Articles by Jandhyala B G Tilak

There is nothing special in the union budget for the education sector, but for a noticeable increase in budgetary outlays for elementary education, possible because of the education cess. Adult as well as higher and technical education have not seen a significant increase in outlays; neither has any special scheme been proposed for any sector of education.

The higher education systems in many countries today are at the crossroads. There is a gradual shift from education being a state responsibility to its privatisation. Many consider the public sector to be inefficient in the field of education and correspondingly the private sector as efficient and therefore desirable. Nevertheless, the case for public provisioning of education remains strong. It is imperative for the state to play a dominant role in this field.

On the whole there is very little that is new on education in the Common Minimum Programme and hence it does not really contain an exciting set of proposals. But since it outlines the priorities of the UPA government, one has to take serious note of it. Being a mix of social, economic and poitical priorities, the document outlines some issues clearly, some vaguely, some less coherently and some are wanting in critical detail. Many important issues have been conveniently ignored altogether. Perhaps a CMP of a coalition cannot be otherwise.

The current rift between IIMs and the government on fees unmasks different faces of marketisation of higher education and of the various actors involved.

Though public subsidisation of many social and economic services is a common feature of most countries of the world, of late with increasing budgetary constraints, many began raising questions on the rationale of government subsidies, and arguing in favour of drastic reduction, if not eliminating altogether of subsidies. Concentrating on education sector, this paper reviews some of the well known arguments in favour of, and counter arguments against public subsidies. Since much of the controversies are around subsidies in higher education, the paper focuses on the same, though discussion on lower levels of education is also included. The paper reviews the recent trends in public expenditures on education in India, and the available estimates on the rates of subsidy and cost recovery. Distribution of some specific subsidies in education, such as free education, fee exemptions, textbooks, noon meals, etc, is also briefly analysed. Some of the important issues on, for example, the size of the subsidy, targeting versus universalism, and methods of cost recovery are also briefly discussed. It has been shown that the level of subsidies in education in India is not particularly high, nor is the rate of cost recovery particularly low, in comparison with other developed and developing countries. It has also been found that some of the specific subsidies in education are fairly progressively distributed.