Welcome breather

If the Indian Institutes of Management and the Supreme Court are lucky, they may find the entire environment changed with respect to the public interest litigation PIL on the IIM fee cut issue by the time the court examines the issue in July. There may be a more reasonable and forward-looking minister in the human resources development ministry and, who knows, even some well behaved officials. Together they may help retrieve lost ground and find an amicable solution so that the Supreme Court does not have to lecture the IIMs on conflict management and the ministry, on human resources development!

That the entire issue has been reduced to a clash of personalities masquerading as a clash of principles is tes-tified to by the transcript of the proceedings of the IIM society meeting published in the pages of this newspaper. Using the word 8220;sir8221; like punctuation, an outwardly supine civil servant has been shown to issue dire threats to dumbstruck stakeholders in clear violation of the assurance given by his ministry to the highest court of the land on respecting the autonomy of the institutions. The decision of the apex court to reconvene on the matter in July will also give time for the IIMs to introspect on whether they have responded to the challenge in the right spirit.

The debate should move away from the level of the fee charged, to questions of investment in higher education, autonomy of institutions of learning, internal management systems and methods of funding such institutions as well as funding scholarships for deserving students. In the entire debate on the IIM fees, the question has so far not been addressed as to what the private corporate sector has been doing to invest in the managerial talent that it so desperately needs. The real solution may lie in minimising dependence on government and seeking funds from sources that value the quality of education more than anything else. Hopefully a new government in New Delhi will also examine in greater detail how the quality of higher education can be improved even as more autonomy is given to institutions and less subsidy is provided to those that do not need it. The breather between now and July should help clear the air and enable more rational policy options to emerge.