The government should accord greater priority on investing in higher education to help the youth utilise their potential for nation building, Sitaram Yechuri said.
THALASSERY (Kerala): The government should accord greater priority on investing in higher education to help the youth utilise their potential for nation building, CPI(M) politburo member Sitaram Yechuri said on Tuesday.
"With the globalised economic order dictating own terms by allowing free flow of capital, the higher education in the country literally is at cross-roads," he said at a seminar here.
The government has to hike expenses for education as private professional educational institutions were being run without any 'social control', he added.
Higher education had been accorded greater impetus in the post-independence era, he said, adding the education sector at that time had been driven by a vision that the country should achieve intellectual self reliance at par with economic self-dependence.
However, in the recent years the country was reversing its stand, withdrawing itself consciously and deliberately under pressure to privatise higher education for amassing profit, compromising on quality, quantity and equity, he said.
Investment in the higher education sector should be treated as the 'backbone' to turn India into a knowledge power house, he said.
A meagre seven to eight per cent of those in the age group of 17-23 were fortunate to have access to higher education, even as the youth formed 54 per cent of the total population, Yechuri said.
However, this educated youth formed the country's hi-tech manpower whose number was more than that in Europe, he said.
Advent of globalisation had given rise to accumulation of capital and maximisation of profit by a few with higher education becoming one of the major areas witnessing the emerging trend, the CPI(M) leader said.
The new education policy of 1986 which led to the emergence of 100-odd private Deemed Universities, wanted the institutions acquire and adapt a 'corporate and commercial' look and culture.
He insisted on government control in matters of admission norms, fee structure and course content in these institutions.
It was morally, politically and economically unjustifiable to give undue tax concession to corporate sector and to those reaping high profits by investing in stocks, Yechuri said while demanding that the Centre should slap hefty tax on them so that the additional revenue could be utilized for highly critical social sector.
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