Market Driven Expansion in Education Sector: Implications of Rising Fee Structure

• In Event: Economics and Finance of Education in Developing and Emerging Market Economies: Current Developments and Challenges

Proposal

Considering education as a socially and economically productive investment, it has been emphasised that developing countries must improve the quality, efficiency and equality of opportunities in education to progress in their respective national economies (Psacharopoulos et al. 1986).

The Task Force (IBRD, 2000) identified major implications of fast expanding global knowledge economy on developing countries such as: those weakly connected with rapidly changing global economy would suffer in terms of access to knowledge and hence higher incomes, invoking the need to enhance and usage of technology in primary and secondary level of education for rapid growth and development of these economies, knowledge-skill mismatch would too create knowledge gap to reap the benefits of growing economy at par with developed market economies of the world. One important fact for developing countries is underfunded public education institutions and private sector having difficulties in establishing quality programs except market driven courses (short term courses in HE) with a profit motive.
After a decade the realities match with what was perceived. Rather there is a massive but erratic and uneven expansion in education sector driven basically by private institutions in majority of developing countries. The private budget schools and deteriorating quality of majority of public schools with few exceptions in India gives a better example of the transition from state sector to non-state sector in the education system. Similarly, the growth of private higher education sector in India along with expansion in countries which had traditionally dominant state sector such as China and Russia are experiencing market intervention in higher education decision making. While opportunities are few the challenges are many. The rising fee structure of these private educational institutions has become a matter of concern for students from low income families. While privatization of higher education and growth of the private sector under government initiatives are contested (Altbach et al. 2018), higher tuition cost in such emerging market economies with even greater private rate of returns is argued to be justified (Carnoy et al. 2013). However, the benefits of market driven courses and programmes are cornered by selective group of population keeping the marginalised sections of population deprived of social mobility in the absence of adequate subsidies. Further, uneven geographical distribution of educational institutions and concentration of private institutions in urban or semi-urban regions restrict access to such institutions (Varghese & Panigrahi, 2019). Many such institutions suffer in quality parameter.

This study is a comparative analysis that bring outs the implications of rapid expansion of private education sector in developing and emerging market economies of BRIC countries with special focus on India.

Author

• Jinusha Panigrahi, Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education (CPRHE), National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), New Delhi, India