All India Forum for Right to Education urges Centre not to sign education agreement

Coimbatore: The All India Forum for Right to Education (AIFRTE) has requested the Centre to not to sign the WTO-GATS (General Agreement on Trade and Services) in education sector. India is expected to sign the agreement at a final meeting to be held at Nairobi on December 15. The members of AIFRTE said that if the Centre signs this agreement, it would change the entire higher education system in India.

The organising secretary of AIFRTE, Ramesh Patnaik said, education is everyone’s right but WTO is taking it as a service. If the Centre is signing the agreement, Indian education policies would be entirely changed. There will be various types of agitations at the district level protesting against the agreement.

The agreement will allow foreign direct investment in the higher education sector, under which foreign universities would establish universities and colleges in India. The professors and teachers from abroad will come here and collect service charges for rendering service in institutions.

P. B. Prince Gajendra Babu, general secretary of State Platform for Common School System said that this will change the entire education system. “We will also be forced to close higher education institutions if the agreement comes in to force. The students who are receiving education through correspondence from a foreign supplier and the students, who go to foreign countries to pursue higher education, will have to pay the service charges.”

The students will also not receive scholarship and the colleges will not get grants from the government. The government has already reduced Rs 4, 000 crore for the education sector while announcing the budget. If the agreement is signed with the WTO-GATS, education for underprivileged or economically poor section and for the common man will become difficult. Higher education will only be for one section of society, he added.