Private players moot education monitor

The Telegraph (Kolkata), Dec 2, 2010
BASANT KUMAR MOHANTY

New Delhi, Dec. 1: A group of private educational institutions has proposed the creation of a watchdog association that will ensure quality control and transparency in its functioning.


Representatives of 11 institutes, including Manipal University, BITS Pilani, XLRI Jamshedpur, SP Jain Institute of Management, Mumbai, and the Indian institutes of information technology in Hyderabad and Bangalore, placed the proposal before human resource minister Kapil Sibal last week.

“We discussed how to bring quality (control) and transparency among private educational institutions. One idea is to create a body that will engage with such institutions to reform their functioning and put in place a transparent system,” Bibek Banerjee, the director of IMT Ghaziabad, said.

The proposal is significant in view of a growing perception that some private institutions charge capitation fees but fail to provide quality education to students. A committee on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education, headed by Prof. Yashpal, had recently highlighted malpractices in such institutes.

Although the proposal is at a preliminary stage, sources said the watchdog body is expected to lay down quality parameters with respect to faculty, teaching methods and infrastructure.

Private institutes that agree to be monitored by this body would have to disclose details on faculty, number of seats, fee structure, infrastructure and other facilities on their websites, the sources said. It is not known how institutes that choose to stay out of its purview will function.

Apart from floating the watchdog proposal, the representatives urged Sibal to ensure private educational institutions are given loans at priority rates to set up additional infrastructure. They also appealed to the government to encourage research in their institutions.

A human resource ministry official said the institutions had been asked to chalk out how they proposed to improve the quality of education and submit a report soon.

The Yashpal committee had said one of the problems with private institutions was the way teachers were treated. Often, they were paid very low salaries and treated with little respect, which discouraged competent persons from joining the institutions, the committee said.

At times, the teachers were asked to work in more than one institution belonging to the same management. There were also reports of teachers being paid for only nine out of 12 months and actual payments being less than the salaries promised on paper, the committee said.

There were some instances of teachers’ certificates and degrees and passports being impounded by the management, the committee said. Many institutes also charged capitation fees of Rs 1-10 lakh for engineering courses, Rs 20-40 lakh for MBBS courses and Rs 5-12 lakh for dental courses depending on demand.