Introduction of PPP model in higher education resulted in deterioration of education quality

Updated on: Friday, February 08, 2013

The private public partnership in education in West Bengal has been able to stem the exodus of students to other states for engineering studies, but quality has deteriorated, a city-based educationist said here.

Prof Shantanu Basu said in a conference at IIM Calcutta, "Introduction of PPP model in higher education resulted in deterioration of education quality. From 2012 you do not require the joint entrance to get into these (private) colleges as there are 7000 seats lying vacant."

Since West Bengal University of Technology (WBUT) was established in 2000, 280 private colleges witnessed a halt in exodus of students from Bengal to other states, he said.

Basu was speaking at the international conference on public policy and management organised by IIM Calcutta. But, as 7000 seats of these private engineering colleges were lying vacant, these colleges were working in a cartel to relax admission norms to fill-up vacant seats, Basu, a former controller of examination in WBUT, said.

Basu cited the case study on impact of PPP in education in the state introduced by the Left Front government to demonstrate that a similar fate might happen to healthcare if the same model was rolled out.

The present Trinamool Congress government was trying to push the PPP model in the healthcare sector, he said.

Participants in the conference spoke about abnormal difference in the fee structure between government and private institutes.

Most of these private colleges offered courses in IT, computer science as they did not require much investment as against core engineering courses like civil and chemical that required heavy investment, they said.

Introduction of PPP model in higher education resulted in deterioration of education quality

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