KERALA'S higher education system has not expanded as much as one expects in a State where elementary education is nearly universal and secondary education has expanded reasonably well, according to Dr Rajan Varghese, Academic Committee Convenor, All Kerala Private College Teachers' Association.
Privatisation is not a solution to this problem, as it would have serious implications in terms of equity and excellence in higher education, such as marginalisation of regular aided courses in the long run, he said.
The population of higher education in the relevant age group is slightly higher at 7.4 per cent as compared with the national average of six per cent, he told Business Line. There has been considerable increase in the number of higher educational institutions and enrolment of students.
The State had pursued a liberal higher education policy from 1956 through mid eighties in terms of quantitative expansion and access to higher education, he said. At present, the State has seven universities, excluding two deemed universities, which constituted 2.7 per cent of 297 universities in the country. In 2002, there were 1.61 lakh students in Arts and Science Colleges, excluding those in unaided colleges.
He said that the role of government in college education was limited as the number of colleges under government is only 38 out 224. Whereas, the dominance of the private sector has gone up with 66 per cent of the colleges being run by private management, but by and large they are aided colleges. Besides, there has been a significant growth in self-financing or private unaided colleges with the number increasing to 38, which equals the number of government colleges in the state, he said.
According to him, the consequences of the growth in unaided sector as separate institutions in higher education are widely debated in terms of its impact on equity and excellence.
"But very little attention is focussed on the emergence and growth of unaided courses and self-financing centres within the private-aided colleges in the State," he said.
The reasons for the spread of unaided courses in aided colleges are many, he said. The most important factor is the policy of the State Government. The de-linking of pre-degree courses from the colleges from 1997 onwards created large idle infrastructure in the private-aided colleges.
The attempt to start new aided courses in these colleges was defeated by the Government and universities when permission was given to private managements to decide on the nature of these courses, he pointed out.
"This is most evident in the affiliated colleges under the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam. Similarly some of the managements in violation of university statutes started classes for courses of other universities in the private aided college campus." Colleges in the urban areas are doing good business in the name of distant education programme of other universities.
The off-campus programme of a university offered the best opportunity for private college managements to exploit the existing assets of the aided colleges to further their commercial interests, he alleged. Some of the colleges are utilising the services of regular teachers in the off-campus centres whose salaries are paid by the state government. The underpaid guest lecturers in regular colleges and off-campus stream present an instance of labour exploitation in higher education, he said.
"In all these cases public assets and personnel paid by the Government are utilised for private enrichment," he alleged. In addition, he said, the fees charged for these courses are prohibitively high. "The irony is that the off-campus centres are in the campus itself and distant education, which in normal circumstances should be cheap, is very expensive in the State".
All these actions of the private managements in the State have got the blessings of the authorities at different levels, he added.
The white paper published by the State Government in 2001 called for the establishment of self-financing colleges and the freedom for the managements to run the colleges as they like, he said. "Privatisation of public assets in higher education offers no income to the government or society," he claimed.