Education used to be charity or philanthropy in good old times. Engineering / technology/ professional education of late became an 'occupation' and a ‘business’, and a means of livelihood for some professionals/self centred educational entrepreneurs/ promoters of engineering colleges. It is a mission of life for some altruists. Some of the Judicial dicta go on to hold it as an 'industry'. Whether, to receive education, is a fundamental right or not has been debated for quite some time. But it is settled that establishing and administering of an educational institution for imparting knowledge to the students is an occupation, protected by Article 19(1) (g) and additionally by Article 26(a), if there is no element of profit generation.  Education particularly engineering/professional education has been a matter of litigation leading to an unfortunate situation of judicial intervention at various stages of administration and governance of an otherwise a very important sector of education. The recent Andhra Pradesh High Court’s judgment on differential fee making some of the rules  in operative and quashing  several declarations, notifications and recommendations made by the Government from time to time is causing concern and confusion in the in the minds of many.

Subsequent events to this judgment indicate further continuation of litigations in the light of the facts that the Managements of engineering colleges are demanding the scrapping of the variable fee structure under “convenor quota” and “management quota”. They have in fact decided to challenge the government’s policy of “categorization of seats” and the “variable fee structure” in the Supreme Court. The managements are lobbying for a “uniform fee structure” that should be fixed by taking the average fee of the convenor and management quota of seats. They want the government to conduct admissions for all the seats through EAMCET counselling.  Some of the managements’ contention is that there is no such thing as a “management quota” as per previous judgments of the Supreme Court and the state government classifying some seats under this quota itself is “illegal”. They argue that there is only an “NRI quota” for 15 per cent of the seats as per norms. The state government is all set to file an appeal in the Supreme Court against the recent AP High Court order on fixing of variable fee structure for engineering colleges and a uniform fee for convenor and management quota seats by March. The government’s contention is that the High Court orders may prove detrimental for students from socially and economically weaker categories in the long-run. Also, it would not be possible to fix a different fee structure for each and every college by examining infrastructure facilities and expenditure incurred by them since there are over 700 engineering colleges in the state. 

On analyzing the issues relating to the engineering/ professional education erupting in the past few decades particularly so with the entry of private capital and private partnership in the higher education sector in a big way, it is evident  that the Government is still pursuing the path of arbitrariness and adhocism.  Massive expansion and mushroom growth of engineering colleges to meet the demands of the changes in the market dynamics is bound to result in confused state to which we are put to. Regulatory mechanism established by the Governments both at the State and Central level have definitely failed to perform the roles expected of them. The Ghost of nepotism and Corruption is responsible for all the present chaotic conditions. Educational policy makers, administrators instead of acting in a very pragmatic way have chosen the path of ‘control with suspicion’ at every policy that they have formulated. In every policy they laid down, there were sufficient loop holes that helped the Regulators to garner huge amounts of money for themselves. The Managements including those who entered with philanthropic and service mission were compelled to adopt the policies and practices which they never intended to, for staying   and sustaining in the occupation/business/industry they chose.  The situation now demands a saner thinking among every body in the society particularly so by the people governing the state. We need to look at the things in right perspective following the directions of the Courts with a firm commitment in evolving realistic regulatory measures to ensure excellence in functioning of the institutions while preventing the unethical profiteering. The Government instead of adopting populistic vote bank politics need to appreciate the contributions made by the self financing institutions in the development of engineering/ professional education sector respecting their independence by way of providing maximum autonomy without their bureaucratic or unwanted interference with unacceptable restrictions.  The managements also need to change by putting an end to their cynical functioning with ruthless disregard for the matrix of intermeshing values that must substrate a rational, benign and sustainable human activity for the accretion, dissemination and transmission of the wealth of human knowledge. The Regulators and the Committees constituted to help the administration and governance of the institutions need to be responsible instead of reducing themselves to the state of pathetic helplessness by not reigning in the vast multitude of colleges which did not respond to the notifications issued by them. They need to serve as a watchdog in curbing the profiteering or collection of capitation fee by the institutions. There is a greater need for synergy among the self financing institutions for evolving the policies and procedures that are more meaningful. They need to think alike in the overall development of engineering/professional education instead of aiming at individual institution’s development. Instead of establishing different lobbies they need to cultivate the culture of better understanding  of the system with; ‘live and let live’ and ‘develop and enable others to develop’  attitude instead of the ‘big fish eating the small fish’ approach. It is time for every one to think of a realistic solution adopting a ‘give and take’ approach with adequate consideration of all the factors involved in the regulation of fee structure. It could be by way of working out the ‘per capita cost’ of each discipline of education with some safe reserves in consideration for the future development of the institutions. The Government should render all the possible support to the meritorious, socially and economically weaker sections of people through; grant of aid, offering scholarships and loans at affordable rates etc. Let us all strive hard for developing an environment that facilitate all those who are interested in pursuing the professional education of their choice by removing all the barriers with our cohesive and positive thinking.