JUBAIL, 24 March 2007 — If the current trend continues, the next generation of Keralites will consist of only engineers and doctors. Such is the average Malyalee parent’s obsession with these two professions. The leftovers will become television presenters, singers and actors. Thus, a scarcity of accountants, teachers, journalists, scientists, management experts, linguists, researchers etc. is a good possibility in the not-so-distant future.
The past two decades have seen explosive growth with very high salaries offered to engineers, especially in the information technology sector. Twenty to fifty thousand rupees per month have become the norm. The only other profession which can compete with those salaries is medicine. More than two-thirds of students from Kerala’s engineering colleges find lucrative employment even before the beginning of their final year.
Here too IT-related specializations lead the pack. Campus selection and lucrative salary is still a pipe dream for medical students and post-graduate studies have become the basic qualification to succeed in medicine and the capitation fee for admission to an MD course ranges from Rs.2.5 million to Rs.5 million in most self-financed/private colleges.
None of the above, however, has any impact on the average Keralite parent’s often irrational desire to find a seat for his child in a professional college.
The prevailing capitation fee is Rs.2 million to Rs.4 million for medicine and Rs.200,000 to Rs. 1 million for engineering, depending on the reputation of the institution. Self-financed colleges generally in southern India — and particularly in Kerala — thrive on the Keralite parent’s hunger to secure a professional education for their children. This has turned the rich and the upper middle class of Kerala into a gold mine for merchants of education. Gulf Keralites are considered to be soft targets and easy prey due to their ignorance of the education market and their eagerness to secure a seat as early as possible.
Once the 12th exams are over, Gulf cities are thronged by the agents of private professional colleges. Last year when engineering seats were readily available for Rs.100,000 or Rs.200,000 in the open market, Gulf parents paid $5000 or more for the same due to a lack of awareness on ground realities in India.
Professional education is considered to be a passport to money and social status. Unfortunately in the current situation of common entrance tests and its related allotment of seats, the interests of the lower middle class and the poor are not considered at all.
Studies have shown conclusively that students who score in the first 2000 ranks and thus become eligible for free seats at government and aided engineering/medical colleges are always from the upper middle class and the rich who are from urban English medium schools.
All of them have availed themselves of expensive coaching centers which are beyond the means of the lower middle class and the poor. There are many who take a one-year break after 12th standard for an intensive year of coaching.
There are also a large number who attend coaching and keep on appearing for entrance exams until they get a free seat. An invisible nexus may exist in the state with an unholy alliance between expensive coaching centers and professional education machinery. All of these result in children from wealthy and influential families gaining state-aided professional education.
These professional coaching centers are urban-centered and hence discriminate against rural students.
As the entrance test is conducted in English, students who have studied in the Malayalam medium are also at a disadvantage. In short, the current situation is not an equal playing ground for all aspiring students.
It simply works to the advantage of urban children from English medium schools. The current system requires urgent reforms to make the professional college seat allotment fairer and more justified.
If we plan to retain the existing entrance exams pattern, children from the Malayalam medium should be given grace marks. Appearances should be limited to two or weightage should be given to first appearance. Marks scored for science and mathematics should also be added to entrance test scores for determining the ranks.
The NRI quota with a higher fee structure is not a desirable way to assist NRI children.
Gulf Indians should be justifiably reclassified as OCW (Overseas Contract Workers) and their children exempted from paying higher fees. It is unfair to equate Gulf Indians with Indians settled or employed in Europe and the US with immigrant status and benefits.
