Education, Careers & Professional News

National Seminar On Comprehensive Central Legislation On Professional Education

Source
ABVP

Date
2005-02-28

Information
RECOMMENDATIONS

1.NEED FOR A CENTRAL LEGISLATION

There has been a phenomenal increase in the number of professional and technical educational institutions in the preceding years. A majority of these institutions are under private management. While the role and importance of private participation in professional and technical education has came to be widely accepted and the rights of the private education providers to establish institutions has been upheld by the Honble Supreme Court, the need for protecting the interests of the students from commercial exploitation and for preserving the quality and standard of professional and technical education has assumed utmost importance. Professional and technical education has a crucial importance from the point of view of the overall interests of national development and also from the point of view meeting the global challenges. It is too important a subject to be left entirely at the door-steps of private education providers and market forces. States intervention tosafeguard the interests of equity, fair-play transparency, regional and sectoral balance is absolutely necessary. A new situation has arises in the wake of the supreme court judgement in the TMP Pai foundation Vs. State of Karnataka case, posing numerous problems before the students both in respect of fee structure and admission policy. A large number of students have been driven to a state of despair and frustration a few of them even taking the extreme step of committing suicide.

In the Islamia Academy case the supreme court directed the constitution of two committees for the purpose of monitoring and supervising fee fixation and admission process. The court said that the two committees will function under act 142 of the constitution till the parliament enacts a legislation in this respect. Under the circumstances it is imperative that a central legislation is enacted by the parliament. It is open to the Central Government to come out with a central legislation laying down uniform standards for the entire country in exercise of the power under Entry 66 List - I of the Constitution of India. However some of the aspects can be left open for being decided by the State Government in its discretion. It is also not desirable to leave everything open for the State Government, as the same would negate the very purpose of legislation itself. The legislation should be binding on all State Governments except for having the liberty to fine tune the same to suit the local conditions. Unless this is done, it would leave the field open for exploitation of students. Such legislation would also be in the interest of the management of the educational institutions.

2.NATURE OF THE CENTRAL LEGISLATION

The proposed legislation can be enacted in exercise of the power under Entry 66 of List - I of the Constitution of India. Such legislation need not necessarily be within the parameters laid by the Supreme Court in the case of TMA Pai Foundation and Islamic Academy of Education cases. However to avoid future litigation and uncertainty, the legislation can be made so as to fall within the broad framework laid down by the Supreme Court. In this regard, certain broad parameters are suggested for central legislation.

A. The central legislation would deal with the manner of admissions, fixation of fee structure and the establishment of new college. The legislation would provide for constitution of an Admission Committee as well as the Fee Structure Committee consisting of three - five persons as specified in the legislation.

(i) The Common Entrance Test will also be conducted under the supervision of the Admission Committee; all admissions shall be made by a Central Counselling procedure.

(ii) While making admissions to 80% of the students, appropriate reservations shall be made in favour of socially and educationally backward class of the students.

B. ADMISSION

(i) The admission of students shall be made by an Admission Committee consisting of representatives of the State Government, representative of the University, representative of private educational institutions and certain other eminent persons in the field of education/ administration. It is this Committee, which will conduct examination for the purpose of admitting 80% of the students. As the Admission Committee would consists of representative both from the private management as well as from the State Government, the same would obviate the need for another admission by the private management. Instead of compelling a student to attend examination conducted by the Government as well as by the private management, there will be one comprehensive test conducted by a body consisting of representative from the State Government as well as by the private management.

(ii) About 10% of the seats out of the total 80% shall be reserved for students from outside the state. Similar reservation shall be made in accordance with the policy of the State Government, and in this regard, discretion can be given to the State Government to provide for appropriate reservation depending on the local prevalent conditions.

(iii) The fixation of the percentage of 80% need not vary from State to State, as the same would be a comprehensive admission procedure, which will be made both on behalf of the State Government and the private management.

C. FEE STRUCTURE

(i) The regulation of the fee structure shall be vested with the Fee Structure Committee consisting of representative of the State Government, Management, Chartered Accountants and eminent persons in field of education / finance.

