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Abstract
The outbreak of corona virus has created numerous
threats and challenges in every sector of the economy. On other hand it had also
blessed section of people with wide opportunity and scope to fly beyond horizon.
The most benefited of this crisis are those Information Communication
Technology (ICT) and Information Technology Enable Service (ITES). Be it Zoom,
CISCO’s Webex, Google Meet, demand for their service has increased on every
upgraded version of Lockdown in India and across the globe.
Education
is the key to Human Development, Fuel for the engine of Knowledge Economy.
COVID-19 and the Social Distancing norms have changed the routine of our
education system. Outbreak of student rebel demanding tuition fee refunding,
Institutions focusing on Online mode of teaching, Problem of accounting the
Depreciation on huge capital invested on Institutional Infrastructure are major
concerns of the Education Sector. This essay is to touch upon the strength and
weakness of the present Education system and much needed Future reforms
regarding the cost of Education.
Key words:
Universities, Online Education, College Fees, Tuition fee Refunding, Remote Learning,
Employment Opportunity, Petition for Refunding, Education Regulatory System
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Introduction
In ancient India, nearly 5000 years ago, there lived
a young tribal prince named Eklavya. He aspired to become a great archer and a
brave warrior by learning the skill from Guru Dronacharya (a master of
warfare). But Dronacharya being the teacher of Royal Family, was not allowed to
teach the state art to anybody else outside royal clan (in contemporary period,
faculties of reputed institution has such restriction on their resource
persons.) Dronacharya bound by the state law, could not accept him as his
disciple. But Eklavya never gave up on his ambition. He went back to his place
and made a statue of his Guru; there on for years he has devoted wholeheartedly
to master the art of archery.
When Arjuna, the price and talented royal disciple of
Guru Dronacharya found out about Eklavya, raised an allegation against his teacher that he have
breached royal decree and have taught the skill of archery to tribes’ man. Guru
was baffled and confused. He sent for the person to meet him at his Gurukulam.
Eklavya came to meet his Guru. On assessing Eklavya, Guru Drona found him to be
really skillful than Arjuna. In those times, there was a practice of Guru
Dakshina(kind of Tuition Fee) in
learning system, where a student would give a token of gift or fee for the
knowledge acquired. Dronacharya asked Eklavya to give his right thumb as Guru
Dakshina. Though this incident have elevated and made Eklavya immortal in the
history, Dronacharya’s cruel demand, self-centeredness took him blame over
years.
Eklavya’s curse is haunting the community of teacher
even today, in the outbreak of corona virus. Eklavya never attend the classes
of Guru Drona. He learnt the skill on his own dedication. He learnt by
imagining Guru Drona in the sculpted stone. But Drona extracted a huge fee from
Eklavya for untaught classes. Because of the curse, today the community of
teachers taking classes in front of camcorders by imagining students.
The
education at universities like Harvard, Columbia, Brown, and Georgetown cost on
average $47,000 per year for a student making it an exclusive arena of
well-off, privileged section of the society. But the recently developed online
platforms like Edx, Coursera, Udemy and the Government funded platform in
India, SWAYAM provide access to quality education content online at much
affordable price. But this has much to do about the inequality of have’s and
have-not.
Impact
of COVID-19
On
the outbreak of COVID-19, government across the globe has stick on to the idea
of SOCIAL DISTANCING. It has made the operations of several sectors to
stand-still. It has led to economic downfall across the world. It has made mere
survival a daunting task. Many lost job, lost opportunities, and livelihood. In
this juncture not only cost of living, cost of survival being a challenge, but
also the future is bleak and job markets becoming uncertain, it drives us to
look little deep in to Economics of Education which has been recognized as a
gate way to job market.
Students
rebel against Full Tuition fee
The educational sector is one affected by the social
distancing norms of the government amidst of COVID CRISIS. Still, the process
of learning, education sector has a vent for it recovery. Many Universities,
Colleges already had their own online platforms, portals, has rolled up their
sleeves for the new challenge. But it had its own set of problem. Educational
institutions across the world has been operating as a charity, non-profit
institutions, they operates on mere Reasonable surplus. The standards, teaching
methods, reputation, and high demand for services make the tuition fee
drastically vary across different schools. It has also provided the students
with unique opportunities in the university campus, atmosphere of exposure,
networking, conferences, and collaboration, especially to mention those
residential programs which have provided an ambience of focused
development/studies/ research valued much by the students. This made the tuition
fee though seems exorbitant was acclaimed rational and accepted by the student
community.
The recent crisis and social distancing has ripped
off those benefits which included in their exorbitant Tuition fees. This is a
phenomenon across the globe, students of reputed universities like Harvard,
Cambridge, Boston, Davidson and New York University has raised voice for
refunding of the tuition fee.
The
rationale behind those rebellious act or clamor is same the operating principle
of the educational institutions. The corona virus crisis has made everything to
REMOTE TEACHING which has reduced the operating cost of the universities. As these universities operated only on
charity or non-profit, then they should be prepared to discount the students
for whatever non-profit the universities saving out of this and allow them to
pay only for what they are getting. They attend reputed universities and
institution in the hope of quality education despite financial burden of their
families. The job opportunities, employment consultancies give preference on
the basis of this reputation. The crisis has grabbed away Laboratory practices,
In-person training, Industrial exposure et.al, making the course at least a
semester for now to be a mere distance learning program. This made the students
to claim partial refund on their tuition fee.
