
On February 10, the Kerala government approved the draft of the *Kerala State Private Universities (Establishment and Regulation) Bill. This move marks a seismic shift for the Left Democratic Front (LDF), which has long championed a staunch and militant opposition to the privatisation of education. The government now argues that the move is a necessary adaptation to changing times. Without private players, they warn, Kerala risks being “left behind”. But as the state stands on the precipice of this policy overhaul, it’s worth revisiting the concerns raised by progressive student movements across the country.
The push to privatise state-run enterprises often comes wrapped in a familiar rhetoric: efficiency, innovation, and, of course, “quality.” In Kerala’s case, the exodus of students leaving the state—and even the country—for higher education has been a recurring theme in political discourse. Privatisation, it's been suggested, is the solution. But scratch beneath the surface, and the argument reveals less foresight and more insecurity. The underlying premise is that state-run institutions are inherently unreliable and inefficient, while private universities promise a gleaming, “international” standard of education. This is a narrative that even the most apolitical taxpayer must view with skepticism.
But what, exactly, is ‘quality’ in education? Beyond the glossy brochures and ‘state-of-the-art’ facilities, education must be more than a transactional experience. Many who argue for privatisation fixate on placements after education as the sole indicator of quality. While it is true that employment is crucial, a myopic view with placements as the sole criteria will come to destroy education’s pivotal role in the ‘survival of the freedom of the people’ as Prabhat Patnaik puts it. For anyone who views education as a “practice of freedom” (to borrow Paulo Freire’s phrase), it is a liberatory tool—a means to challenge the irrational and dismantle the autocratic. This vision extends beyond the classroom, into the common spaces, student movements, and union offices. Can private institutions, with their profit-driven imperatives, foster such a culture?
Private institutions, if history is any guide, are inherently hostile to organised student activism. In the path to ‘learning efficiency’, student politics is seen as a barrier. Take Bangalore or Mumbai, where mass student movements withered away in the 1990s as the state colluded with private corporations to impose legal bans on campus organising. The death of campus democracy results in education being a one-sided affair. The problem extends to academic freedom and curriculum design as well. In the absence of political liberty, it is the shareholders—not scholars—who dictate the nature of academic work.
Kerala’s Higher Education Minister, R Bindu, has sought to allay fears by emphasising checks and balances to ensure accessibility. The draft Bill mandates 40% reservation for Kerala residents, with SC/ST quotas within that percentage. On paper, this is a commendable step. But what does “accessibility” mean without affordability? Fully private institutions in India are not legally bound to follow affirmative action policies, and the government’s proposal, while progressive, does little to address the financial barriers that privatisation inevitably erects. Similarly there seems to be a sentiment among the left-leaning supporters of the Bill that the dangers of privatisation can be regulated-away by a well-meaning government. This belief is currently supported by the fact that the current bill as it stands has included many regulatory checks and balances, which is commendable. But there are two problems to this form of wishful thinking. The first is that there are some problems that are so fundamental to privatisation (soaring costs of education for example) that it simply cannot be regulated-away. The second problem is that whatever little regulation that exists currently, can, and most likely will be taken away if the government changes at the state level in the future or it can be removed by the central government as well.
In the neoliberal haze of the 1990s, similar claims were made about schooling. Government schools were branded as inefficient and lacking in quality, leading to a massive push toward privatisation. This resulted in the mushrooming of private schools across Kerala from the late 90s, accompanied by a significant shift of students away from public schools. This trend continued unabated until the first Pinarayi government revamped public schooling, transforming it to such an extent that it sparked an incredible reverse migration of five lakh students back into government schools. The lesson is clear: when public institutions are adequately supported, they can not only compete but out-perform.
In Delhi, institutions like Ashoka and Jindal operate by poaching the best faculty from public universities, offering higher pay and better perks. While this may seem like a win for individual professors, it indirectly weakens public institutions, creating a brain drain that benefits only the parasites of society—those who can afford the exorbitant fees of private universities. Another process that happens in parallel to this is the amassing of original manuscripts, art, and so on in the contemporary libraries of private universities. This ensures that any future researcher who requires access will find themselves behind a giant paywall, or might be denied access altogether. Many of the original manuscripts of Girish Karnad, Praful Bidwai, Lashmi Sahgal, and other contemporary figures are already in private archives. For reference, an undergraduate course costs 30 lakh rupees in Ashoka University, and a five year BA LLB at Jindal costs around 48 lakhs. Who benefits? Certainly not the vast majority of students who rely on affordable, accessible public education.
The government’s fear of being “left behind” is particularly ironic when one considers states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Punjab, which embraced privatisation early on. Far from stemming the tide of students seeking education abroad, these states are among the largest contributors to the exodus. The flight of students cannot be solved with private universities because private universities do not address many of its root causes. There are overlapping reasons, ranging from the much higher wages in developed nations, to escaping moral policing in their hometowns. Most importantly, private universities with their imitation of western models of education will produce an unfulfilled desire to move from the clone to the original.
In the decade of openly violent attacks on public institutions like Jamia Millia Islamia and JNU, and the concept of public education as a whole, the Left’s capitulation to private education is misguided and ideologically ill-conceived. If privatisation is the answer, someone seems to have misread the question.
Views expressed are the author’s own.
Varkey Parakkal is a PhD Scholar in Sociology at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.