Education, State and the Free Market - II
The Indian context
Is education a public good or a private interest or both? Even if it is a public good, does it matter if it is delivered by government or private schools? Are private schools necessarily better than government schools? If that is the case, is privatization the final solution to the problem of educational quality in India? Is the Constitution justified in imposing controls over private schools? What do we even mean by private or public schools in India?
Prof. Niraja Jayal, Prof. Gurpreet Mahajan and Prof. Sudhir Krishnaswamy respond to these questions in their presentations in the Philosophy of Education Conference held in 2014 and 2015.
Prof. NIRAJA JAYAL, Jawaharlal Nehru University
"The duty to improve and civilize oneself is a social duty and not merely a personal [private] one, because the social health of society depends on the civilization of its members."
13 minute synopsis
Prof. GURPREET MAHAJAN, Jawaharlal Nehru University
"We need to move away from this either-or thinking and think along the lines of complementarity between public and private schools....with one sector pursuing innovation and creativity and the other pursuing equality."
16 min synopsis
Prof. SUDHIR KRISHNASWAMY, Azim Premji University
"Private actors too would be subject to the need to realize the basic mandates of schooling which the constitution sets up as being prior to their other expansive rights to do business. ... The State can have a core regulatory power that emerges from the constitutional priority to education."
15 min synopsis