RESOURCES (CENTRALLY
SPONSORED SCHEMES)
 

University of Calcutta, Calcutta (Seminar held on 19th and 20th September, 1990)

- As keeping education in the Concurrent List of the Constitution is in the nature of weakening the federal fabrics of the country and as it may be construed as incursion into the domain of diverse language and culture, education is to be reverted to the State List., as it was in the pre-emergency period.

- The role of the voluntary organisations in the field of education is required to be re-asesssed in view of the fact that all of them are not of unstained virtue, rather many of them are vehicles of religious fundamentalism and profiteering bodies. In no case a system of education parallel to common school system should be allowed. Privatisation of education at any level is to be discouraged and private management should be done away with.

- With a view to achieving the goals of public education, the Central Government should allocate and spend 10% of its budget, target being that at least 6% of GNP is spent on education. Likewise every State Government should also spend 30% of its budget on education.

Gandhi Peace Foundation, 221-23 Dean Dayal Upadhyaya Marg, New Delhi 110002 (Consultation held on 13th and 14th October; 1990)

- Universities should be given endowment funds through which they should be run. Their dependence on annual governmental grants should thus be ended.

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Fr. A. Orea, Inspector, Catholic Schools, Post Box No. 2, Ranchi- 834001 (14th November, 1990)

- Commerce and industry should play an important role in the spreading and development of education. In addition to running schools for the children of their officers and other employees, the commercial/ industrial houses can help in organising pre-employment courses for school leaving children, sponsor special courses for school leavers etc.

Shri Sanjeev Ghotge, D2, Indra Raj, Near Sheetal, Fergusson Road, Shivajinagar, Pune (2nd November, 1990)

- To raise additional resources for education, taxation based on income should be resorted to.

Shri P. Devarajan, Article in the 'Financial Express', New Delhi, dated 6th October., 1990

- If the new ideas have to work voluntary agencies will have to be roped in. Similarly, big houses and public sector units setting up mega projects in backward areas will have to be development told to take on the overall development of the region including educational. Funds will have to provided by the Centre and the States even as imparting education should be taken out of the Ministry of Education.

- It is unfortunate that any economic crisis implies a firm cut in social expenditure when they should be the first to be protected. The share of government spending on education in India is much less than those in many other developing countries including Thailand (4.2%), Malaysia (8.5%), Kenya (5.5%) and Egypt (4.2%).

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Shri V. Paramasivan, Article in 'The Hindu', New Delhi dated 11th September, 1990

- In a vast country like India with diverse regional languages and cultures, education upto the first degree level must be wholly the responsibility of State Governments. The Union Government must concentrate on post-graduate educational institutions.

Shri Furgan Qamar, Article in the 'Hindustan Times', New Delhi, dated 16th November, 1990

- The proposal to raise fees at the level of higher education and to make higher education institutions self-sufficient and entirely dependent on the purchasing power of their consumers i.e. (students) Is a violation of the principles of social justice and equity. Instead, since the industry and services in private sector happen to be the major beneficiaries of the educated manpower they should be made to bear a substantial portion of educational expenses.

- The attitude adopted by the Review committee with regard to higher education is damaging. It has adopted the erroneous attitude that higher education is a rival to primary education. The Paper highlights that over the past 30 years or so the share of primary education has come down from 56% to 29% while the share of higher education has increased from 18% to 44% of the education budge". The Committee has taken into account the education budget of the Union Government only. If we take into account the total expenditure on education by the central and State Governments, the share of primary education works out to be around 45% while higher

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education gets not more than 15%. The expenditure on higher education has been rising at the rate of 8% per annum only which has not even neutralised the effect of inflation. Therefore, the overall expenditure on higher education in real term has come down. Less than 1% of the GNP is spent on higher education. Only 5% of the population in the relevant age group has access to higher education and it is only 10% of this who is able to receive professional and technical education.

- The prescription that 6% of the GNP be spent on education is a norm laid down by the UNESCO for all the developing countries. This limit is, therefore, not sacrosanct. It would be more appropriate if the Committee works out a comprehensive estimate of resources required to achieve the targets of "an enlightened and humane society".

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