Page 38 - EW-June-2025

Cover Story

ate bureaucrats, PSEs started making — in 2002, in TMA Pai Foundation
huge losses ab initio. Simultaneously vs. State of Karnataka, an 11-judge
tight government controls were im- bench of the Supreme Court revised
posed on private industry, business, its judgement in Unnikrishnan’s Case.
including private education. To the ex- It ruled that private professional col-
tent that the right to admit students of leges have a fundamental right to ad-
their choice and determine tuition fees minister their admissions provided
was gradually taken away from private they are based on merit, and deter-
arts, science and commerce colleges, mine their own tuition fees provided
and especially from professional (en- they are ‘reasonable’.
Unfortunately, affirming the reality
gineering and medical) colleges. of “the lasting shadow of Nehruvian
I RONICALLY, THE RIGHT OF socialism” within the establishment
self-administration was totally
(see book review p. 70) the very next
taken away from professional
the TMA Pai Case judgement, in Is-
education colleges two years year while professing to “interpret”
after the then Congress government at lamic Academy vs. State of Karna-
the Centre led by the late prime min- taka (2003) a five-judge bench of the
ister Narasimha Rao with Dr. Man- Sengupta: indirect profit loophole apex court decreed appointment of
mohan Singh as finance minister, de- fees regulation committees headed by
creed the landmark liberalisation and pulse. Consequently India with a 1.4 retired high court judges in every state
deregulation of the Indian economy. billion population hosts a mere 783 countrywide, to adjudicate whether
In Unni Krishnan vs. State of Ker- medical and 5,800 engineering col- fees charged by private professional
ala (1993), (state) governments were leges. colleges are reasonable. Deriving in-
permitted to conduct a common en- With profligate Central and state spiration from this judgement, state
trance test (CET) for admission into governments splurging on huge estab- governments across the country began
all professional colleges, appropriate lishment and overheads expenditure establishing fees regulation commit-
50 percent of seats at nominal price, and also doling out unwarranted sub- tees for private schools as well. The
determine fees payable by non-gov- sidies to the middle class, they peren- outcome is the spate of litigation de-
ernment students (‘payment seats’) nially run large fiscal deficits leaving tailed above.
leaving a 10-20 percent ‘management little wherewithal for promoting cap- “Several judgements of the Su-
quota’ under which college manage- ital-intensive professional education preme Court have confirmed that
ments were permitted to charge institutions. And with respectable pri- education provision has to be a chari-
discretionary fees to cross-subsidise vate sector corporates and entrepre- table, not-for-profit activity. However
tuition fees imposed by government. neurs put off from investing in educa- in 2002 in the TMA Pai Foundation
The five-judge bench held that edu- tion by red tape, over-regulation and Case, the court ruled that private sec-
cation was a fundamental right of all widespread racketeering, new green- tor professional education colleges are
citizens under Article 21 (which guar- field professional education colleges entitled to levy fees that would earn
antees life and liberty). Therefore are mainly being promoted by poli- them a reasonable profit/surplus for
despite Article 19 guaranteeing the ticians and shady edupreneurs with investment in capacity expansion and
fundamental right to conduct a busi- skills to manage the corrupt licensing institution development. Interpreta-
ness/vocation, education cannot be a and regulatory system. Therefore, tion of what is reasonable has prompt-
for-profit or commercial business. It teaching-learning standards are poor, ed numerous state governments to
must necessarily be a charitable and prompting widespread ‘unemploy- enact legislation capping school fees.
philanthropic vocation. The partial ability’ among engineering graduates Yet the truth is that by outsourc-
dissent of Justice Sahai advising ad- in particular. ing numerous school services such
ministrative freedom for education in- Providentially, after liberalization as bussing, campus maintenance,
stitutions was over-ruled by the other and deregulation of the economy in digital learning etc to for-profit firms
four judges. 1991 began showing good results — managed by friends and relations, in-
Unsurprisingly, the Unni Krishnan annual GDP growth rate more than stitutional promoters are indirectly
judgement choked the flow of private doubled in the early years of the new earning profit from education provi-
investment into education. Especially millennium and EducationWorld sion. Thus they are able to indirectly
from bona fide edupreneurs invested (estb.1999) began exposing absur- do what is forbidden by law. There is
with genuine human capital develop- dities and corruption of the control- no logic behind compulsorily making
ment idealism and philanthropic im- and-command education system education a charitable activity when

38 EDUCATIONWORLD JUNE 2025