Privatisation of Higher Education: A Study on Students’ Perspective

Education is globally considered as an important investment in building human capital. Human capital is the means of all technical innovation and economic growth. Providing education to all is considered as primary duty of the government. The government has shifted its focus from higher to primary education, while opening the door for the private sector to participate in higher education, a development known as the privatization of higher education. This has sparked a growing trend of educational privatization across the country. At the same time, the demand for higher education in India is rising rapidly. The government of India realized that public budgets cannot adequately fund higher education need of vast population. So, the government has taken measures such as, hike in student fees, student loans and privatization; in justification of availability and mobilization of resources to expand higher education. These measures have made higher education a lucrative business for industrialists. A large number of private institutions are encouraged to enter in education sector. On the one hand privatization of higher education made education assessable to the masses; on the other hand, it brings fee hike, poor quality, exploitation of professionals etc. There are views for and against privatization of higher education in India. Though some have been criticizing the concept even before it has come to be defined and taken off the ground, others consider it very useful and need of the hour. As students are the most important stakeholders of education system. The present study is an attempt to analyses the attitude of students of higher educational institutions towards privatization of higher education.