According to Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay director Subhasis Chaudhuri, the cost of university education in India was cheap, despite which there was a demand from certain section of students in the country for a lower fee structure.
Dr. Chaudhuri was speaking at Xenith’20 organised by St. Xavier’s College’s Information and Technology department last week. Referring to the demands of students of Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jadavpur University, he said, “In India education is cheap, there is no tuition fee, if you go to the U.S., any kind of education costs $50,000 a year. Here, students are demanding education at a rate at which it is difficult to even afford a cup of coffee today.”
Dr. Chaudhuri said in India, education was vital to the growing economy. “Almost 1.5 crore teachers are employed through it and several other subsidiary businesses like university canteens and stationery shops also rely on educational institutions. They are in themselves, a functioning business,” he said.
Speaking on the topic ‘Higher Education: Perspective of an Administrator’, Dr. Chaudhuri said it was a known fact that money is required to maintain educational set-ups and their quality of teaching. “If one is paying a private college (to study), the children must receive quality education because that is their right.”
Dr. Chaudhuri observed that education opportunities were vast in the present day. “From massive open online courses to alternatives for student loans in countries like the U.S., education is no longer restricted to classrooms,” he said.
According to him, good education requires someone to pay for it. “Students should push towards brilliance, which is possible only when they constantly question the opportunities being vested on to them. In the U.S., students work with their universities for their education pay the college back once they are employed. Here, they do not even rely on student loans.”
Dr. Chaudhuri said similar policies existed in Australia, where the government lets the students choose colleges and the government aids their education. “These are great initiatives. The students pay back when they start earning,” he said.
The IIT-B director also spoke about the reduction in barriers and the ongoing debate about the need of a higher education. “The society creates unofficial deadlines but however it is surely, a personal choice as to what one deems as necessary… the presence of knowledge liberates oneself from one’s inner bondage. Education is the manifestation of perfection,” he said.
