" Solution " to Reservation in Higher Education

Sunil Joshi, guest contributor to Gaurav's Vantage Point has interesting, market oriented solution for Reservation in Education. Simply put. he advocates liberlising the education sector so that anyone can provide any type of education, at a fee that market can bear.Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty advocates the same thing while talking to Shekhar Gupta in" Walk the Talk".

Idea is good,but can it be implemented successfully? our past expirience is not encouraging. Today all the educational institutes have to take permission from Govt. Dept. of Higher Edu.,Proffessional bodies and various other authorities including UGC. Still IIPM and Amity flourish. When Jharkhand Govt. liberalised education, many institutes of Higher(!) education opened in that state with 2-3 room campuses. Finally Supreme Court had to intervene in the matter and banned them. Maharastra and Karnataka have highest number of institutes for higher education , and when there is inspection after public outcry,it's reported that many dont have basic facilities,faculty or staff and equippments/Labs.Medical colleges dont have clinical material(Patients).I know many Doctors with MD/MS who cant perform simple operations independentlly.Many have not seen routine operations during theirMedical edu..These days almost all commerce colleges in Mumbai offer Diploma/Degree in management, are these worth anything?Many of them get job offer with salary of 1-1.5 Lac/PA.

Now imagine the state of affairs if we liberalise the educational field completelly. Yes if stringent conditions are applied than we will get a good institution, but buisnessman is not interested in that. He will get it sanctioned by providing minimum of facility,paying low salary to teachers, and bribing or bringing political,communal or castist pressure. How will a parent or student will evaluate these institution or their fees, their programme & courses offered(Whats that in indian Context?). You must have seen advt. for computer classes-NIIT,APTECH etc- how many student understand what is offered and whether fees are appropriate?.

To liberalise education completelly, we require dedicated educationists,philanthropists who will donate huge sums to start good institutes and vigilant govt. and knowledgeble public. Unfortunatelly we have none and wont see them in forseeable future.