Problem
of the Educational Institutes
If we take the side of the educational institutions,
they have their own set of problem and implications out of the COVID-19
outbreak. The universities believed to be operating only on the reasonable
surplus, the reputed universities pay huge salary for the faculties. They incur
huge loss on depreciation of the capital assets, Institutional infrastructure,
kind of under recoveries – low return on the investment. The reduction in the
cost of the educational service has to be quantified before making a
conclusion. COVID-19 crisis has bought the service delivery to standstill, but
the faculties have to be paid (Salaries) on regular basis, Interest on the
Investment, Loans etcetera will get deducted on time. The crisis has created an
opportunity to revamp the present system, making it much affordable to all. It
has to be properly utilized and necessary reform has to be made in time bounded
manner.
Herculean
task on Teaching Faculties
The crisis though opened opportunities like online
learning, remote teaching and work from home opportunities; it is not that easy
game in the education sector. The teaching faculties find it very much
difficult to deliver quality content, mere facing a camcorder without the idea
of student’s level of understanding. The class room atmosphere provides better
scope for student-teacher relationship, interaction, which is in-tact in the
online platforms. The online platform has provided better scope for certain
discipline of studies like Data Science, Analytics, Computer Programming,
Coding, etc. but when it comes to other area of studies even physical science,
biological science need extra effort on the creation of visual document,
animation , etc. to make a quality presentation online. And very few faculties
are exposed to online teaching experience, and this is yet another challenge
for them without any pedagogy on these methods.
UGC
as a Regulator
University Grants Commission (UGC), an autonomous
body under Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) take care of higher
educational institutions on account of securing Right to access to education,
cost of running the institutions, and regulation for refund of fees. The section 12A of UGC Act 1956 has
provided explicit power to provide regulation and to scale the fee charged by
the colleges and universities in the public interest.
Way
Forward
Though in outsight, it seems to be developmental and
creation of equal platform for all, in reality it is not so. If the education
system is revolutionized for Digital Migration of Class rooms, it is to benefit
only the well-off section, privileged class of people.
Government of India, MHRD under DIGITAL INDIA Programme
has funded a dedicated online platform for education name SWAYAM (Study Webs of
Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Mind). It has been doing stupendous task
since 2017 on the collaboration of NPTEL, NCERT (National Council for Education
Research and Training), UGC, CEC (Consortium for Educational Communication),
AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education), IITs, IIMs, and IISERs.
Though online platform is accessible to all and also charge
only feeble amount especially for proctored exam and certification, it has
indirect costs. As the cost on internet usage is affordable in India after the
intervention of M/s Jio and market competition there up on, we can neglect it.
But the social cost, inequality cost, family cost etcetera has to be equalized
to make the economics of education flat. Several BPL families couldn’t even
afford a quality laptop and headset for their ward at the first place, and then
we can think about a study table and cupboard or separate study room or
peaceful ambience for educational development. Yes, we are much concerned about
the reputed institution’s cost of education, Tuition fee waiver for the private
college goers. The privileged section could survive any worst crisis, but the
COVID-19 demand a focus on the educational concern of the public college, state
run institutions. In recent years, the states like Haryana, Uttar Pradesh akin
to the state of Tamil Nadu has provided free laptops to the higher secondary
school students. This enables an opportunity to access the online education
platforms like SWAYAM. Public Institutions and State funded universities have
to make the student and teachers well trained for the new opportunity of
online-remote learning. It would reduce the cost of education as well as brings
in equality.
Reference
1.
The Story of Eklavya and
Dronacharya
https://wisdom.srisriravishankar.org/story-eklavya-devotion/
2. SWAYAM – India’s Massive Open
Online Course (MOOC)
3. Annual Financial Account of Harvard
University
https://finance.harvard.edu/files/fad/files/fy19_harvard_financial_report.pdf
4. Annual Financial Account of IISc,
Bangalore
https://www.iisc.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/IISc-Annual-Accounts-2017-18-FINAL-SOFT-COPY1.pdf
5. Supply and Demand in Education: How
Markets Allocate Scarce Resources
Advanced
Placement Economics Microeconomics: Teacher Resource Manual © Council for Economic
Education, New York, N.Y.
6. University Grant Commission (UGC)
Circular: D.O.No.F. I -l 12020 NGC (Tf -C OVID- I 9/Fee): Order dated 27th
May 2020
https://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/3032596_Letter_Payment_of_Fee.pdf
7. The Draft Higher Education
Commission of India (Repeal of University Grants Commission Act, 1956) Bill,
2018.
8. Draft National Education Policy
2019: (Dr. K. Kasturirangan committee report May 31, 2019)
Name
of the Author: Karthik Malmarugan
Student
M.A. (Economics), IGNOU, Delhi
Ph:
+91-9840542834
Mail:
karthikmalmarugan@gmail.com
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