The public exchequer everywhere tries to develop a super sense like terriers in order to find potential source of revenue collection. Nothing wrong with it as long as the attempt does not infringe with wider and more important interests of the nation concerned. So the authorities have to be cautious about their move taking into consideration the immediate reaction and wider and far-reaching implications. By all accounts, the imposition of seven and a half per cent value-added tax (VAT) on the country's private universities and medical colleges was in the first place a misplaced priority and also an outright unwise decision.
This is, however, in the financial sense of the term. From an administrative point of view, it was a blunder that put paid to political naivety. Bureaucracy does hardly take into reckoning the power of people and try to impose things on them. Politics for the people, though, exercise a sobering influence and strikes a balance between state power and people's power. When political leadership acts in the hands of civil servants, the result can be awfully negative, to say the least.
This has happened in the case of the introduction of a new pay scale for the employees and officers of the Republic to the neglect of teachers of the public universities. Ill-advised as it was, the imposition of VAT on private universities only acted as the last straw that broke the camel's back. By such a bureaucratic botch-up, both the public and private universities were antagonised. In case of the higher seats of learning in the public sector, it was the teachers who were given the genuine ground for recrimination and in case of private universities, it was the students with no track record of such unrest before this recent demonstration, who were forced to swing into mass disobedience.
Although, the student protests were largely peaceful and the police too were tolerant, the overall impact in the city life of Dhaka proved most telling. The sit-in demonstrations by students of the capital's private universities brought city life to a grinding halt with the ultimate sufferings and agony to the public. On Monday the authorities backed out and withdrew the VAT on private universities. What was ludicrous is the illogical reasoning and statements made by none other than the finance minister. His last statement on the issue was to the effect that students should stand guard against any ploy by private universities to realise extra fees or charges.
There is no point punishing Jadu for the offence committed by Madhu. Sure enough, most of the private universities are at fault on various counts. As those are non-profit entities, their sponsors have no right to make financial gains out of those. But in reality, many of the private universities have simply been turned into money spinners on this or that pretext. If the authorities meant business, they could very well take on the erring varsities on account of breach of contract they signed during the permission obtained from the University Grants Commission (UGC). The loopholes could be plugged in order to make higher education far less costlier. Anyone knows that if the VAT stayed valid, it was the learners who had to bear the brunt.
In this connection, raising the issue of monthly tuition charge -a meagre amount of Tk 15 - in public universities may not be irrelevant. Anyone knows this is ludicrously low but does any government ever dare raise the fee? The motive was to take advantage of the apolitical atmosphere prevailing in private universities. But the move simply backfired. Should one find a link between the withdrawal of VAT and the statement made by the student front of the ruling party in its favour on the eve of the day it was done?
True, the student protest against VAT was not political as such but the decision of its imposition has in a sense politicised them by default. Students of private universities had no reason to come out on the street to protest a government decision. Now that they have won, they surely should be aware of their collective power. They have tasted blood and may press for further grounds in the coming days. A few of the private universities had to declare holidays earlier than the schedule in an effort to avoid the embarrassing situation they had never confronted before.
A seed for future destabilisation of higher education in the private sector has been sown. In the same breath one should note that the public universities, already embroiled with various problems of their own, too headed for further trouble over the pay scale but for the review commission. The commission will look into the discriminatory structure of university teachers' pay scale. That teachers are involved with consultancy and teach in private universities to the neglect of their own students has some basis, no doubt. But this is partially true. A small fraction of teachers of the public universities is at fault but the majority are not to blame for the offence.
The concerned university authority does a disservice by not taking disciplinary actions against such erring teachers. If routine classes are neglected, research and creation of knowledge is not pursued, teachers lose the right to be there. But civil servants enjoying better perks at times do nothing when made officers on special duty. Their output is not always commensurate with their perks and privileges. Then involvement in malpractices by some of them is a betrayal with the cause of the people.
Now that the salary has become double in most cases, the common people can only expect that both civil servants and teachers of higher seats of learning will get their acts together so that they can serve the nation better and set examples for others to follow. But first get rid of the discrimination against university teachers.
   nilratanhalder2000@yahoo.com
Politicisation by default
Nilratan Halder | Published: September 18, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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