Perfecting the Puppet Show

One of the most violent protests ever held in Kerala educational sector is in the Self Financing college arena.After the Government decided to allow self financing colleges in the state, with the condition that half the seats will be given at govt fees through the common entrance, the developments has been disheartening.India is a country where a large part of the population enjoys the sudsidesed educational facilities.Same was the case of Engg colleges in Kerala.
Penetration of privatization in the field has been far from the kind of blessing as proposed at its beginning by the then Chief Minister AK Antony.2 self financing colleges same as 1 govt college was to remove the professional education problem completely from the land.But the inverse effects have made bright candidates to look for opportunities in neighbouring states.The causes for this failure are many.The main ones are

1. Entrance examinations though of high class and quality but fail completely in the sense that 99 percent getting admission into professional colleges get that only after undergoing heavy training from private institutions, which itself is costly enough.So the idea of providing opportunities to poor children has been shunted.

2. Private parties cant have a service mentality.They work for profit.

3. Rapid and indepth colonialisation by religious organisations have made the educational sector tainted .These parties try to(as they say) provide help to their community only and also find it as a mask to pour the foreign money.

4. Religious organisations losing logical and forward mentality.A reminder of the Dark age of Europe.Their influence in political policies have never been appreciated.

The justification that it is impossible to exist with govt fees could nt be more illogical as if this was true there was no reason why these private parties accepted the govt conditions once.It coud nt be that a person sustained losses all these years and is still going on with colleges.

The most shameful fact is that it is the Christian management that is showing the greatest resistance.Minority status as a shield in defence they intend to get armoured by the rich and influencial.

Initial phase of Self financing experiment was a large success with the KSRTC and IHRD and the colleges under them having indirect control of the government.Also the rise of colleges under them into reputation(Model Engg College, College of Engg Chengannur, SCT College of Engg.) gave impetus to the thought of improving the professional education eventually without burdening the government treasury.But these foresights were but drowned in debates and discussions.

The only students organisation which had the guts to stand against "dark age" was the Students Federation of India.They had involved themselves in a "bloody war" against the private managements, which though had been at times far from moral means had a decisive role in the society.But the developments after the Communist govt took charge has shown that the SFI was only a being used by the party to burn up issues they could not publically involve themselves in.The tales of sacrifice and strength sung by SFI can now be dumped into the waste baskets in the courtyards of the communist leaders.The Self financing problem is losing its priority.The fact that the controversy is flamed only during admissions every year is itself a proof of the govts fear to approach the issue.

It cannot be underseen that even this recessive climate students opting for Engg subjects have not come down.Recession has led professionals to think into areas other than IT and this would in my opinion bring in a fresh pool of professional engineers working closer to their country.But this inflow of talent is marred by the inappropriate decisions and greed exhibited by the social 'reform makers'.