The Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Regulation of Collection of Fee) Bill 2011 (MEI Bill) passed by the Maharashtra state legislative assembly in August 2011, is pending the assent of President Pratibha Patil in New Delhi. The Bill, which will replace the Prohibition of Capitation Fee Act, 1987, was drafted and passed by the assembly after the Mumbai-based Forum for Fairness in Education (FFE) filed a PIL (public interest litigation) in the Bombay high court on September 2, 2010 praying for a directive to the state government to regulate the “exorbitant fees” charged by inter-national primary-secondaries affiliated with offshore examination boards such as IBO (Geneva) and CIE (UK), among others. The PIL was filed after the court quashed a Government Resolution (GR) that sought to restrict and regulate fee hikes in private unaided schools.
Under s.4 of the Bill, every school is obliged to constitute a PTA (Parent Teacher Association) which is obliged to elect a parents-dominated executive committee to approve the tuition fee proposed by the management within 30 days, failing which the management can refer its proposal to the government appointed divisional fee regulation committees (DFRCs) chaired by retired district judges. If there’s less than 15 percent difference between the tuition fees proposed by the management and executive committee, the latter’s decision is binding on the management (s.6(5)). If it’s more than 15 percent, the DFRC’s decision is final (s.6(a)(c)). Moreover under s.9 (i), the Bill lays down criteria under which the PTA executive committee of each school should determine the total fees levied — status of the school, allotment cost and opportunity cost of the land, reasonable surplus required for growth and development, and expenditure on administration and maintenance.
According to Jayant Jain, president of FFE, the MEI Bill is an “eye wash”. “The Bill does not impose a ceiling on the maximum amount of fees that can be collected by private schools. Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have succeeded in legislating a cap on school tuition fees, why can’t we do likewise here?” asks Jain. “Also the authority for approving the fees has been given to PTA executive committees in which parents have little clout. Moreover, under the provisions of the Bill, only the PTA or the school management can complain to the DFRC, and that too, only if the fee hike proposed by the school management is 15 percent higher than agreed to by parents. According to our reading of the Bill, school managements are now free to hike their fees by 15 percent every year.”
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Inevitably, promoters of private unaided schools have a differing point of view. “A school which has been built on government land and avails tax benefits and other incentives, or which is run by a trust, should be treated differently from a school which has been built from the resources of an individual or corporate. It militates against commonsense and the rules of natural justice that the latter should be forced to charge the same fees as the former. All private schools can’t be lumped together,” says Dr. Vinay Jain of the Witty group of educational institutions, which includes the CIE (UK)-affiliated Witty International School (estb.1999) in Malad, Mumbai.
According to knowledgeable moni-tors of the K-12 education scene, in this debate centred around middle class anxiety to obtain private school education at minimal price, larger issues have become obscured. “In an incr-easingly competitive market, there will always be an invisible ceiling on tuition fees charged by private schools. Besides, it shouldn’t be overlooked that IB and CIE schools pay huge royalties to their affiliating international exam boards, which also insist that teachers are trained by them. All this costs money and the price has to be paid by parents. International schools provide great libraries and learning centres, labs and other facilities that make learning wholesome. That’s why their fees are high,” says Preeti Singh, whose two children attend Mumbai’s showpiece Dhirubhai Ambani International School.
Adds Dr. Vandana Lulla, director and principal of Podar International School, Mumbai, which offers the IB and CIE curriculums: “People should realise that if they want high quality education to make their children global citizens, high-quality teaching facilities and infra-structure are required. Therefore high fees are inevitable.”
But with middle class India accustomed to electricity, water, higher education etc subsidies, it wants — and demands — subsidies in secondary education as well, even at the cost of inviting the Trojan horse of government into cherished private schools. Hence, the elaborate charade of fees regulation committees. They need to note that fee regulation committees have bedevilled professional (medicine, engineering etc) education, and are likely to dumb down private schools as well.
Jayanthi Mahalingam (Mumbai)
Digital crime apathy
Although pune (pop. 5.5 million), 192 km to the south-east of Mumbai, has established its reputation as the second academic and industrial hub (after Mumbai) of Maharashtra (pop.112 million) — India’s most industrialised state accounting for 25 percent of national industrial production — the benefits thereof are not evident in academia.
This is apparent from the failure of the Pune Police Commissionerate (PPC) to establish cyber awareness groups (CAGs) in higher education institutions in this academic hub, which boasts 600 colleges and technical education institutes. Of the 378 colleges affiliated with the University of Pune, only 40 have established CAGs. The PPC’s attempts to generate awareness within the city’s student body about the growing instances of cyber crime, changes in cyber laws and their implications for internet users, have proved a damp squib.
Meeran Baravankar, the city’s police commissioner says promotion of CAGs is socially beneficial as students are especialy susceptible to cyber crime as they constitute the majority of internet and social networking site users, and also use mobile phones extensively. A rough estimate suggests there are 500,000 students studying in Pune’s higher education institutions. “They need to understand what acts constitute a cognisable offence under the amended Information Technology (IT) Act of 2008,” says Rajendra Dahale, deputy commissioner of police (cyber cell).
“The previous IT Act, 2000 had many provisions which were non-cognisable which were major hurdles in acting against offenders. However, the amended IT Act, 2008 has many cognisable provisions and mandates stringent punitive action against cyber criminals. For instance, if a student receives an SMS from another student which is objectionable, he can file an FIR against the sender under s.66(1) of the IT Act, 2008 which stipulates immediate arrest and imprisonment,” explains Dahale.
According to PPC sources, cyber crime offences are rising at an annual rate of 80-90 percent in recent years as against the 10-12 percent growth of other crimes such as murder, dacoity and grievous bodily harm. This is evidenced by the number of offences reported to the police’s cyber cell. Only five cyber offences were reported in 2003 after which the numbers grew steadily to 79 in 2006, 271 in 2009, 400 in 2010 and about 498 in 2011. “Upto 30 percent of these cases were related to the so-called Nigerian frauds which fool people into transferring huge amounts of money in response to e-mails promising them millions of dollars of illegally stashed hoards in Swiss banks, slush accounts and the like. Credit card frauds and phishing attacks followed (25 and 20 percent) and 10 percent were data thefts,” says Dahale.
Against this backdrop of a sharp increase in cyber crime, the Pune police feels that promotion of CAGs in colleges and other higher education institutions will aid the police and economic offences wing in cyber crime prevention. “Unfortunately, the students community hasn’t responded enthusiastically. Under the scheme, each CAG will comprise one professor or teacher and six students, preferably in their final year degree programmes,” says a Pune Police spokesperson.
Typically, the state government’s bureaucracy and PPC haven’t publicised this initiative sufficiently. Many of the colleges that your correspondent contacted aren’t even aware of PPC’s CAG promotion programme. “We did receive a letter from the police about establishing such a group and we tried to do so, but the initial positive response from students soon petered out,” says the principal of a technical institute, who preferred to remain anonymous.
Shirish Ghote, a final year engineering student of Pune’s MIT College, says most students know about cyber crimes, especially those who use the internet regularly. “But with our heavy schedule of studies and projects, it isn’t possible to find time for such activities,” he says.
Meanwhile, the Pune police has stepped up its efforts and sent another circular to colleges with the warning that it may soon become mandatory to establish CAGs. “We are hopeful this initiative will attract students’ interest soon,” says Dahale.
Huned Contractor (Pune)