Student’s corner

Dear Students,

LAST WEEK WE ASKED: Do you think MHRD should crack down on institutes which admit students not on merit but for financial consideration?

BEST RESPONSE

No institute can sustainably function without a financial consideration. The fact that these institutes do get students means that there is a large demand-supply mismatch which cannot be met by elite institutes. Also, what is considered 'merit' can be product of coaching and many other factors, and so it too can be indirectly traced the students' financial background in most cases. Instead of any strong crackdown or collusion, MHRD should force these institutes to divulge full information about themselves to all students. What a student does after getting all information should be his/her business.

-- Debojyoti Chakraborty, Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA)

OTHER RESPONSES:

Donation to educational institutions is a noble cause and one way of appreciating it would be to encourage the activity by providing tax exemption so that more people would be interested in donation. Rural India lacks in both educational infrastructure and quality teaching staff where nearly half the population is illiterate. It is also a good way to eradicate this handicap by pumping in more funds and bettering educational facilities and administration. The loss of the government’s revenue would be more than made up by the holistic growth opportunities that would be generated out of this initiative.

-- Shubhra Ghosh, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

MHRD should be strict in implementing admission guidelines for admitting students to institutes across the country. It should keep a check to ensure admissions are strictly based on merit rather than being prioritized on the basis of financial consideration. There is no denying from the fact that admission under management quota is prevalent among major institutes. It would not only go against the reputation and integrity of institute but also damage the fidelity of public in governing bodies. Thus, MHRD should help promote transparency in the admission process so that only the capable ones manage to reach their dream college.

-- Shivam Chhabra, Integral University, Lucknow.

Education is a fundamental right of all- the poor as well as the rich. Cracking down on pricey institutes would mean, depriving the rich of education. Under such circumstances they would fly abroad and perhaps may settle there causing brain drain. They are not committing a crime by paying high fees. Moreover such institutes are there because there is demand and they are only catering to it.

In India there is already a shortage of educational institutes. What the govt can do is charge the rich to pay scholarships for the poor. Banning institutes would only aggravate the problem.

-- Priyam Mukherjee, Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA).

Education shouldn’t be a monopoly of the rich. People from lower sections of the society should also get quality education. Today if a farmer’s son from a backward area goes uneducated, it’s all because of institutes which admit students for money. Government allowed private-sector to setup colleges in-order to make education available to everybody. But unfortunately this only helped rich people to admit their children using money-power. To curb this, a crackdown on such institutes is necessary. Steps that MHRD can take are centralized counselling, opening more colleges and setting-up a Special Task Force with the help of UGC/AICTE.

-- Neeraj Gupta, Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bangalore.

For state funded education, equal opportunity(merit) admissions are expected; however for-profit education running on business lines should have liberty to admit whoever can afford their fees. Of course, these policies of capitation fee etc, institute quality/rankings/inspection reports should be summarized and popularized among students, public and recruiters, to help identify institutes who commercialize education. With this freely available information, and the national education policy ensuring an efficient education market with subsidies for deserving students, then MHRD should not need to regulate these institutions. Corrupt practices like unaccounted admission donations should be curbed, but transparently charging higher fees can be condoned.

-- Arun Sundar, Xavier Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship, Bangalore.

Now a day’s most of business schools are profit oriented as they are admitting those persons who have high financial background or a good linkage in the institute or having a ministerial background rather than knowledge, as their financial background is concerned it is something so huge that not even an institute can imagine, and if we want our nation to grow then we must enrol one and only merit criteria for any selection process in all over the Institute which will enhances competition and qualitative results of the Institution , which will generally empower growth of the Institution as well as our nation.

-- Abhijeet Dhoble, United World School of Business (UWSB), Ahmedabad

The meritorious and deserving students are paradoxically left behind and black money issue clubbed with cases of forgery and cheating pops up with institutes who give financial consideration. Quality is the major issue which our country faces, with admissions on financial basis the overall quality is bound to drop further. But for an institution to sustain it needs money, the elite college are government funded but others need financial assistance as the fees is also under watch therefore financial support becomes important. Crack down should only be on institutes taking more students than otherwise stipulated as the management quota seats.

-- Sumit Raj Anand, Xavier Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bangalore.

It’s not possible; providing education today is more of a business than social responsibility. The point here is to make education available for individuals by ousting corruption. There are institutes already following merit based admissions and this should not mean average students have no choices.  Instead, MHRD needs a separate body with Open Admission Policy to control profuse sale of seats. It should regulate by enforcing guidelines and strict quality service adherence for those institutes where students are willing to study by payment modus. This can be a non-zero sum game for institutes, students and the government. 

-- Kushal Shenoy, Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bangalore.

MHRD should crack down institutes which admit students on financial considerations. This is the only way to improve the quality and competition in the educational sector. We have lakhs of students passing out every year but only few are employable and the rest add up to the unemployment category. People with abundant money pay bribe to the management or indulge in unethical practices to get their dreams fulfilled without doing any considerable work. Hence let the hard working and knowledgeable students get admission to the best institutes through merit which is backed by the loans provided.  

-- Simion Raj, Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bangalore.

