Education Teh Role of Markets

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“Education makes people easy to lead but difficult to drive, easy to govern but difficult and impossible to enslave”

-Lord Borghuam

Education is linked with the development process. It has quite an enormous record since the time when the need for educating children & maintaining records etc. Was felt and systematic effort were carried out at different centers of human civilization.In our own country, beginning from the ‘furuleuls’ to the modern schools a lot of changes have taken place. Before the advent of British rule in India, the indigenous system of education was prevailing throughout the country to meet the local needs. Knowledge of simple arithmetic and language (local or code) was thought to be enough to prepare young people to engage themselves in their home professions.

The Britishers gave education a national shape but the schools they opened, aimed to prepare clerks to assist the smooth running of their administration. Most princely states did not like to educate the people because to them an educated mind might be a՚seeker of rights and prove trouble to them and their monarchial set up upto 1947, When India became a free state, there wasn՚t a noteworthy achievement in this field. The number of children on the national enrolment list was quite low and literacy rate was about 16.2% , as such the role of markets as regards education was insignificant.

When India became a republic based on adult franchise, an acute need was felt to educate the masses to make democracy a success. Since then, elimination of illiteracy has been one of the major concern of the government. The national policy on education approved by parliament in 1986, aims to establish a national system of education throughout the country to reinforce the integrative aspect of society and the culture and also to establish a ‘value system’ necessary for an egalatarian democratic and secular society. It lays down an overall curricular framework at the various stages of education to accomplish the concept which implies that all students irrespective of caste, creed, location or sex get education of comparable quality.

During the period of 1971 − 91 there has been a sharp rise in the literacy rate which is 29.5% to 52.11% . Awareness of education among common people developed and number of students not only at different academic level but also in technical and professional training centres, increased sharply. Consequently, education has become an industry, having quite a fast growing and promising market.

Today education is not only confined to more rote learning but more than that a practical experience and professional outlook have become a part of it. Clay P. Bedford has rightly remarked- “You can teach a student to learn a lesson for a day, But if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.” In fact, Curiosity towards learning has become a vital factor for promoting education all over the world and during the last decades of twentieth century ‘education market tree’ has taken deep roots. It now deals with library facilities, press, information bulletin, career programmer, guidance and counselling, health maintaining programs etc. Dr. Hari, Chairman, UGC, has very comprehensively laid down the objective of education saying- “The objective of our education should be full and integrated development of student՚s personality providing a balance of five essential components in this respect-Physical, Practical, Ethical, Moral & Intellectual besides highest sense of idealism, patriotism and service to Humanity.”

let՚s now think some such patterns which may provide us on idea about the structure of education market. It may be of the following six types-

Ameoba Type

Self Learning, horizontal teams are fluid based on emerging thoughts.

Guided by waterline principles (if high risky areas, check by key ones)

Ranks & titles are avoided-leadership is defined by the followers

Employees move around until they find a final area where they can add most of values.

Molecular Type

Entire type is represented by tactical, coordinative & strategic level.

Students focused with the educational units and all functions are represented.

Abacus Type

Abacus like matrix structure of manpower and countries.

Network transfer knowledge, provide support & open communication.

Able to escalate globally through sharing information.

Pizza Type

Competency based, students are resources

Resources are pizza base, competencies are toppings.

Reinventing self into flatter organizations, outward focus by project teams

Support services are matrixed to foster team development.

Culture of teaming spreads from top of organization.

Econets Type

Econet stricture shows small circles i.e.. . educational institutions

Markets are more efficient portfolio manager at time when world is moving on fast

Emphasis on speed & boldness in decision making, culture, remuneration & access to talent.

Spaghetti Type

No titles, no departments, no office space.

Small management, team sponsors and lead projects.

Key in information system & knowledge base.

Physically & organisationally informal.

Initiative intervene is open environment.

