Just what makes the present kerfuffle about AIIMS, IITs and IIMs similar to the high noon of disinvestment in the public sector? The political opposition to the disinvestment process was quite straightforward. The government, said the critics, should not sell the crown jewels of the public sector to give the private sector a leg up. If it wanted to develop its own strength, the private sector had to find its own steam. Once the regime changed at the Centre in 2004, that opposition to disinvestment, especially of profitable companies, was written into the Common Minimum Programme of the government.
In that context, what should we call the present running battle the government?s different departments are waging with the few good technical educational institutions we have? Sure, no one is selling off the land and buildings of these institutions, but the repeated hauling up of the administration of these institutes are a good enough substitute. One could call it surrogate disinvestment in the education sector. ?
The repeated knocks have done two things. At one level, they have demoralised the faculty in many of these institutions, which in turn would have an insidious impact on the quality that made each of these centres of excellence stand out. At another level, it would make any bright scholar in any of these fields far less keen to join these institutes. Instead, she would opt for their counterparts in the private sector.
It is here that the parallels become all too vivid. If successive governments were wrong to run down the public sector at a time when private manufacturing was gathering steam, now when the education sector is at the cusp of an investment boom, instead of going hell for leather to promote quality at the IIMs and IITs, a similar running down of these educational institutions is taking place. What is worse is that it is all being done under the garb of helping the institutions.
Promoting new IIMs and IITs in such an environment will only encourage mediocrity if the original role models become a shadow of their past glory.
Let me make it clear?there is nothing particularly sacrilegious for the government to develop a sector and then turn it over to the private sector for future development. It is just that this simple aphorism seems a little too difficult for the Indian government to accept. For instance, disinvestment was expected to develop synergies between the public and private sectors that, in turn, would benefit Indian industry. But the disinvestment programme fell through. Instead, the government is now committed to spreading its thin resources over 235 public sector companies?good, bad and ugly?without much of an economic plan, while large swathes of the private sector have moved ahead to take on the world.
Similarly, what prevents the government from allowing the private sector to invest deeply in the best of our higher educational institutions and promote a similar synergy? A la the manufacturing boom of the earlier decade, it is time for an education boom. The sector needs fresh investments. Every report on the Indian education scene says there is a terrible shortage of supply of good institutes. So, setting up a clutch of new ones should keep the assorted ministries busy for the conceivable future. Instead, devoting time to make the best of our institutes haemorrhage yields the worst of all available alternatives. Good teachers have already begun moving out. Sadly, they are often moving to private schools that are plain teaching shops, as the government sits on plans for quality investment by good private sector entities. The government?s moral guardians on the Left are, of course, quite pleased with this round of disinvestment. The sorry status of Presidency college in Kolkata is a pretty good example of what they think of quality in higher education.
The private sector will soon move on to develop its own stellar performers in this field, while the original role models under the government form the newest narrative of disinvestment gone sour.