At the age of 18 Nitya Singh who completed her class 12 and scored an 85% in her board examinations was hoping to get admission in a Government College under Delhi University [DU]. She knew that it would not be easy to get admission with 85%. DU is known for increasing the cut off marks for admission. In 2013 the cut off marks for computer science was 100 and for other science courses it was 99.4%. This was tough.
Some people thought she would still get through in the subsequent enrollment lists if not at the first crack. Even after 4 enrollment lists her name did not feature in any. She knew that she had no other chance. It was disheartening for her but it was not the end of the world. She could still get into any other college.
10 years ago may be she would have to go for a correspondence course to protect her dignity. But times have changed. She got admission in Amity University. She was sad that she was studying with students with below average results in the board examinations. However she found that her class had a lot of students who had scored between the 80% and 90& mark but were not granted admission in any of the DU colleges.
Every single year there are about 26 million students who complete their 12th standard and go for graduation but there are only 33,000 colleges to cater to the students. This is a complete mismatch. The number of seats has to be increased in order to accommodate the students. The government says that there are no enough enrollments from the students for the existing colleges.
According to a survey the percentage of graduation enrollments in India are only 16% where as the world average is 23%. The government is trying hard to get this up to at least 30% by 2020. This means that they have to increase 15 million seats in the next 7 years. At the moment the private colleges and universities are feeding on these 15 million seats.
When students do not get admission in the universities in India the only options they look at are correspondence courses, Studying abroad or private institutions. The private institutions do provide education to the students and save their careers but at a very high cost. The cost of education in a private college is about 15 times more than that in a government college. This is why there are too many private colleges rising up in the country.
The private colleges have turned education into a business. They sell their college and university seats at high prices. They are looking to make money. They do have better facilities and infrastructure compared to the government colleges but the price they charge is too high. With the value of rupee going down foreign education is no longer an option for students. So if they do not get admission in government colleges they prefer the private ones. This is the advantage the private institutions are taking.
Tags:
Privatization
Private Institutions
Education Made Busniess
