I was in Christ College, Irinjalakkuda, last week; was happy to spend close to three hours there, interacting with the faculty.
It was my first visit to the college. As soon as I entered the campus, I was struck by the sensitivity to nature seen everywhere on the campus. The trees bear inscriptions that urge everyone to be environmentally caring and responsible.
It is an institution established and maintained by the CMI fathers. I am familiar with several of their institutions. This Catholic order does a commendable job by way of running quality educational institutions of higher education. I was delighted to learn that money is not exacted from students of faculty via admissions and appointments.
There is, however, a problem. The courses introduced, since the college became autonomous, have been on self-financing mode. This means they are not subsided through grant-in-aid. At the same time, the government regulates the fees with evident callousness. The result is that teachers appointed under this scheme are paid far less than their counterparts in the grant-in-aid scheme.
This is an atrocity not just on the teachers who are exploited in this fashion. It is an injustice also to students who may not get the sort of educational stability and quality they deserve.
The college is not to blame in this. The central and state governments are. Institutions in this category are choked from two ends -regulation of fees and denial of grant.
I did a rough calculation, when I was serving St. Stephen's, on how much subsidy each student in Delhi was receiving in 2015 via grant-in-aid. It was a little over Rs 1 lakh annually.
Students in the self-financing stream are getting zero subsidy. There is outrageous discrimination between the two streams of students, for no fault of theirs.
State governments do not allow autonomous college running self-financing courses to charge even a quarter of the subsidy that a student in Delhi colleges was getting. How are they to get quality education?
As per the information I have from diverse parts of Kerala, a teacher appointed under the self-financing scheme gets around Rs 20,000 per month. This is about the salary my peon was receiving. This is an outright insult.
Overlooking all this, political rhetoric goes on trumpeting the rapid rise in enrollment rates. From 9 per cent about 4 years ago it is reported to have jumped to 24 per cent. What this means is that statistics is a very helpful thing to those in power. It serves to mask ground realities. Much of the quantitative improvement -the number of students admitted from among those eligible for admission- to colleges has gone up. But it is, sadly, at the cost of quality. The story of higher education today is simply this: quantity is crushing quality.
The much-trumpeted improvement in enrollment ratio is somewhat like this. You bought a pair of shoes. It turned out to be on size shorter. So, what did you do? You went out and bought three shoes (a pair and a half) two sizes smaller and cheaper in quality. You went to town showing off your three shoes, ensuring that your admiring listeners have no means to get to stop and realise the stupidity hidden in the achievement.
But this is not what surprises me most. What really shocks me is the gross indifference of the public. In theory, nothing is more important for the clamorous, argumentative Indian middle class -numbering about 400 million- than education. Education is also widely regarded as a key factor in nation-building and development. The government collects humongous amounts -thousands of crores- through educational cess of 4 per cent on taxable income. It is not clear as to what is done with this money. Even as more and more funds are collected from tax payers under pretext of improving educational facilities and quality for their children, the government keeps retreating farther and farther away from educational responsibilities.
Higher education is being willfully, systematically degraded. And this doesn't concern anyone! Nobody talks about; not even political parties in a crucial election year!
I remember meeting Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi chief minister, in 2015. He was excited that St. Stephen's was voted the best college in India among some 40,000 institutions in its category that year. He invited me to have tea with him in his office. He ensured that Manish Sisodia, the education minister, was also present. In the course of the conversation he asked, "Father Thampu, what should be the foremost priority of my government?"
"Education," I said, without having to stop and think.
Arvind's face lighted up. "You will be happy to know," he said, "that we have doubled the allocation for education in our budget for this year as compared to last year. We will continue to invest in education. Our goal is to bring Delhi government schools up to the level of the best private schools."
It turned out to be true when the budget was passed in the Delhi assembly three weeks later.
I do not belong to any party. But nothing will prevent me from acknowledging what is good in a party. The AAP, as a party, is not an ideal political outfit. It has its rashes and hiccups. But no party comes near it for its commitment to the welfare of the people.
That is also the reason why the AAP is deemed enemy number one both by major political parties and the corporates. The funny thing is good governance and people's welfare are incompatible! At least, that is the essence of the corporate wisdom.
Let us return to Christ College. I felt proud that the institution was trying to do its best under hard conditions. The principal was appreciative of the teachers in the self-financing scheme who, despite being grossly underpaid, were soldiering on with dignity.
I found the teachers as a whole keen and attentive. It is not easy to listen to an old man for three hours continuously. And I was talking, most of the time, on the spiritual underpinnings of education. It is not the sort of stuff that interests many these days. But they did!
(The writer is former principal, St Stephen’s College, Delhi)
