailed 2020 report of the Delhi-based fined India’s private entrepreneurs, likely to tighten the grip of the neta-
Central Square Foundation, the num- and plunged annual GDP growth to an babu brotherhood and the venal edu-
ber of private schools has swelled to average 3.5 percent for over 40 years. cracy over Indian education.
450,000 with an aggregate enrolment And even though the licence-per-
of 119 children, i.e, 48.5 percent of the mit-quota regimen has been substan- 1 WASTE & CORRUPTION OF HUMAN
CAPITAL
country’s school-going children. tially relaxed for India Inc after 1991, it ccording to Dr. A.S. Seethar-
Y ET DESPITE THIS CRED- tion. Worse, official corruption which Aamu, former professor of edu-
has been intensified in private educa-
ITABLE contribution of
cation at the Institute of Social and
choked Indian industry for over four
private schools to human
cation sector with dire consequences
lished in 1974 as peninsular India’s
capital development and decades has spilled over into the edu- Economic Change, Bengaluru, estab-
the national development effort, and for the future of the world’s largest first think tank and currently educa-
despite India’s private preschools child and youth population. tion adviser to the Karnataka govern-
and primary-secondaries dispensing In 2004, when this publication was ment, the corruption malaise that has
the world’s most affordable education, a mere five years of age, we featured debilitated the country’s education
every effort is made by the corrupt an unprecedented cover feature titled system is as much rooted in the sin of
educracies of the Central and state ‘Dirty Dozen Corrupt Practices De- negligence of government as in rent-
governments to prevent promotion of stroying Indian Education’. Among seeking education ministries of the
greenfield private schools, and harass, the dirty dozen corrupt practices states.
intimidate and shake down private highlighted 17 years ago were: per- “For the past half century, succes-

36 EDUCATIONWORLD FEBRUARY 2022