India's Education Commercialization

Abstract

P. Bagla's News & Analysis “Faculties wither as higher education system rapidly expands” (29 April, p. [524][1]) spells out the problems with India's expanding higher education system, but it does not identify the root of the problem: India's neglect of the primary and secondary school education systems. Much of India's population can only afford to send their children to government schools, which are mostly in shambles. The children of the wealthiest go to commercial private schools, which are expensive yet still not of high quality relative to truly private schools, such as nonprofit private schools funded by trusts. Perhaps the only exceptions to this rule are the nonprofit, trust-run private schools, which are few in number and extremely expensive because they do not receive government grants. The low quality of India's primary and secondary education contributes in turn to the low quality of higher education in the country. The Indian Parliament passed a Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act in August 2009, but it has already proved to be ineffective, acting only as a way to funnel public funds into private, commercial schools. (The act requires 25% of all seats of private schools to be reserved for the poor and requires the government to pay the fees, instead of devoting these government funds to improving public schools.) Unless India bans commercialization of school education and adopts a public school system similar to that of the United States, France, and other countries, the problem that Bagla describes in the News Focus story will persist. The present education system cannot produce the teachers that India requires. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.332.6029.524