Date:11/08/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/08/11/stories/2006081108950300.htm

Kerala - Alappuzha

`Poor students should be able to pursue higher studies'

Staff Reporter

Trend to return to privatisation should be analysed, says Sudhakaran

ALAPPUZHA: Students belonging to the economically weaker sections in the State should be able to pursue their higher studies whatever the controversies in the higher education sector be,

Minister for cooperation G. Sudhakaran has said.

Inaugurating a seminar on self-financing colleges organised here on Thursday, Mr. Sudhakaran said the argument that only those who could pay huge fees had the right for pursuing higher education was right wing economic extremism.

There was another extremist argument that education should be completely free, he noted. Mr. Sudhakaran said the right way was that those who had the ability to pay fees should pay it and those students who did not have the ability to pay high fees should also be able to continue their higher education.

Mr. Sudhakaran said the argument that judges should not be criticised was not correct and anybody had the right to criticise them from within the freedom given by the Constitution of the country. The argument that some people should not be criticised was wrong and such notions would not hold good, Mr. Sudhakaran said.

He said the ultimate verdict was the verdict of the people and that was why the legislative assemblies had the power to enact laws. Mr. Sudhakaran said recently there was a trend to return to privatisation and that should be analysed. He noted that the State Government had started giving salaries to teachers in private institutions in 1972 and schools and colleges were asked to deposit the fees collected by them from students in treasuries. That was a kind of nationalisation of private institutions but the sanctioning of self-financing colleges had reversed that trend, the Minister said.

Similarly the banks in the country were nationalised by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1972, but the present Finance Minister was allowing more and more private banks to start functioning, said Mr. Sudhakaran.

He noted that the move of the Union Government to bring cooperative banks under tax would destroy the cooperative movement. The others who participated in the seminar included the KSU state president P.C. Vishnunath MLA and former vice chancellor of the M.G. University Cyriac Thomas.