The crown prince of Congress party made his debut in the parliamentary innings recently. His fifteen minutes on the crease made the audience to cheer the young scion of Nehru dynasty and gear up for better education. Although this is his first budget speech, earlier he made an attempt to raise a question regarding the sugarcane price in Uttar Pradesh. Rahul struck an emotional chord about the fate of education in the country. Probably that was the reason why even the opposition members got up to applaud him for the sensitive and serious intervention in the Parliament.

Truly, Rahul deserves appreciation for putting the vital social issue on the radar of his fellow parliamentarians and attracting the national attention to the bleak future of India’s education system. He rightly mentioned about the quality difference between government and private schools. The people with money can afford to send their children to posh private schools but not those who are in the below poverty line. There is no choice for poor students except attending the government schools where there is only pathetic infrastructure and poor quality teaching. In fact inequality is bred from childhood. Although Rahul got the pulse of the people correctly he did not articulate his strategy to solve the problems faced by the education sector.

Increasing the fund allocation is not the solution to massive illiteracy and below quality education. Ensuring an effective mechanism to impart best of the education should be the line of thinking for the young M.P. He should recall his father’s famous statement in 1985, “Out of one rupee allocated for development, only 13 paise reaches the concerned people”. No change in the last twenty years and in fact the situation has worsened to such an extent where there is a complete apathy of bureaucrats and politicians towards the timely delivery of social goods to deprived citizens. Report after report mentions the huge unspent money on education. Especially in the most backward states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh nearly half of the allocated money for social sector remains unused. In this scenario, mere hike in the education spending is not going to solve the problem.

The alternative should be to encourage philanthropists to take up education in the rural and unreachable areas of the country. Removing the hurdles faced by the private edupreneurs in meeting the challenges of education will help them to solve the problems in five years time than the government doing the same in next twenty years. Hundreds of licenses are required to start a school that punctures the enthusiasm of ordinary people to do their bit for the improvement of education. Now Rahul should fight for removing the legal and political hassles faced by common people in providing quality education.

He should pitch in for complete government withdrawal from the education sector. As per the constitution, government is the guarantor of elementary education for every Indian. In the last fifty-eight years the progress of government delivery is dead slow and promises no hope in the future also. By outsourcing the job of quality education provision to philanthropists and edupreneurs, the huge strength of government staff in the education department can be better utilized for facilitation and monitoring of quality education in the country.

With state controlled education there is no scope for objective and meaningful learning process. BJP will glorify Golwarkar, Communists will continue to praise Marxian thinking that is unsuited for Indian society and Congress may celebrate only Nehruvian model of development. In the state controlled education students will be prevented from knowing the multiple possibilities and make their own choice of development. The future challenge is not only providing elementary education for all but also giving qualitative skill development. To shine in the knowledge economy, a serious attention of every stakeholder is essential on the issue of quality cum quantity education. Once the charismatic M.P from Ameti starts speaking the correct solution to the current problems of education the entire government and Congress party can move in the right direction. Till Rahul speaks and acts for no state control of education, his speech will remain as one time golden parliamentary intervention and sensation creation.

There is an air of unease prevailing in the country regarding the announcement of reservations for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the higher educational institutions. Continuing with the vote bank consolidation measures, Arjun Singh, the Union minister for Human Resources Development without even considering the election commission rules in force went ahead to excite the community about the 27 percent quotas for OBCs in elite institutes like IITs, IIMs, and other central universities. After a strong snub from the E.C he clarified that it is an impending decision. This method of addressing the concerns and problems of backward communities are faulty in many fronts. But the most significant among them are three: No measures to ensure quality primary education for OBCs, lack of financial support after the admission and across the board reservation for OBCs will benefit only the well off people.

What is new in this move? Already states like Tamil Nadu, Andra Pradesh, Karnataka have enforced the massive reservation for OBCs in the state run colleges and universities. Now the OBC students without any cream differences can enter the portals of the prestigious institutions administered by the central government. There is no filtering of economically and socially deserving students in this new announcement. Across the OBC board reservation is not going to remove the poverty among this section of the people. It simply divides the people and creates communal tensions. A convinced and willful ruler needs not to be bothered about the uprising against his right move. But in this case the intention is not to uplift the backward communities through quality education. Several questions need concrete answers before going ahead with the implementation of this parliamentary approval.

