DUTA Press Release: 1 February 2017

The policy direction for education contained in the Finance Minister’s budget speech today is a recipe for social exclusion and decline of educational standards. It furthers the case for commercialisation of public funded institutions along with greater reliance on privatisation.


The proposal to grant autonomous status to colleges identified on the basis of accreditation and ranking is to incentivise commercialisation in the form of self-financing. The MHRD too has been emphasising greater financial autonomy i.e., less dependence on budgetary support and more on the market. It is absolutely clear that the Government is trying to peddle the idea that the quality of education will only improve by letting educational structures and contents be determined by market forces. It is neither interested in addressing the real issues that ail education, specifically higher education, nor sensitive to the inequalising effect of such a move.


The accreditation process enforced on universities and colleges already involves rating procedures that pushes them to switch to self-financing courses which have short-term marketability. The higher ranked colleges are being pushed further in this direction while the lower ranked ones are to suffer neglect like the government schools have.


Universities and colleges across the country already suffering from inadequate infrastructure and shockingly abysmal teacher-students ratio have been forced to adopt a Choice Based Credit System. The Government continues to turn a blind eye to the fact that such a more choice translates into expansion of infrastructure and more teachers. The Delhi University colleges are already finding it impossible to offer choices since the UGC refuses to sanction adequate number of teaching posts. The Finance Minister should have turned his attention to this severe problem.


It appears that the Finance Minister has expressed government obsession with reduction in public funding for education in his proposal to launch SWAYAM, an online portal similar to MOOCs for students to attend courses, be tested and receive academic grades. This is once again being peddled as a means to provide “quality education” in non-formal ways instead of strengthening public-funded institutions by greater funding towards teaching positions and infrastructure.


The DUTA condemns this attempt by the Government to implement parts of the Draft for Inputs into National Educational Policy which the Minister had announced as withdrawn after widespread protests across the country. We demand that these provisions be dropped and debates initiated before any education policy is formulated.


Note: Excerpts from the Budget Speech


50. In higher education, we will undertake reforms in the UGC. Good quality institutions would be enabled to have greater administrative and academic autonomy. Colleges will be identified based on accreditation and ranking, and given autonomous status. A revised framework will be put in place for outcome based accreditation and credit based programmes.


51. We propose to leverage information technology and launch SWAYAM platform with at least 350 online courses. This would enable students to virtually attend the courses taught by the best faculty; access high quality reading resources; participate in discussion forums; take tests and earn academic grades. Access to SWAYAM would be widened by linkage with DTH channels, dedicated to education.