(ii) The fee fixation shall be made having regard to the factors specified therein like the recurring expenditure of the college, capacity of the institution to generate internal resources by taking up other activities, future development plans of the institution and other relevant factors.

(iii) In the matter of fee fixation, the capital cost expenditure should not be imposed on thestudents. In the legislation it is also preferable that the concept of placing the entire burden of the college on the students should be done away with.

(iv) In the matter of fee fixation, it is also necessary that a system of grading of the colleges can also be undertaken and different fee structure can be fixed depending on the grading of the institution done for this purpose.

1. The parameters of the different of the different grades of colleges must be clearly defined and the new colleges must be assessed to declare at the very outset, which grade they wish to opt for.

(v) Before the institution can exercise its right to collect fee from the students, it should be made compulsory on the institutions to get itself graded by an expert body like National Board of Accreditation constituted for this purpose.

(vi) The grading of the institution should be entrusted to a expert body like National Board of Accreditation and the cost of getting this grading done should be borne by the institution.

There shall be a differential fee structure taking into account.

the paying capacity of the students.

grading of the institution.

Based on the consideration of the paying capacity students shall be classified into 3 groups in the following manner.

A differential fee structure must be framed in accordance with the grading of the institutions.
(a) Students from low / very low income groups, weaker sections including SC/ST, OBC and other low income groups.
(b) Students from middle / upper middle income groups.
© Students from affluent groups / foreign nationals and NRIs

Students from (a) group will pay a low fee called the base fee which may be roughly equal to half the unit cost.

Students from (b) group will pay a fee equal to twice the base fee.

Students from © group will pay a fee equal to 6 times the base fee.

(a) and (b) group students will be admitted through the CET whereas students from © group will be admitted by the management on inter-sec. merit.

The distribution of seats in the three categories shall be in the ration of 40:40:20

The parameters for computing the unit cost must be clearly defined only such factors which are academically relevant shall be considered in determining the unit cost.

(d) The fees of a specified percentage of students (approx. 5%) selected on merit shall be borne entirely by the state on the condition that students so selected will serve for a minimum period of 5 years in such of these social service schemes as formulated by the state government.

D. FINANCING OF EDUCATION

(i) The legislation should formulate a concrete scheme for financing education. In this regard the state government should be asked to enter into arrangement with the public sector banks for providing loans at concessional rate of interest which becomes repayable on completion of their education.

(ii) Education Fund: The legislation can contemplate creation of a Education fund or Education Development Bank along the lines of Industrial Development Bank for the exclusive purpose of giving assistance to the needy students and forthe development of institution. The contribution made to this fund should be made exempt from Income Tax. The state government and the central government and the educational institutions shall be asked to contribute to this fund. The other beneficiaries like the employers and industrialists must also be pursuaded to contributed to this fund.

E. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SCHEME

(i) The Fee Structure Committee, Admission Committee and all the educational institutions are bound to conform to a time bound scheme, within which the process is required to be completed every year.

(ii) The discretion should be conferred to the State Government to add in every other type of educational institutions within the parameters of this scheme.

(iii) The scheme should be made applicable to all the educational institutions, deemed universities and autonomous colleges.

(iv) The Medical Council of India, All India Council for Technical Education, Dental Council and other expert bodies can also be involved in the matter of regulation of admissions and fixation of fee.

F. MINORITY INSTITUTIONS

In respect of minority institution similar standards made above shall be laid. However they shall be entitled to make 50% of the admissions among persons belonging to that particular community or group. In respect of 50% admissions shall be made by the Admission Committee. The collection of fee shall also be in accordance with the fee fixed by the Fee Structure Committee.

G. ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW COLLEGES -

(1) Establishment of new colleges of Professional and Technical Education and design of new courses must be based on manpower requirement survey.

(2) Guidelines must be clearly laid down and steps should be taken from the point of view of correcting the regional imbalance with regard to these institutions.

(3) As per the recommendations of the UR Rao committee a separate centre such as Centre for Human Development in planning and Technical Education (CHRIS) with dedicated experts of its own for generating and continuously updating the database on the supply and demand of technical manpower at each regional level must be created.

H. AN EDUCATIONAL TRIBUNAL

An Educational Tribunal to deal with the disputes arising between the varies parties related to education on expeditiously.