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Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram
WB behind privatisation of education: Iyer
By Our Staff Reporter
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, NOV. 30. The former judge of the Supreme Court, Mr. V.R. Krishna Iyer, has said that he perceived a well thought-out World Bank (WB) plan behind the moves towards privatisation and commercialisation of education in the country.
Addressing a press conference here today, Mr. Iyer, who is the president of the all-India Save Education Committee (SEC), said the World Bank, like the U.S. Corporation would like to see the cream of Indian talent exported to developed nations after being exposed to the best that Indian education had to offer. The remaining vast majority of Indian students would learn from such curricula as the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) and remain uninformed and uneducated throughout their lives. As per the Bank's own admission, its policies would lead to social unrest and the Government should control that unrest through political resolve. ``This is the link between Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) and DPEP,'' he said.
India is rapidly moving away from the position where 10 per cent of government resources are to be earmarked for education. Now the thinking is that government should not have any role in education. Commercialisation of education has reached such levels that the ordinary man cannot afford to send his son or daughter to school. On the other hand, we have the DPEP which is actually a child-hostile methodology disguised as a child-centered methodology. In the DPEP, teachers are mere `sakshi' to the child's activities. The end result of commercialisation of education would be the transformation of the cream of Indian intellect into export commodities, he said.
India is also moving away from impartial learning of history and social sciences, thanks to efforts at communalising education. Sectarian thoughts are invading the academic sector like never before. The opposition of the Save Education Committee is not towards one party or organisation. ``Nobody should think we are against the BJP alone. If the BJP says it is against communalisation of education, we will gladly work with them,'' Mr. Iyer said.
He said efforts should be made to uphold the educational and social values enshrined in the Constitution.
The former Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Kerala University, Dr. N.A. Karim, the former Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University, Dr. Susheel Kumar Mukherjee and the member of the SEC secretariat, Dr. V. Venugopal, were present at the press conference.
The SEC plans to organise committees all over the country to resist anti-education policies in various States. The committee will also organise nation-wide signature campaigns to persuade the Government to withdraw its `anti-education' policies.
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