Experience of Privatization of Education in India

The experience over the last few decades has clearly shown that unlike school education, privatization has not led to any major improvements in the standards of higher and professional education. Yet, in the run up to the economic reforms in 1991, the IMF, World Bank and the countries that control them have been crying hoarse over the alleged pampering of higher education in India at the cost of school education. The fact of the matter was that school education was already privatized to the extent that government schools became an option only to those who cannot afford private schools mushrooming in every street corner, even in small towns and villages. On the other hand, in higher education and professional courses, relatively better quality teaching and infrastructure has been available only in government colleges and universities, while private institutions of higher education in India capitalised on fashionable courses with minimum infrastructure.

Nevertheless, successive governments over the last two decades have only pursued a path of privatization and deregulation of higher education, regardless of which political party ran the government. From the Punnaiah committee on reforms in higher education set up by the Narasimha Rao government to the Birla-Ambani committee set up by the Vajpayee government, the only difference is in their degree of alignment to the market forces and not in the fundamentals of their recommendations.

With the result, the last decade has witnessed many sweeping changes in higher and professional education: For example, thousands of private colleges and institutes offering IT courses appeared all across the country by the late 1990s and disappeared in less than a decade, with devastating consequences for the students and teachers who depended on them for their careers. This situation is now repeating itself in management, biotechnology, bioinformatics and other emerging areas. No one asked any questions about opening or closing such institutions, or bothered about whether there were qualified teachers at all, much less worry about teacher-student ratio, floor area ratio, class rooms, labs, libraries etc. All these regulations that existed at one time (though not always enforced strictly as long as there were bribes to collect) have now been deregulated or softened under the self-financing scheme of higher and professional education adopted by the UGC in the 9th five-year plan and enthusiastically followed by the central and state governments.

This situation reached its extreme recently in the new state of Chattisgarh, where over 150 private universities and colleges came up within a couple of years, till the scam got exposed by a public interest litigation and the courts ordered the state government in 2004 to derecognise and close most of these universities or merge them with the remaining recognized ones. A whole generation of students and teachers are suffering irreparable damage to their careers due to these trends, for no fault of theirs. Even government-funded colleges and universities in most states started many "self-financing" courses in IT, biotechnology etc., without qualified teachers, labs or infrastructure and charging huge fees from the students and are liberally giving them marks and degrees to hide their inadequacies.

It is not that the other well established departments and courses in government funded colleges and universities are doing any better. Decades of government neglect, poor funding, frequent ban on faculty recruitment and promotions, reduction in library budgets, lack of investments in modernization leading to obsolescence of equipment and infrastructure, and the tendency to start new universities on political grounds without consolidating the existing ones today threatens the entire higher education system.

Another corollary of this trend is that an educational institution recognized in a particular state need not limit its operations to that state. This meant that universities approved by the governments of Chattisgarh or Himachal Pradesh can set up campuses in Delhi or Noida, where they are more likely to get students from well off families who can afford their astronomical fees. What is more, they are not even accountable to the local governments, since their recognition comes from a far away state. Add to this a new culture of well-branded private educational institutions allowing franchisees at far away locations to run their courses, without being responsible to the students or teachers in any other way. This is increasingly becoming a trend with foreign universities, especially among those who do not want to set up their own shop here, but would like to benefit from the degree-purchasing power of the growing upwardly mobile economic class of India. Soon we might see private educational institutions getting themselves listed in the stock market and soliciting investments in the education business on the slogan that its demand will never see the sunset.

CPA CPE - Professional Continuing Education Resources

CPA CPE programs are a must for anyone who holds a license in accounting. If you need CPA CPE credits, you have a lot of different options to choose from. By taking the time to look and see what types of training programs are available, you should easily be able to get the career training that suits your needs. CPA continuing education programs can be found in several different formats, including online. There are many different benefits to online career training programs, including the opportunity to get the education in the most time and cost effective manner.

Finding the best CPA CPE programs is going to be a matter of figuring out which courses are approved and also which courses you want to take in order to fulfill your CE requirement. If you choose traditional courses, you will be much more limited on the education that you can get. However, if you choose to take CPA CPE online, you will easily find more variations on the types of classes that you can take. When you need continuing education for your CPA license, there are many different things that you need to consider to choose the right program.

Online providers that offer CPA CPE courses usually do a good job in giving you all of your options and listing all the services that they provide. If you take the time to check out all of the different programs that are available, finding what you need will be simple. After all, continuing education is only as good as you make it, and relevancy is the key in your career training success.

Choosing online programs for CPA CPE credits allows you to learn on your own schedule, and at your own pace. Since the providers realize that you have a busy life, their goal is to make your continuing education easier. That's why they offer you so many options for your professional career training, including self-study courses so that you can maintain your license and stay on top of your career. Make sure that you prepare yourself for the continuing education process and check out your options before settling on a course or training program.

Special Education Laws, Impacts

Special education laws have had a substantial impact on bilingual special education. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), originally passed in 1975 and reauthorized in 2004, governs special education services in public schools. The law protects the rights of students with disabilities and their families and tries to ensure that ELLs are assessed fairly. The law includes numerous provisions outlined below.

1. Informed consent: Schools must obtain written informed consent from parents or guardians to evaluate a student. Parents must be fully informed of their rights, any records to be released and to whom, and the nature and purpose of the evaluation. Parents or guardians must be informed in their native language or primary mode of communication.

2. Multidisciplinary team: Students should be assessed by a team of professionals with varied areas of expertise according to the student's individuals needs. The team should include at least one general education teacher and one special education teacher. For English language learners, the team should include someone with expertise in the language acquisition process.

3. Comprehensive evaluation: Before an initial placement, the multidisciplinary team must conduct a complete assessment in all areas of suspected disability. No single procedure can be used as the sole criterion for determining an appropriate educational program for a child. Alternative procedures should be used when standardized tests are not considered appropriate (e.g., with culturally and linguistically diverse students). A comprehensive evaluation should include an analysis of the instructional setting and the child's instructional history.

4. Exclusionary criteria: A student should not be labeled if the academic struggles are primarily the result of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage. IDEA 2004 adds that a child should not be found to have a disability if the determinant factor is poor instruction in reading or math, or limited English proficiency.

5. Nondiscriminatory assessment: Assessments should be (a) selected and administered so as not to be racially or culturally discriminatory; (b) provided and administered in the child's native language or other mode of communication and in the form most likely to yield accurate information on what the child knows and can do academically, developmentally, and functionally, unless it is clearly not feasible; (c) used for the purposes for which the assessments are valid and reliable; (d) administered by trained and knowledgeable personnel; and (e) administered in accordance with any instructions provided by the producer of the assessments.