The writer’s sampling is poor and his generalisations atrocious — a classic example of the abuse of statistical techniques (“ >Privatising professional education ,” May 7). While capitalistic America has public and for-profit universities, India needs more public universities. Indians who have made it to the top of professional excellence have studied in one or the other system. Therefore, it is incorrect to attribute all glory to one private university.
K. Gunasekaran,
Chennai
The time is not yet ripe for the government to consider withdrawing from funding higher education for the simple reason that today, large-hearted, generous and enlightened visionaries like T.M.A. Pai no longer exist.
Felix Moses,
Chennai
What a myopic view of government sponsored education in our country. The only point where I agree with the writer is on the quota system being a detrimental factor to the growth of education. It has to be revisited.
Adithya Kumar,
Chennai
The article is a neo-liberal apology for the commercialisation and commodification of higher education and subscribes certain notions of graded equality and merit in the Indian context. The writer incorrectly attributes the reason for the emergence of private educational institutions in the country to caste/community-based reservation and then sees reservation as a “social evil”. Private institutions including higher and lower educational institutions receive subsidies and other largesse from governments in the form of free land, subsidised water, electricity and so on.
Chandran Komath,
Kottayam
The article seems to endorse the case of private, self-financing professional institutions. Arvind Kejriwal and Ashok Khemka have been fighting to cleanse corrupt institutions in our country. Nandan Nilekani joined politics only after being a part of a team that pioneered the information technology revolution in India. On the other hand, Satya Nadella and Rajeev Suri — “the backbone of India’s technical prowess” — have in fact been working for foreign multinationals. When nations are increasingly thinking about increasing public spending on higher education, the writer’s emphasis on privatisation falls short of proper reasoning.
Muneer Mammi Kutty, Arjun C., Sajid K.,
Thiruvananthapuram
