Expert favours education cess on IT-BT

One per cent cess will yield approximately Rs 500 crore

The proposal to impose a cess on ITT sector to raise funds for supporting meritorious and poor students taking to technical education was favoured by an educational expert here on Tuesday.

Former chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and a well-known technical education expert S Rame Gowda said even one per cent cess on the ITT sector would yield Rs 400-500 crore, which could be used exclusively for scholarships to meritorious and poor students.

Referring to the remarks of Infosys mentor Narayana Murthy that only one-third of the engineering students were qualitatively better, Rame Gowda said there was a need to improve the standard of technical education.

"It is a dynamic age. It is a knowledge world, where knowledge is power and property today. Technical education cannot be stagnant. What exactly relevant today becomes outdated within a few days in this technological era. Technical education has to keep pace with it," the former director of technical education of Karnataka observed.

He welcomed the decision of the state government to grant autonomy to well-placed engineering colleges.

On the controversial changes proposed by the state government in the common entrance test (CET), he wondered what use the pre-university course or examination will have if CET marks alone were taken into consideration for selection to professional courses.

He felt such a decision would burden the rural students as they are deprived of facilities or background to equip themselves exclusively for the CET unlike the urban and city students. "This would cause injustice to the rural students. It would be a curse on them," he remarked.

The changes in reservation quota had to be brought about in the state also because of the changes proposed by the Centre. But these changes have to be in the background of the constitutional provision and the 13-member Supreme Court decision under Article 9 (1)(g).

However, Rame Gowda opined that 35 per cent general merit intended by the state government would improve the general merit quota over the previous years when GM quota availability was around 30 per cent. "Seats under GM would not be a problem as there are 48,000 engineering seats available in the state now," he said.

However, there was another issue related to medical and dental institutions, which require heavy investment on infrastructure and salaries.