In the present century, the world economy is fast changing and the education sector is also passing through the same state. It is being revolutionized by the new developments is science and technology, Competition, media and internationalization. Higher education is shifting from national to global education; from՚state controlled to an open market economy. Today the education system is driven by market forces and has become a life long education for all. It is no longer teacher-centred. It has become learner-centred. Consequently, the established education system and practice are facing new challenger making necessary to reappraise the role and function of the universities, their administrative structure and management system. For this purpose effective steps are needed in different fields of the whole education system. The old techniques need to be replaced by the new ones. Well trained staff for making of efficient management is to be recruited which may lead to a drastic reduction, in the number of the present staff. Similarly, qualified and experienced teachers are to be engaged to carry out teaching, guidance and counselling in a well-planned manner so that young mass of required standards is obtained. For such achievements adequate finarrcial resources need to be made available to the universities. Often inadequacy of such sources leads to open adverse impact on the quality of higher education because necessary funds are not allotted to provide physical facilities, infrastructure and funds for the research and development works.

In development countries where education is not a monopoly of state, the education market is rapidly growing by and trying to foster all the developmental factors as lard down in our above mentioned structure. There new experiments are done and sophisticated weapons or equipment for learning and teaching are invented and marketed with a spirit of fair competition. The result is that in those countries a network of schools, colleges, universities, technical & professional institutions etc have sprung up & a learner faces no difficulty to get him enrolled in the institute of his liking.In India, where education has been a state affair, a remarkable progress has been made during the last fifty years. Here the modern education System is only 140 years old. The first three universities i.e.. . Calcutta, madders and Bombay were set up under the British rule in 1857. Today, India has 242 universities of which 18 are science and technology, 5 women universities, 8 open universities, 30 agriculture and 17 medical universities. There are 18 language universities, 16 central universities, 40 deemed universities, 169 state universities and 11 institutes of national importance. There are 10600 colleges of which 1260 are women and 119 are autonomous colleges. There are 7000 education training collages, 110 polytechnics, 600 management institutes, 550 engineering and technology collages and 170 medical collages. Enrolled strength of students in higher education is about 7.5 million and teachers number to 0.321 million. Around 74,000 have been enrolled for research and nearly 10,000 are awarded Ph. D. Every year.

Pandit Javaharlal Nehru thought of a university to be the highest centre of education. According to him- “A university stands for humanism, for reason, for the adventure of ideas and for search of truth. It stands for the onward march of human race towards ever higher objectives. It universities discharge their duties adequately then it is well with nation as well as people.” We don՚t know how far our universities succeed to achieve the goal established by Pt. Nehru but it is fact that all this progress in higher education has significantly influenced the Indian Economy by creating a vast body of highly skilled academic people equipped with Scientific & technological capabilities, humanist, philosophical thought and creativity. All important sectors related to education market have tremendously improved.

The progress at the elementary and the secondary stage during the last fifty years has also remarkably increased. We know that child is bound up in the web of school where he⟋she become aware of enormous facts of life. The school assist to develop the all round personality of a child with the help of interwoven relationships of child development programs. He is trained well before he enters the campus of university with a broadened outlook towards life. It is a long process & a well developed market can only provide all such requirements of child growth. He needs books, notebooks, begs, geometrical apparatus, scientific apparatus, different type of stationary article, dress material & a lot more.

Before liberalization in education, elementary & secondary education have mainly dealt with the state governments & annual budget of a state on education increased very rapidly. Thousand crores of ruppers are spend by the state governments. All this money too, come in the market directly or indirectly. As a results of it, production centres grew up and quite a significant hold has been established by education in the market.

Government shoes eagerness atteast to provide primary education as earlier article 45 of the directive principles of state policy provides provision for free and compulsory education of children. But recent 83rd amendment deleted this & inserted article 21A in list of right to freedom for the same provisional.

During the last decade, admission to the technical and professional courses stopped on the percentage basic of marks they obtained at there secondary or graduation levels. Entrance examinations in such fields started which gave rise to private tutoring and the establishment of coaching centers in almost all the big cities of candidates from different towns and villages joined the coaching centers. The result was the expansion of education market. It also opened chances of employment not only at the coaching centers but also at local markets for the purpose of providing lodging, boarding etc to the candidates.

Gradually, the education proved to be a business of profit yielding & stable nature. What to say of large cities, even in towns, schools at the nursery, primary & secondary levels sprang out in a great number.In many states the government loosened the restrictions of restrictions of registration & allocated land etc at very low cost to the persons or firms desiring investments on education.In this way, many schools & colleges started working side by side the government institutions. They got their affiliations from the local boards and even from central Boards.

