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Poor `lack access to higher education'

By Our Staff Reporter

PONDICHERRY, SEPT. 14. The former Vice-Chancellor of Calicut University and chairman of the Peer Team of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), K. K. N. Kurup, said higher education in the country was in a crisis.

He said with the Government according service industry status for higher education, it should allow capital investment. Disturbed by the present trend of education becoming a commodity for sale, Mr. Kurup said with foreign universities making inroads into the country students were made to pay higher fees. There should be a strict vigil on their functioning and the exorbitant fees they levied, he told reporters here today.

Let there be no compromise on the quality of professional education, he stressed, calling on the Government to allocate more funds for higher education.

Mr. Kurup said in India only 6.7 per cent of those between 17 and 24 years had access to higher education while internationally it was 22 per cent.

He said if the present trend of commercialisation of higher education continued, Dalits, women and the poor would feel that higher education was inaccessible to them.

He called for a reorientation of government policy on higher education; this would ensure education was accessible to all and quality could also maintained.

Mr. Kurup was here leading a NAAC team on a two-day visit to the Bharathidasan Government College for Women here for final accreditation of the college. The team held discussions with the principal and college staff.

Other members of the team included Nanasahib R. Kapadenis (Registrar, YCM Open University, Nasik) and S. Ramamoorthy.

S. Kumuda, principal, said the college would soon become an autonomous institution. The University Grants Commission had given its approval and formal orders were awaited from Pondicherry University.

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