Sure you can open up shop. Just don't dare sell anything. Via a blog called
Education in India, I found
this article in the
Hindu from a couple of months back.
Call to ban commercialisation of education
NEW DELHI: Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is seeking more private investment in higher education, educationists want privatisation to be restricted "to the minimum desirable level." Also, they have called for a tax on the industry to raise resources for higher education.
Such is their angst against privatisation and commercialisation of higher education that the majority view at a recent meeting on the issue — organised by the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration — favoured a law banning such commercialisation. "All commercialisation of education, which should be unambiguously defined, should be banned by a suitable act of Parliament." This was one of the recommendations of the meeting of 64 eminent educationists here earlier this week.
The author of the
Education in India blog, Satya,
comments:
The State has, over the past 58 years, been unable to create enough opportunities to provide higher education for all through state funding alone and has pretty much abdicated its responsibility to the private sector. How many new state funded higher education institutions have been set up in the last ten years when compared to the number of new institutions set up in the private sector in the same period? Why should privatisation be restricted to a minimum desirable level, when the State is unable to meet the demand?
I think I detected a certain irony of tone in the next paragraph of the
Hindu's account of the educationists' views.
However, they are not closed to the idea of private participation. "Private investors in education may be encouraged. However, it must be made clear that this cannot be for profit-making purposes, in however disguised a form.
Thanks, guys. Now you've made that clear, why not just say, "Begone, hideous capitalist hellbound hellbeasts of hell" and have done with it?
posted by Natalie at 12:02 PM
