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Education plays a crucial role in shaping the future of the society and no nation can undervalue the significance of education in the growth of the country. From time to time, the state and national governments have adopted different policies towards educational system in the country. In India until the early 1980s, the authority of the academic system was solely rested with the government since they were funding it. By the middle of 1980s, the changes were initiated in tune with the global trend. And in 1991, government’s decision to open up the economy to integrate it with the global economy marked a major shift in the educational policy of the government from its previous practices. Government had limitations to give adequate priority to education in its budget since it had to address many other social schemes at the same time. As a pragmatic step, Government decided to draw on the energy and resources of private academic entrepreneurs for training human resources.
This saw an unprecedented expansion of professional education in India in the 2 decades since 1990, with about 6800 new engineering colleges, 248 medical colleges, 3000 management institutes, 1800 hotel management institutions, 2650 nursing schools and colleges, 600 dental colleges, 2000 pharmacy colleges, 1600 polytechnics, 1200 medical lab technology institutions, 148 deemed universities and around 4500 institutions, which benefited the economy in diverse fields in no small measure.
There are numerous government controlled bodies in charge of regulating the private education sector in India. Unfortunately, all of these bodies collectively failed to support the causes of the private unaided management and corruption is rampant in many of these official bodies. As of today, 95% of the professional institutions and 98% of the human resources come out of the colleges run by private management. However, Government is reluctant to recognize our contribution and did not include our representatives in any of these official bodies. This scenario made the formation of an institution to jointly represent the private managements inevitable. Subsequently, Federation of Associations of Unaided Professional Educational Institutions in India (FAMPEI) was formed in 2005 to take care of the needs of the Unaided Professional Educational Institutions in India.
Since the inception of FAMPEI five years ago, it has effectively represented Unaided Professional Educational Institutions in the country. We are confident that our participation in official bodies will positively impact the government’s future programmes in the academic sector. FAMPEI stands for a public-private partnership which, we believe, is the ideal policy any progressive government can follow.
There are many instances, in which state and official bodies created hindrances with unnecessary regulations. Private institutions have fought many regressive educational policies of the state and won many of them with the help of court interventions. Government should act constructively to enhance the education sector rather than trying to curb the private sector involvement. We urge the government to emphasize education in their development plans to ensure economic growth. We have already gained some notable achievements with our concerted work and we are committed to carry on with our efforts to serve the education sector further.
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