AISA In Tamil Nadu: Raising a Voice Against the Rampant Privatization of Education

Over the last few years, AISA has been consistently raising its voice against the rampant privatization of education in Tamil Nadu and the education policies of the state government which are directly responsible for plunging education into the current situation.

Earlier this year, the Tamil Nadu government appointed a committee under the leadership of K.Govindharajan to fix a fee structure for private schools with the stated intention of regulating their money-making activities.  After its deliberations, the committee fixed the following scales:  Rs.11,000 per year for higher secondary schools, Rs.9000 per year for high schools, Rs.8,000 per year for middle schools, and Rs.5,000 per year for elementary schools. In response to these recommendations, the lobby of private school owners filed a Special Leave Petition before the Apex court, but the court dismissed their petition

Having their efforts frustrated in this fashion, the private school owners decided to take to strong-arm tactics. They have refused to reduce their fees and accept the fee rates suggested by the government. They are now proclaiming that they will not open their schools after the vacation, a step which will cause great harassment to students and worry to their parents.

AISA holds that these moves by the Tamil Nadu government are only a means of shirking their responsibility to provide free and quality education to students at all levels of education. While the Tamil Nadu government is taking 6500 wine shops under its control, it believes that private operators can be allowed to run freely in the state. This is a state where the quality of education has been dropping rapidly as private operators are allowed to run schools like businesses and extort ever larger sums of money from people. The desire for “quality education” even leads parents to pay huge capitation fees at the time of admissions: most of the big private schools today are collecting donation for the kindergarten of 15,000 rupees and more than a staggering 1 lakh rupees for entrance to class 1. The Tamil Nadu governments’ attempts to fix a fee structure for private schools will only lead these schools to extort ever larger amounts as capitation fees from parents and students.

AISA demands that the Tamil Nadu government be forced to reassert its responsibilities towards the field of education and provide free, fair and quality education to students of all ages. In particular, providing quality education to students from disadvantaged backgrounds should be a priority. Non-compliant private schools should be brought under government control and private school owners who are harassing students and parents by refusing to reduce their fees should be arrested immediately.

AISA has consistently put forward these demands organizing a demonstration in Chennai city on 15^th May which was attended by more than 200 people. On June 2^nd, the Directorate of School Education for the state of Tamil Nadu was gheraod by AISA activists after which the office issued a promise to take action within a month’s time. On June 19^th 2008, AISA will be organizing a human chain in Chennai demanding that the Tamil Nadu government immediately take action against all the defaulting schools and to urge the Tamil Nadu government to further reduce the fee structure for private schools fixed by the Govindarajan Committee in order to reduce the burden on poor parents since the fee structure fixed by the Committee itself is very high.