If we analyse the reason why educational institutions admit on financial considerations, it mostly comes down to the fact that every institution wants to improve its intake capacity and infrastructure. 35% of India's population in age group of 20-25 aspires for higher education but the present enrolment into higher education, is only 9% to 11% as against 45% - 85% in the developed countries. What MHRD should do is encourage admitting two meritorious but financially weak students for every admission of a financially strong one. This translates into a win-win situation for everyone.

-- Arunansu Kumar, Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bangalore.

The menace of capitation disturbs the regular admission procedure through merit system and serves as a constant reminder of how the government fails to deliver on its promises of securing the equality

of opportunity. The MHRD should ensure that admissions aren’t governed by the capability to pay the capitation fee. It should consider framing a single legislation with appropriate regulations and cancel recognition and affiliation given to a professional college if it is found to be charging capitation fee or indulging in profiteering.

-- Rahul Das, Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bangalore.

MHRD needs to act upon institutes which admit student for financial considerations and not on merit as they inflict two kind of loses to our country. First one being generation of black money and the second is intellectual loss by not giving chance to the meritorious student. Such practices are morally and legally unacceptable. Prosperity of such institutions is the reason for the psychological aberration among students & society that such practices work and are genuine. Parents also need to avoid involving in such practices. The monitory requirement of the institute should be managed by putting reasonable tuition fees.

-- Zafar Imran, Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bangalore.

Education is a big business and you will find many entrepreneurs in this field since it is one of the most profitable businesses. Many IT companies have observed that engineers are not employable.The MHRD should take firm action on colleges which accept donations. Or else the quality of education will worsen. AICTE should take action to check the mushrooming of professional colleges by making the approval process a difficult one. MHRD should heavily fine colleges accepting donations and if many cases are reported in the same institution, then force the closure as it will serve as a detriment to other institutions.

-- Aparna Nagarajan, Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bangalore.

In this world of rat race and blinking future , such cases gives the financially better off students an edge over the humble students. Since ages, merit has been the sole criteria to seek admission in any institute but the temptation for making money has taken its dirty form which has led to such appalling act. It’s high time to take some actions by MHRD so as to curb these kind activities in near future and to bridge the existing lacuna in the education system.

-- Dipika Sahoo, College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar.

Institutes are taking financial consideration as their first priority of admissions and it effect the system to ineffective in improving performance to the knowledge efficiency, talent pool outcome and making a shortage fore-run. Consequences made hazards in the system, as a vocational merit of fundamentals is suffering the inefficiency; admission is like a service through the pricing with demand and supply model, zoomed to diversify their business. So they should emphasize an open-minded education system from grass root level, for empowering the purpose of education with a team like watchdog for infusing greater rigor and professional inputs.

-- Prasenjit Ghosh, Unitedworld School of Business (UWSB), Ahmedabad.

The MHRD should definitely take action against institutes which admit students on the basis of money. The government gives many benefits to educational institutions. It is their duty to provide quality education to meritorious students. By adopting such unethical practices, they are not only doing business in the name of education but also playing with the future of India. There is a need for National Admission Council which should monitor all admissions in the country. The council should ensure that all admissions are done on the basis of the set criteria. This way government will be able to stop such practices.

-- Ankit Jain, Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bangalore.

MHRD can provide a provision for some seats which can be filled on the basis of financial consideration. A few people riches can be utilized to give the proper resources to other deprived students who can use their talents to excel and which would have otherwise been wasted due to absence of resources .But filling all the seats can pose a real threat to the credibility,quality of education and things which will tarnish the image of institutes in eyes of recruiter and also the mass. Therefore MHRD rules should be clear and strict about the admissions relating to financial considerations.

-- Nitesh Singh, United World School of Business, Ahmedabad.

The matter in hand  has crept so much in the system that  cracking down on these innumerable institutes is looking a distant thought. The ministry to launch a campaign against this will be a hard task as power structure is so much in favour of them and these financial considerations are working as a invisible hand in many institutes. But a start is needed to set a mechanism to trace the big fishes first to set an example for all.

-- Anurag Srivastava, Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA).

MHRD should crack down on institutes which admit students not on merit but for financial consideration. Management quota is legal in our country and a college can set aside few seats for that purpose. But if a college disregards merit and makes selection only based on financial consideration, then is just becomes a money making machine and the real purpose of imparting education takes a backseat. This jeopardizes the chances of a deserving candidate. The implications of such an act are far reaching for any society.

-- Arjun Monga, Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bangalore

An Investment in the child education will reap rich dividends for the nation. Keeping these in mind, the MHRD should focus at under graduate’s level first, so that the education pyramid had its strong foundations. Students should be judged by their cerebral and not on deep pockets of their parents and be able to compete themselves on the level playing ground of education only. Thus bringing the parameter of financial consideration will be a road block in the progress of students who lack this financial support. MHRD should back list those institutes who follow this immoral humanity approach.

-- Harsh Mehta, St. Kabir Institute of Professional Studies, Ahmedabad.

Your responses should reach us at edu@business-standard.com by Monday evening every week. Please ensure that your responses do not exceed 100 words. Avoid attachments and email your full name, institute's name, batch and complete mailing address. The student who gives the 'Best Response' will be awarded Rs 500.

THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Do you think management institutes should adopt a different thinking line to improve the employability of MBAs?