Commodification of Education: When considering the commodification of education it is important to recognize that education has been progressively commodified. This is in evidence from the increasingly influential role that global trade tools such as Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) have on education policy formation. This is further evidenced from the language that is used to describe students as consumers and higher education institutions as ‘education product’ providers. It is important to challenge the commodification of education on all levels. From the language used by national ministries and groups like the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to the attempts to formulate an international higher education area based on free trade rules as evidenced in the GATS to the wholesale privatization of higher education in order to reduce government expenditure as seen by some SAPS in developing countries.
Emerging Thrust of Educational Reforms
Education has been considered as one of the very important dominion in our national life. Education holds the important key for development and progress in every aspect of our existence, which starts from an integrated and synergic viewpoint, the system of education constitute as the foundation of the legal, civic, administrative and also developmental domains of future unfolding India.
It was a known fact that the educational system which was devised in the erstwhile alien rulers was not target at the national goals and aspirations, in the later stage several educational leaders learnt the truth the deleterious effects the erstwhile educational systems had on the young minds, as such the movement has been started with the initial efforts to establish few nationalist educational institutions. In this approach several nationalist schools and also colleges were established to impart education in a nationalist content and its approach, as they thought this type of education will infuse a spirit of patriotism and also a national outlook which one cannot forget.
Committee on secondary education and later in the year 1964-66 it was the Kothari Commission on Education, though there are several these three can be looked as an important.
The Policy Framework for Educational Reforms in India: A Guide to Commodification
According to the Policy for Reforms in Education known as Ambani-Birla states that the challenge, that we face in education in India is to bridge the large gap between the education have nots and the haves while, simultaneously, radically upgrading education content, delivery and processes to foster a competitive, yet co-operative, knowledge based society. Given the magnitude of the challenge and the complexities involved, this will call for a national mission unprecedented in the history of mankind.
This is not the time for just reforms. It is time for a revolution–a knowledge revolution. The Green Revolution in agriculture ushered in high productivity and prosperity through technology, education of farmers and field extension activities. Likewise, a revolution in education that embraces information technology, fosters freedom and innovation and induces a market-oriented competitive environment is vital for our future. The need of the hour is for bold steps, not incremental and tentative ones.
This report also highlights the larger world embraces the information age, the world of education in India encompasses different ‘worlds’ that live side by side. One world includes only a fortunate few with access to modern institutions, computers, Internet access and expensive overseas education. A second world wants to maintain status quo–teachers, administrators, textbook publishers, students–all have reasons to prefer things to remain as they are or change only gradually. The third world struggles with fundamental issues such as no books, wrong books, teachers desperately in need of training, teachers’ with poor commitment, rote learning of irrelevant material, classrooms with hundred students, dirty floors and no toilets. India cannot hope to succeed in the information age on the back of such three disparate worlds.
Therefore, a vision for education in india has to inspire creation of a knowledge-based society, induce competitiveness, yet foster a sense of co-operation. Thus, the vision for education in India would be “To Create a Competitve, Yet Co-operative, Knowledge Based Society.”
● Several strategic objectives would have to be pursued in order to realise this vision.
● Provide quality primary education facilities to every citizen of India, preferably within a distance of one kilometre from his residence.
● Provide and support the private sector in the establishment of high quality, secondary education facilities in every taluka.
● Encourage the establishment of world class higher education facilities at every district head quarters.
● Encourage the creation of state-of-the-art professional research-based education institutions in all disciplines.
● Encourage institutes of education for physical education and education for the challenged.
Social Implications of Commodification
India has to pursue a path of education-centric development. Such a development would have to create millions of knowledge based human resources as part of a national mission. At the same time, it would have to significantly enlarge the pool of professionals demanded by a large knowledge economy. It would have to generate millions of new knowledge based jobs and add several hundreds of billions of dollars to economic output. It should use new learning technologies, in information and communication, as a powerful cost effective medium for delivery of knowledge to the smallest and remotest of villages for social and economic development.
The state has a vital role to play in bringing about an education centric development. Government must focus strongly on primary and secondary education and leave higher and professional education to the private sector. It must not only use information and communication in the delivery of education but also foster an environment conducive to the widespread use of such technologies. It must correct the serious distortion in the current system, that the best 10 per cent of the educated corner 60 per cent of subsidies. There is no getting away for the government from enforcement of the Constitutional obligation for compulsory education for children up to the age of fourteen years. Funds required for universal education must be raised against all odds and allocated.
Argument in Favour of Commodification of Education: In recent times, we are seeing one new trend in India and according to this trend today education has become a way of earning lot of money for many people. For most of these entrepreneurs education is nothing more than a way of making good returns and due to this reason they are charging huge amount of fees from students, while students mostly have no option in their hands except giving this fees in the hope of getting a good future. Education today is an object of business which has serious and negative
To eradicate such prevailing systems in the pre-independence era in India, many committees and several commissions were brought up to propose recommendations to make a change in the educational system, few of them in the year 1948- 49 it was the Radhakrishnan Commission on University Education, in the year 1952-53 Laxmanaswamy Mudaliyar effects on our society. The more one can pay, higher the education he can get. So there is strong need to change the basics of the education system, not its pattern, in order to revive education’s real importance.
We must know that from last decade the interest towards private school is increasing day-by-day. Following factors are responsible for this:
● Lack of better teachers
● Lack of infrastructure
● Decline in student teacher ratio
● Wrong attitude towards government schools.
Arguments Against Commodification: Education is a means for social development, democratic empowerment and advancing of the general well-being and economic development of societies. It ensures the accumulation and sharing of knowledge and cultural capital.
Many are choosing to focus only on preparation for the labour market and possibilities for maximizing personal financial returns upon graduation, which is a negative and one-sided approach. This has also led to a decrease in cooperation and solidarity between individual students and an increase in unhealthy competition for the purpose of the fulfilment of personal aims. It is thus the increasingly commercialized way in which higher education is being dealt with that is referred to as ‘commodification’ of education.
Globalization often proves to be a process which surpasses national and local legislative and regulatory mechanisms, and presents new challenges in the regulation and provision of education. The specific aspects and needs of national higher education systems need to be constantly kept in mind in the process of international cooperation in higher education, whether in the form of international law or otherwise. Societies and states, as the main stakeholders of education, need to preserve a major role in regulation and provision of education.
The understanding of education as a public good and a public responsibility is a prerequisite for equal access to education. Public responsibility in financing of higher education and social services for students is a means of ensuring that access does not depend on the socio-economic background of learners or their families.
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