It is important to probe thoroughly into the fruits of existing reservation programmes for the deprived sections. How far the government intentions of transforming the lives of backward communities have helped them in the past? To what extent the affirmative programmes have worked out in the last six decades? In the absence of any strong empirical evidence it is difficult to either deny the positive aspect or negative ramifications. Most of the secret surveys conducted by the Central government to assess these programmes are not released for public consumption. Immediately the union government should make available the previous studies about the reservation impact to the public knowledge.

According to the Government of India estimates there is more than 70 percent dropout rate among the SC/ST students after admission into the higher educational institutions. This is due to the lack of financial support for the students to sustain their living in the campus.

It is sad that the higher educational institutions that are supposed to change the backward marching country into forward thinking one through sound syllabus and academic atmosphere are indulged in completely polar opposite activities. For instance the millennium goal of the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University was “To construct a separate SC/ST hostel”. After strong objections from some students this dark dream of the university was taken out of the millennium goal pamphlet. Even now there is a separate application forms exists for SC/ST and other students. In a way caste discrimination proliferates from the time the students enter educational institutions. Instead of working for casteless society no wonder that the students of high profile universities and colleges fight for caste based mobility in all the areas of their life. In short politically motivated reservation exacerbates caste based conflicts and tensions.

If the government is truly keen in its announcements and efforts to improve the conditions of socially poor people then it should start with the mitigation of the educational system from the childhood. In the absence of adequate financial means to avail the basic education, students from the deprived sections will be prevented from entering the higher education. In that situation any amount of reservation will either go unfilled or packed with financially sound OBCs candidates.

There are several peanut schemes been run to showcase the government of the day’s concerns for the poor people. In reality not even one percent of these programmes are effective. In paper the scheme has been described so appealing but due to the poor financial allocations and large number of beneficiaries the amount disbursed to the poor children are pathetically inadequate. Sample this scheme: In Tamil Nadu, Perarignar Anna Memorial Award is given at the rate of Rs.3000/- per annum per student for four/ five years to two boys and two girls belonging to Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes/Denotified Communities, who have secured the highest and next highest marks among the BC / MBC /DNC students in each district in the Twelfth Standard State Board Examination and joining Professional Degree Courses. How much can backward class students do with Rs. 3000 per annum in a professional college? The government schemes are just tokens and vote catching tricks.

Mostly the private individuals support them. Those who don’t have access to the wealthy circles lead a beggarly life despite getting admitted to prestigious colleges. In short inferiority complex among the backward community students have been bred in the higher educational institutes. A student’s life is not just tution fees and books. Proper nutritious food and minimum recreation are required. Economically backward students get discriminated in the classroom on the basis of their outlook and caste pronouncements everywhere.


Knowing well the sad state of backward students in higher education, the central government had created Backward Class Finance Development Corporations, SC/ST Finance Development Corporations to fund the education and entrepreneurial skills of the deprived communities. The amount of corruption and bureaucratic maneuvers in these commissions really frustrates poor students who with all hope approach them for financial aid.

An Equal Opportunity Office (EOO) was established in the central universities to check the caste discriminations. Especially among the backward community students. Most of the EOOs are headed by faculty members or officers from the deprived sections. But the amounts of indifference they show to the students from poor background are really discouraging and depressing for the students who are in desperate need of some assistance.

With all round corruption prevalent everywhere, caste certificates are not difficult to procure. An upper caste candidate can get SC certificate easily for Rs. 50. Many cases of relevant certificates forgery across the country are regular feature. Even some of the eminent judges and civil servants were accused of producing fake birth and caste certificates.

At this stage of acid test for development of the nation, government should not lose sight of the inherent problems. Education vouchers should be introduced from the elementary school level to create an equal ground for all students. Government should stop funding schools and colleges and start financing students who really deserve. This model of funding will make the teachers accountable to their job and reduce their high rate of absenteeism. Funds in the hands of students in the form of vouchers can improve quality of education by creating competition and eliminating inequality of all sorts. This is a radical step but a social revolution creating method to remove the centuries of social inequality in the Indian society.