Hari's Corner

Humour, comics, tech, law, software, reviews, essays, articles and HOWTOs intermingled with random philosophy now and then

The capitation fee issue and its underlying causes

Filed under: People and society by Hari
Posted on Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 17:12 IST (last updated: Wed, Jun 10, 2009 @ 17:12 IST)

I normally don't comment or review current affairs. But the recent expose by the media on private medical colleges (and some deemed universities) in India and their illegal practice of collecting "capitation" fees from students has one outstanding feature: the almost complete lack of public outrage (I don't count temporary media-generated frenzy as public outrage). To be sure, other recent news, such as the racially motivated attacks on Indian students in Australia have captured the headlines and the public attention to the exclusion of everything else.

Capitation fee, for those who are not aware, is, I believe, something unique to India because of the heavy demand for professional education (in the main, engineering and medicine) and the shortage of high quality institutions that provide them. The system works like this: a certain percentage of seats in educational institutions are allotted by Government or Government-recognized universities. Seats in private colleges or institutions affiliated to such universities fall under two categories: one based on the quota-based merit ranking as determined by qualifying examinations (also known as Government Quota) and the remaining seats are left to be filled at the discretion of the private college's management. Government-run or aided colleges do not have this private quota. The natural consequence of this has been that privately run colleges have been shamelessly selling their share of seats to students for exorbitant sums of money (in the tune of hundreds of thousands of rupees per seat) which is in direct violation of a Supreme Court Order against this practice. "Capitation" is a term used for cloaking this illegal practice in respectability. The real term should be "unadulterated greed."

The reason I believe there's no outrage (or at least very limited outrage) is because the public know, and have known for a long time now, that private colleges and even some deemed universities have been collecting large sums of money from anxious parents to "guarantee" a place to their children in their institutions long before the results of qualifying exams even come out.

There has been a kind of passive acceptance of this practice from the student community and the system has been well entrenched by now. Even if families are put to great hardship and are forced to take heavy loans at high interest rates to fulfill such demands, higher education has such an appeal and priority that even lower-middle class families have been willing to take on heavy burdens.

The situation has only worsened because the Government has been granting deemed university status to numerous privately run institutions of late regardless of the quality of education or facilities they provide. Armed with such a status, these private institution have only increased their demand for such fees, resulting in further deprivation of educational facilities for the truly meritorious. Students who have been squeezed out by the system either because of the stringent quota system or their lack of "competitive scores" in the qualifying stage and have been forced to seek entry by the other route - through the private quota of these colleges. And hence the system has inevitably survived and propagated.

Mere de-recognition of offending institutions or universities will not help resolve the underlying social issues at work here. I believe that the situation will only be resolved in the long term if the current caste-based quota-based system (with merit accorded a lower priority) is seriously re-considered. A quota system based on economic status should be introduced with merit being accorded higher priority over one's caste, religion or birth. Of course, political groups in favour of the quota system will resist such moves strongly as will the managements of private colleges because the current system suits their respective purposes admirably.

Really wealthy people should not mind either way as they can afford to pay their way through higher education at any cost. It's the poor, but deserving students (regardless of caste or religion) and meritorious students belonging to middle class families (especially those belonging to the so-called 'forward castes') who will benefit from such educational reforms.

I don't see this happening though. The only other practical solution is increasing the number of seats and courses to accommodate the maximum number of students possible and force private colleges into seeking students to fill empty seats rather than the other way round, but this might further dilute the quality of education and lead to other problems. Of course, many will accept this solution willingly on the basis of "something is better than nothing." The other advantage is that it also provides a nice escape route to avoid the social tensions which might be caused by removing the quota system.

While politicians can cry hoarse over the "capitation fee" issue in Parliament, conveniently ignoring the deeper issues they represent, the public will only remain apathetic and unimpressed by their sincerity (or lack of it in this case) in addressing the core problems.

4 comment(s)

  1. I believe this happens to varying degrees everywhere. It is called by different names, but it is a long standing practice. The only real way (aside from direct government intervention and this does include severe fines and potential closure) is for the parents/public to make a stand. However, the downside of this is that someone has to go first - I doubt, though, that any parent would be willing to risk their child's future (and future earning potential) on a principled stand.

    Comment by ray (visitor) on Thu, Jun 11, 2009 @ 18:23 IST #
  2. Ray, thank you for enlightening me on the situation outside India.

    I actually don't think that purely private universities should be prevented from setting their own fees. In fact, they might call themselves universities, but actually they're not recognized as such in law. Their degrees will be totally independent and outside the purview of the government and naturally also their recognition as a valuable certificate of merit (and hence attractiveness) might be limited. This is already the case in many private MBA courses in India at the moment.

    But in the cases I've written about the private institutions are not really "private" in the sense that they are affiliated to Government Universities. This is also the case of "deemed universities" which are merely independent in terms of administration and funding and not in terms of the degree awarded - even if such degrees are awarded directly by the deemed university, that degree still needs to be recognized as valid by the educational authorities. What complicates the situation further in India is the nexus between politicians in power and those who run such institution (who are usually active or ex-politicians)

    I agree with you though that taking a moral principled stand is really tough (and sometimes practically impossible) as an individual. There has to be a general student's welfare organization with judicial powers to take up and investigate such cases while protecting the privacy of complainants or whistle-blowers.

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on Thu, Jun 11, 2009 @ 18:28 IST #
  3. Sitheresuma doomed university.

    Comment by Teknomancer (visitor) on Fri, Jun 12, 2009 @ 04:09 IST #
  4. Sitheresuma is certainly doomed, because that word doesn't even exist in google. :biggrin:

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on Fri, Jun 12, 2009 @ 14:38 IST #

Comments closed

The blog owner has closed further commenting on this entry.