Aisa National Campaign Against Modi Governments Attack on Higher Education

National Campaign

Save Higher Education from the Policy Offensive

of the Central Government

All India Students Associationwww.aisa.in

Released: Com Sucheta De (AISA National President) Contact +91 9868383692

Join Uswww.aisa.inJoin AISA in FBhttps://www.facebook.com/officialaisa

Resist Binding Commitments to WTOResist CBCSRepeal Central University Bill Stop Funding Private Institutions

Through RUSA

Join Education Parliament

5 Aug, Jantar Mantar, New Delhi

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It has been more than a year since the BJP-led government came to power at the centre. Far from

ensuring their pre-election commitments made to the youth, what we see today are hu rried attempts by

the central government to destroy existing educational institutes and to make higher education more

inaccessible for a vast majority of the countrys population. Realising the urgent need of the hour,

AISA has started a nation-wide campaign Save Education, Save Country to mobilize students and

exert pressure on the government to withdraw its anti-education policies. As we enter this

campaign, it is important to understand the urgency of the situation and implications of these policies.

Binding Commitments at WTO: Preparations by the Central Government to Sell Away

Higher Education to Profit Driven Global Capital

In August 2005, the UPA had submitted its offers for Market Access in Higher Education Sub-Sector

to WTO, as a part of the Doha Round of trade negotiations. The current BJP-led government is

preparing to make these offers a binding commitment on part of the Government of India, thus

converting education into a tradable service. If these offers are not withdrawn immediately, they will

have several implications for higher education in the country:

It will open flood gates for profit-driven foreign corporates to open substandard educational

institutions in the country. A report of a survey by World Bank in 2000 on foreign educational

providers is on record stating that well-known universities of Developed Countries established

low standard branches in backward countries.

These commitments would seriously compromise the countrys sovereignty to the WTO regime and

make the MHRD more accountable to WTO than to the people of India.

The GoI will be bound to cut subsidies to state-funded institutions in education, in order to provide a

level playing field for foreign corporates to trade in education.

We have w itnessed the great agricultural crisis and farmers distress in our country because of WTO

diktats in the arena of agriculture. If we allow the government to go ahead with this plan to commit to

WTO, higher education and students of the country will also face the same fate.

Imposition of Choice Based Credit System in Universities:

After a prolonged struggle that saw the exit of the disastrous FYUP programme, the spectre of

FYUP-style experiments are back to haunt not only DU, but all Indian Universities and this

time in a new avatar, titled- Choice Based Credit System or the CBCS!

What indeed is CBCS? As per the UGC guidelines, The CBCS provides choice for students to

select from the prescribed courses (Core, elective or minor or soft skill course) and complete a

number of prescribed credits for the degree. Just like the FYUP, CBCS too is being sold with



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several misleading, high-sounding and baseless claims of f lexibility/ choice /mobility for

students. How valid are these claims?

Does the CBCS Structure Indeed Offer Any REAL Choice to the Students?

A choice based credit system should allow the possibility for both - choice to study additional

subjects, and also the choice to not study additional subjects if one does not find them useful.

But the structure of the c ourse binds s tudents to study Core c ourses+ 4 Elective papers+ 2 Foundation papers. Where is

the choice when students will have to take papers beyond their c ore courses? The experience in FYUP in DU which

existed for one year has clearly shown that in the name of elective and foundational courses, unnecessar y burden of

substandard papers are being imposed on the students.

Also, the choice would exist if - (a) there are no restrictions of first come first serve basis or merit-

basis norm to it and if each and every student enrolled could opt for the preferred subject, irrespective

of the number of students opting for a given subject and (b) if there is enough space and teachers

needed for the purpose. Which then leads one to ask- Where is the required Infrastructure?

It is indeed shameful that the UGC and the government are trying to hide the fact that all our

universities and colleges lack proper infrastructure such as classrooms, well equipped libraries and

laboratories, and proper faculty for even the existing courses. As thousands of permanent teaching

positions are vacant for years, one wonders who is going to teach the new courses! The fact is that the

ACTUAL AVAILABILITY of choices for papers/subjects/courses on the ground will be

determined by the availability of teachers and classrooms for those subjects, which at present

is grossly insufficient!!

Claims of mobility for students

An apt response to this farcical claim was given by eminent scholar Romila Thapar when she pointed

out that In India, merely enabling students to move is pointless because the institutions they

would choose are already overcrowded. Such a situation will only force a majority of students to

opt for either courses of their choice in high priced private institutes or opt for low quality distance

programmes.

The truth is that CBCS offers neither choice nor quality to the students, who are forced to

opt for it. The Students of DU and AU are already protesting against the imposition of CBCS. It is

time that students all over the country join hands to resist the imposition of this substandard scheme

intended towards diluting the existing academic content of our universities.

Centralisisation of Power by the MHRD through Common Central University Bill:



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In a country bursting with diverse cultures and people, the RSS and the BJP want to impose a uniform

model of higher education by introducing one University Act that has one syllabus, one entrance

system, and one recruitment pattern. Here is how the Central University Act looks like:

Common Syllabus: All Central Universities in the country w ill have a common syllabus. This

will kill the possibility of universities creatively fashioning courses and assessments that makes

for the unique profile of each university! This will also give handle to the govt to saffronise

syllabus and courses.

