Even as the country’s newly-appointed minister for human resource development, Kapil Sibal, has called for greater private participation in higher education to bridge the demand-supply gap, in Uttar Pradesh (UP) — India’s most populous and educationally backward state — the government is actively discouraging private education providers. During the past two months (June-July) the managements of private teacher training (B.Ed) colleges have repeatedly clashed with the state government on the issue of tuition fees.
Currently, UP hosts 700 colleges affiliated to 11 universities, which award B.Ed degrees to 60,000 graduates annually. While the tuition fees chargeable by 143 colleges were approved by a government committee in 2006 based on their infrastructure and facilities, the remaining 557 B.Ed colleges have been directed to restrict their fees to Rs.27,563 per year. However, according to the managements of private sector B.Ed colleges (which charge Rs.50,000-70,000 per year), the sanctioned amount is “ridiculously low”.
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Comments S.N. Awasthi, manager of the Dr. Asha Smriti Mahavidyalaya, Lucknow: “Lucknow University has decreed stringent infrastructure norms, and also stipulated faculty salaries. We don’t levy tuition fees upon SC/ST and OBC students as the government takes too long to reimburse the same. Therefore it’s unrealistic to expect that we will be able to meet university norms, if tuition fees are fixed so low. And if we don’t adhere to university norms, we are in danger of losing our affiliation. It is a vicious trap for private colleges.”
Not that private teacher training colleges in UP have a pristine track record. In January this year there were reports of two Lucknow-based colleges “selling” vacant seats just weeks before final exams for the 2007-08 academic year were held. Earlier in 2006 the state’s governor (the de jure chancellor of all state universities) sacked two vice chancellors — of Meerut and Agra universities — for anomalies in granting affiliation to B.Ed colleges with inadequate infrastructure.
Therefore the state government has been quick to act on student complaints of arbitrary fees and has issued show cause notices to 12 colleges in Lucknow and five in Allahabad. “These colleges will not be allowed to fleece students. We will cancel the affiliation of those which charge higher fees than permitted,” says the state’s minister for higher education Rakesh Dhar Tripathi. Already three college offices have been raided. In addition, cells have been established in all regional directorates of higher education to receive complaints from students.
Meanwhile the debate on the quantum of freedom private colleges have to determine their tuition fee structures is gathering steam. In 2002, a full strength 11-judge bench of the Supreme Court in T.M.A. Pai Foundation & Ors. vs. State of Karnataka & Ors ruled that private unaided institutions of professional education have a fundamental right to devise their own fees structures, subject to the condition that there’s no profiteering or capitation fees. In this landmark judgement the court permitted colleges to earn a “reasonable surplus” to fund future expansion and growth. In 2005 this Supreme Court judgement was confirmed in P.A. Inamdar’s Case. On the basis of these judgements of the apex court, a spate of petitions have been filed in courts across the country — and in UP — by private colleges demanding clarity on the issue.
In UP 90 institutions grouped under the umbrella of the Association of Private and Unaided Colleges filed a writ petition to strike down the order arbitrarily capping the fee chargeable by B.Ed colleges at Rs.27,563 per year. On June 19, an interim order of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court permitted them to levy tuition fees as per their reasonable requirement. However the court ruled that college managements can retain only Rs.27,563 of the fee levied, with sums in excess thereof to be deposited with the affiliating university until final disposal of the case or fixation of fees by the 2006 fees regulation committee.
Meanwhile, determined to have the last say, the Mayawati-led BSP govern-ment has appointed a five member committee under the chairmanship of Balraj Chauhan, vice chancellor of Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University, Lucknow to draft legislation which will bring about uniformity in the admission processes and fee structures of all professional and non-professional universities, and degree colleges in the state.
Quite obviously getting state govern-ments long accustomed to lording it over private education institutions, to concede administrative autonomy, is a long haul proposition. Supreme Court judgements notwithstanding.
Vidya Pandit (Lucknow)