Page 38 - Education World July 2020

Cover Story

by ‘establishment expenses’) they tar-
geted BPS by inserting s.19 in the RTE
Act which mandates impossible infra-
structure norms for low-cost schools.
These norms detailed in a schedule
of the Act prescribe low teacher-pupil
ratio, demarcated principals’ rooms,
kitchens, grain storage rooms, sepa-
rate toilets for boys and girl children
and a minimum one-acre playground
per school. Iniquitously, s.18 exempts
Central, state and municipal/local
government schools from adherence
to these norms.
C URIOUSLY, DESPITE THE

entire middle and elite
classes of Indian society
who often move heaven
and earth to get their children admit- Anti-private school parents protest in Chandigarh: deep cleavage
ted into well-equipped, well-admin-
istered top-ranked private schools — ernments have enacted legislation note that the subcontinent has a tradi-
they shun government schools like the regulating school tuition fees and im- tion of free enterprise and entrepre-
coronavirus — they seldom protest the posing ceilings. Inevitably, this leg- neurship stretching several millennia
blatant discrimination and continuous islation has been challenged in high when privately manufactured goods
official harassment that private school courts across the country, and has tied from the subcontinent, including
promoters and managements suffer. up institutional managements in liti- ocean-going ships, exotic meat-pre-
One of the major self-perpetuating gation which is draining their resourc- serving spices, finest textiles, gold or-
achievements of the brotherhood has es and driving them towards insolven- naments and precious stone jewellery
been to drive a deep cleavage between cy, which may well be the subliminal dazzled newly-emerged nation states
parents and promoters of private objective of the politician-bureaucrat of the western and eastern worlds. De-
schools. In the socialist lexicon, edu- nexus. Meanwhile, the abundant hu- spite this, post-independence India’s
preneurs — usually visionaries aware man resource of the world’s youngest establishment including the educated
of the huge learning chasm between population with a mean average age of middle class, has never respected, let
developed OECD countries and India 29 is being wasted on a massive scale, alone admired private enterprise and
who invest substantial capital to pro- with dangerous implications for socio- great entrepreneurs who built formi-
mote globally-benchmarked schools, economic advancement and mainte- dable companies and business houses
colleges and universities — are mer- nance of law and order. in the teeth of opposition from repre-
cenary capitalists hell-bent upon Surprisingly despite India’s low sentatives of imperial Great Britain
“commercialisation of education”, status in the contemporary world — which ruled over the subcontinent for
a pejorative popularised by the late the country is ranked a lowly #129 almost two centuries.
Justice Krishna Iyer, self-confessed in the Human Development Index of Pioneer industrialists and busi-
communist judge of the Supreme UNDP and with a pathetic GDP of $3 nessmen such as J.N. Tata, G.D. Birla,
Court. Brainwashed by socialist trillion trails way behind the US ($21 Walchand Hirachand, Ambalal Sarab-
rhetoric for over seven decades, post- trillion) and China ($14 trillion) — the hai, Lala Shri Ram, Jamnalal Bajaj, Sir
independence India’s co-opted subsi- vast majority, including the academy Padampat Singhania among others
dies-addicted middle class and feeble and the intelligentsia haven’t grasped who had bet their capital and scarce
intelligentsia welcomes and endorses the enormity of the damage that resources to build great manufactur-
government interference in private neta-babu socialism and continuous ing and trade enterprises in the first
education, particularly in the matter licence-permit-quota raj pervasive half of the 20th century, were poised
of fees regulation. despite the partial liberalisation and to conquer Asian and Middle East
In recent years, despite the clear deregulation initiative of 1991, have markets with capital goods, manu-
mandate of the Supreme Court’s full- caused to the national development factures and branded FMCGs (fast
bench judgement in the landmark effort. moving consumer goods) after inde-
T. M . A . P ai Case, almost all state gov- In this connection, it’s important to pendence.

38 EDUCATIONWORLD JULY 2020