Common Entrance Test: Such a proposal, which is based on a single, tailor-made entrance exam

across the country, does not allow institutions to design their admission process keeping in

mind the divergent nature, requirements and specificities of their research and academics,

responding to diverse social needs and priorities.

Centralised Recruitments: This will give the Central Government a free hand to dictate

faculty appointments of its ideological/ political choice. We are already seeing the nature of

appointments that have been happening in the institutions in past few months. YS Rao, who

shamelessly hailed the caste system in India, was made the Chief of Indian Council of

Historical. Lokesh Chandra was awarded with ICCR chairmanship for expressing his loyalty to

Modi. Latest in this series of appointments is the appointment of Gajendra Chouhan as the

chairperson of FTII, whose sole contribution has been his active role as a campaigner for the

BJP as well as for the likes of Asaram Bapu. With centralised recruitments, the only

qualification required for all appointments in these institutions would be the loyalty the

ruling party.

Faculty Transfer: The provision to faculty-transfer will act as a weapon to keep the upright

faculty members who do not fall in line under permanent threat. Moreover, especially for a

research institution, the provision of faculty transfer makes no academic sense. In case of a

transfer, what will happen to the students and researchers working with the faculty concerned?

Instead of these proposals which go against academic freedom and autonomy, plural and

critical quest for knowledge, the need of the hour is to put in place more inclusive and diverse

classrooms, having adequate systems of accountability and student feedback.

RUSA: Weakening Public Funding of Public Universities and Colleges

The Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) started by the MHRD is all set to curtail the funding

duties of the UGC, and make the funding of state Universities norm-based and performance-based.

At the same time, RUSA also provides space for public funding of private institutions at a time when

budgetary allocations for education is shrinking. Let us note, in the 2015-16 Union budget, allocations



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for school education has been cut by 23 % and for higher education by 8% compared to 2014-14

budget. So, RUSA will : (a) give public funding to private institutions that serve the more privileged;

and (b) in the name of performance/outcome based funding, deny funding to state universities that

are lagging behind instead of giving them special attention to help them improve. This will mean that

the poor and underprivileged who have no option but to attend the universities that are lagging behind,

will be starved of the funding they deserve, which will instead be diverted to private profit-seeking

universities.

The offers to WTO, and the proposals of CBCS, Common Central University Bill, and RUSA

must not be seen in isolation from each other. All these policies complement each other. To

make the Indian education sector ready for global profit-seeking capital, it is necessary

that our existing education structures are dismantled first. Only when the courses are made

compliant with foreign demands and the existing quality of public-funded higher education is

destroyed, would the foreign and private universities entering India be able to tap the pool of

students in India! These assaults have a common purpose, and our resistance too has to be

against the entire package.

Saffronisation of Courses and Appointments, Attacks on Academic Autonomy and Campus

Democracy:

Instead of promoting rational and scientific temper that is the hallmark of any modern education

system, the BJP govt. is hell bent on destroying school and university syllabi - replacing history with

hate-spewing myths, science with superstitions, democratic values with obscurantism. From ICHR,

NCERT, IITs, NITs, Universities to FTII - experts are being shunted out, while people loyal to

RSS-BJP, who have no credentials in their fields are being placed at the helm of every academic and

cultural institution.

Alongside these, freedom of expression and debate in campuses are being muzzled as seen in the de-

recognition of Ambedkar-Periyar Study Circle, IIT Madras and a series of expulsions of student

activists in several campuses.

Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations continue to curb democratic student participation and

representation in campuses. In most of the campuses Student Union elections do not happen, and

students are denied their fundamental right to associate. Despite protests, the current MHRD refuses to

even review the LCR after so many years of its implementation, though a clear provision exists in the

LCR for a review.

Denial of Social and Gender Justice:



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Today as we resist the policies mentioned above, there is also a simultaneous need to address the urgent

need for ensuring social inclusion and social justice in educational institutions. Humiliation and denial

of rights of dalit, adivasi, and OBC students on campuses and increasing cases of sexual harassment,

molestation, and gender-based discrimination is a shameful and lived reality of our campuses.

Differently-abled students also are denied equality and access in schools and campuses. Most campuses

in the country do not have effective bodies to deal with sexual harassment and gender violence.

Reclaiming educational institutions as spaces of genuine social inclusion is therefore a primar y task that we face today.

If the future of the country has to be saved from substandard, expensive and corporate driven

education, then we must take up the task of forcing the government to withdraw its anti-student

initiatives and instead focus on ensuring an inclusive, affordable and quality higher education for all.

We appeal to you all to join AISAs NATION-WIDE CAMPAIGN and participate in the

signature campaign, public-hearings and mass conventions to mobilize students and

exert pressure on the government to withdraw its anti-student policies before the next

parliament session.

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Aisa National Campaign Against Modi Governments Attack on Higher Education

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