Soon the people realized that the teaching standard of the so called private schools is better than that of the government schools. The result was that there was a rush at these schools. Even the people belonging to low income groups wanted their wards to be admitted in these groups. Many such schools adopted English as a medium of instructions & from the very beginning i.e.. . , nursery level the teaching of English became a part & parcel of the school circular. Many households also availed this opportunity and opened school upto elementary stage in their homes.

These school have their our uniforms, system of selling books, stationary est. To the students. Besides teaching they also started education markets in school premises.

The advanced states like Maharashtra have already a good member of school & colleges run by private institutes. The big industrialists have their own school &training centers. Many technical & professional colleges like engineering colleges, Medical colleges, Dental colleges etc. Are run by private undertakings.

After the implementation of fifth pay commission recommendations even the poor states like Rajasthan, Bihar etc. Also felt a need of curtailment in the budget provisions made for social services. They made attractive relaxations for private undertakings to invest their funds in the establishment of schools, colleges hospitals etc. The present position is that new throughout India, education market has opened opportunities for investors. Cities like Bangalore, Calcutta, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Ahmadabad, Jaipur, etc. Have turned to be renowned learning centers. Many institutions of these cities have established links with famous foreign universities &in this way whole world is becoming a ‘global education market’

Education is the necessity of development, with government unable to find funds for it, it has diverted to the take of liberalization & privatization to maintain a standard for it.

With liberalization onset, privatization became a major part of Business like. As privatization flourished, it started to capture education & Service sector as market place for their upheaval. With the ever increasing competition, the universities, School & colleges which have been privatized started to provide a materialistic outlook to education. “One can have one՚s dream come true if the pockets are full.” This materialistic approach drastically changed the scholastic approach towards the goal. Gradually in the market these private institutes provide a ‘value based quality approach’ whereas the government with fewer resources in hand, can provide only ‘formal quantity approach.’ This created a controversial situation between the government meritorious Scholastic students & dull materialistic students of private institute who by good facilities & quality education Sometimes Surpass the government students in professional & specialized fields.

No doubt, it has become the need of the hour. The private sector being benefitted by Scientific & Technical knowledge can also take an active part in opening their own training centers. This is all the more due to need of the outbreak of technological revolution. Technological development in field of communication, electronics, computers etc require an education & well trained manpower which the public sector alone cannot afford due to shortage of funds.

Graduate tax on users of output of higher education institutions that is corporate sector which is the biggest user of educated manpower as the Suggested by the world Bank. The Ramamurti committee indicated that it would affect the economic stability of corporate sector & decrease employment opportunities.

But after all commercialization should be stopped as India՚s educational institutes are a decorum to this system which has to see even the poorest of the poor in India reaps advantages of education & to search for talents among those who are never cared off. Charging of Capitation fee is a manifestation of tendency to extract maximum possible profit from what one calls the extract ‘industry’

Mr. S. Bhide of National Council of Applied Economic Research states “Services-led growth has its own limitation. We will require a much greater level of skills to sustain growth in that area especially if we are meeting the export demands.”

Knowledge based industries like information technology, biotech, pharmaceuticals & health services are fostering areas to develop & explore the hidden potentials. With education market՚s ever extending claws, it is has captured now the technological & applied sector. This sector is a major boost up for service led production & research & development projects to identify the sectoral problems & tackle them if it wants to join a big league. As in this new age labour is replaced by a knowledge. Mechanical jobs are either on a path to be eliminated or entrusted on machines. Personal progress is now linked education, the need will be for the service providers to reach them inexpensively & ubiquitously.

The present system needs ‘value based orientation’ which would not only confine the child & teacher to a formal relationship but to achieve a higher level of inner self which in turn must work for cause of society, nation & humanity.

What this education market tree hopes to provide is not only a numerous branches but also shelter to the wishers.

What all we have achieved in the last fifty years is a sense of confidence for our education ‘industry’ a willingness to compare ourselves with others in the world.

let՚s remember-

“Excellence is not a destination but a continuous journey that never ends”