‘Vishwa Vidyaâ: Right to Education

Two major educational reforms have been in the news recently in India. The new ‘Right To Educationâ (RTE) law has become effective from April 1. This provides for the possibility that primary education is now an enpost_titlement for all children in the country. This is great; it should have been so 60 years ago. India is enacting this right after 76 other countries have already done so.

However, it is not very obvious how this right will be accessed by all children, specially those belonging to poor tribal and scheduled caste families. In India, several dozen rights already exist in our statutes. For vast majority of poor people, none of these have been accessed adequately. Legislating rights and delivering them with dignity are two different things. How is the Right to Education going to be different? What will happen to teachers and their supervisors and education secretaries and ministers if some tribal children proclaim that their ‘right to educationâ has been violated? Nothing, I guess? Then, whatâs the point?

Apart from legislation, there is no dearth of government programmes to provide ‘universal education to allâ. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan or SSA is one such flagship programme. Yet, what has it and many other such programmes managed to deliver? (For some aspects on this read Delivering Girlsâ Education in India: Making Panchayats Responsible by Shruti Sharma, Mosaic Books, March 2010). In the discourse on enpost_titlements, there has been no commitment to reforming the educational system that is currently not working. Delivering on promises: that is the key. How is the RTE Act going to do this?

The second big-time news item was the reported approval granted to the Foreign University Education Bill by the Union cabinet. All kinds of speculations have been made about the veracity, or otherwise, of this bill, and its potential impacts. It has been stated by proponents of the bill that foreign universities will now come to India in large numbers, thereby reducing the foreign exchange outflow by 200,000 students going abroad for studies. Others argue that top class foreign universities would not be attracted since government regulations and local political conditions are not encouraging of independent educational enterprise. Imagine Mayawati and Gehlot beginning to send their ‘grassrootsâ activists to invade Lucknow and Jaipur campuses of Harvard and MIT!

I think all Indians not only have a right to education, they equally have a fundamental right to foreign education. Many students are already accessing foreign education in India as well as abroad. The demand for foreign education (or anything else) is based on perceptions of quality and global branding. Compare this with Levis jeans. Till such jeans were produced in India, a few Indians were buying them from overseas. Now that they are produced in India, many more Indians are buying them (even those who do not go abroad); and, still, many Indians continue to buy jeans abroad, Levis or otherwise. Access is the key; those who remain in India and have some resources, buy Levis made in India. Those who have global access and resources, still buy Levis abroad.

A similar dynamic is likely in case of education too.

Therefore, foreign educational institutions need to be able to partner with local institutions to offer affordable education to local students. In addition, many Indian students would continue to go abroad for higher education, and that should be encouraged as well.

The confusion in all this discourse is that enough attention is not being paid to reforming Indian higher education system. Opening up domestic markets to international suppliers and competition doesnât automatically improve domestic supply. Take the case of the much-touted liberalization in the aviation and telecom sectors over the past decade. New private providers, with or without foreign collaboration, have emerged in these industries and ‘revolutionizedâ the provisions. But, neither Indian Airlines nor BSNL have made any significant progress. Why? Because, the governance of these PSUs has not been reformed.

That Indian higher education institutions need to be ‘reformedâ is well-known for long. That the political will to reform them, moving away from political and official control has been absent, is also now known!

Imagine the possibility that the original conception of ‘vishwa vidyalayasâ—homes of global knowledge—could be operationalized in todayâs global order! Our own higher education institutions should be attracting scholars and students and research grants from around the world—like the vishwa vidyalayas of Nalanda and Taxila!—and in turn enriching the quality of global brands in higher education.

Hereâs to ‘vishwa vidyaâ—education for all, desi and videshi.

Rajesh Tandon
April 14, 2010