Page 20 - EW July 2025_Neat

Education News

new arrangement, Comed-K member Though Dr. Kumar declined
colleges agreed to allocate 47 percent to comment on the tenuous seat-
of their seats to top-ranked CET sharing agreement with the state
students at government-negotiated government, it’s evident that despite
fees every year even as Comed-K successive court judgements giving
continued to conduct its own paral- private professional colleges the
lel entrance test. The remainder right to determine their own admis-
30 percent seats are allocated to sion processes and fees structures,
Comed-K exam toppers under dif- state governments refuse to respect
ferently priced fees, and 23 percent them and bully private college man-
are permitted to be allocated by the agements to accept cross-subsidy
management at substantially higher schemes. The root of this enduring
fees. Currently, the annual tuition problem is government interfer-
fees for each category are: govern- ence with the administration and
ment CET students: Rs.90,000-1.5 management of privately promoted
lakh; Comed-K toppers: Rs.1.5-3 education institutions despite the
lakh; management quota: Rs.4.5-12 apex court’s judgement in the TMA
lakh and NRI Rs.8 lakh and above. Pai Case.
ast November (2024), officials Reshma Ravishanker (Bengaluru)
Lof the Karnataka Examinations
Authority (KEA), which conducts WEST BENGAL
CET, uncovered a seat blocking apparatchiks — the state has experi-
scam allegedly devised by the said Dimming star enced repeated K-12 teacher recruit-
private engineering colleges. These ment and appointment scandals for its
‘blocked’ seats are usually of students arely ten months after the 84,000 government schools.
who top CET, but don’t claim their brutal rape and murder of Government school-teachers’ jobs
private college seats on admission Ba 31-year-old postgraduate with their relatively high salaries de-
day, resulting in these seats revert- trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical Col- termined by Central government Pay
ing to the management to be ‘sold’ lege and Hospital, Kolkata, yet an- Commissions, are highly prized in the
for higher tuition fees. With the other education institution gang rape state devastated by continuous capital
difference between fees paid by — atrocity — this time of a first-year law flight, de-industrialisation and result-
government CET and management student of South Calcutta Law College, ing high unemployment.
quota students massive (Rs.3-11 lakh allegedly by a former student leader of However, a former education min-
per year), private colleges benefit the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) ister of the TMC government is in jail
by admitting students under the party — has shaken the tottering TMC following discovery of a Rs.100-crore
latter quota. “2,625 government government, now in its third consecu- cash hoard in his flat, reportedly col-
engineering seats were blocked and tive five-year term in office — and reel- lected as bribes for recruiting and
subsequently transferred to colleges ing under a spate of teacher recruit- appointing under-qualified teachers.
as management quota seats. This ment scandals. Following repeated stay-orders is-
allowed institutions to earn large For TMC and its stormy petrel chief sued by the Calcutta high court of the
profits, while reducing opportunities minister Mamata Banerjee, this latest all-important TET (Teacher Eligibil-
for deserving meritorious students,” scandal which has attracted banner ity Test) for exam paper leakages and
says a KEA official. headlines countrywide couldn’t have assessment, on April 3, the Supreme
According to Dr. S. Kumar, come at a worse time. The state is Court scrapped the appointment of
executive secretary, Comed-K, the scheduled to go to the polls within the 25,735 secondary and higher second-
root cause of this and other rackets next 12 months. ary school teachers because “the en-
in private college admissions is that Throughout the past 14 years since tire recruitment process is irreparably
private colleges are obliged to allot the TMC government was swept to tainted and invalid”. Subsequently as
47 percent of capacity to govern- power in West Bengal (pop.102 mil- reported on this page last month, the
ment-selected CET students at way- lion) in 2011, ending 34 years of con- TMC government’s latest bloomer in
below-cost prices. “Private colleges tinuous rule of the Communist Party education is its failure to resolve the
have to cross-subsidise 47 percent of India-Marxist (CPI-M) — an era issue of reservations for OBCs (Other
of students, who don’t pay even 20 during which West Bengal was de- Backward Classes/Castes) in govern-
percent of the actual cost of educa- industrialised and its higher educa- ment-run higher education institu-
tion provision,” says Kumar. tion institutions infiltrated by party tions.

20 EDUCATIONWORLD JULY 2025