Financing Higher Education to Build Non-exploitative Society for Peace

EDUCATION, 28 Apr 2025

Dr. Surya Nath Prasad – TRANSCEND Media Service

This paper is based on the paper of the author of these lines Prof. Surya Nath Prasad published in the Special Issue of University News – A Weekly Journal of Higher Education of Association of Indian Universities, Vol. 42, No. 52, Dec. 27, 2004

Financing Higher Education: Why?

Everywhere in the world including in our own nation, there are oppression, exploitation, poverty, injustice, and ignorance, which lead to violence, war, nationalism and terrorism. Hence there is urgent need to engage the talented persons in creation and construction for development and peace.

But higher education is not available for all merit students, except elites, anywhere in the world. Federico Mayor, The then Director-General of UNESCO also observed and said, “Today in all parts of the world, the entry to the university is only for elite – whether the elite is the product of economic, political, linguistic, cultural, religious, gender-based or geographical privilege.” Further he observed and advised, “When we examine all the systems of higher education throughout the world, the conclusion is obvious: a transition must be made from elite to merit i.e. the right to enter higher education must be given only to those who have made the effort and demonstrated the perseverance and responsibility – regardless of any financial criterion.”

However, even if a few privileged have access to higher education, it is not man-making, whether he or she is. In view of South Korean peace thinker Young Seek Choue, “Today’s institution of higher education has become knowledge-producing factories that manufacture mechanical men and women. Education has become a tool for economic development and nothing more. With their intense concentration upon knowing more and more about less and less, men from different fields of specialization are not equipped for common intellectual dialogue. In brief, today’s education has totally failed to create fully rounded individuals.”  First Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru asked a big question on university, “…But if the temple of learning itself becomes a home for narrow bigotry and petty objectives, how then will the nation prosper or people grow in stature.” Findings of the study of P.A. Sorokin reveal, “(1) that with an increase in education, scientific discoveries, and inventions, crime has not decreased; that comparatively illiterate persons, nations, and groups are not more criminals than literate ones; and that criminals are no less intelligent (in terms of schooling and mental test)than criminals; (2) that there is a very remote relationship, if any, between education, I.Q., school grades, and other forms of measured intelligence, on the one hand, and egoism or altruism and anti-social or cooperative traits, on the other hand; (3) that even the intellectual elite of the past four centuries, distinguished for their genius, have hardly been ethically superior to the rank and file.”

Today, mis-education of a few privileged and non-education of majority, even of this mis-education, have led to war and different forms of violence. History has a record that 20 million people died in World War I, 40 million more killed in World War II. Yet there have been over a hundred wars since the United Nations was founded in 1945, and another 20 million have been killed. And 110 million deaths was estimated 20^th century. Still there is violence and killings in different parts of the world. The whole world is in the grip of global terrorism. Terrorists seem more powerful than respective individual government and even collective nation-states. There is possibility in future; terrorists may use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons also to achieve their destructive goals. Thus, most of nations of the world are facing the problems of “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing” and “global terrorism”. Besides them, people are suffering from hunger, disease and ignorance.

No doubt, we are Americans, Russians, Chinese, Indians, and persons of other nations; Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and persons of other religions; doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, and other professionals; husbands and wife, father and son, brother and sister and other relations; black and white and other races; but we are not man (human). Hence we are oppressing, exploiting and killing each other; and sometimes we are killing ourselves also. The reasons of all these violence are mis-education and non-education. Thus present higher education is destructive in both ways: it destroys those to whom it reaches, and it destroys those to whom it is denied. Therefore financing higher education with inclusion of man-making education, i.e. peace education is a must providing opportunity to all people who are future masters in governance to be non-exploitative, non-violent, just and peaceful with each other.

Who Harmed Higher Education?

The World Bank, the Government, the Private Commercial Educational Institutions and the Supreme Court have done great injury to higher education.

The World Bank: The World Bank has done great harm to higher education considering it as non-merit and private good, and by comparing higher education with electricity, diesel and fertilizer with respect to subsidies. The World Bank asked the governments of developing countries not to spend money on higher education and asked them to give more priority and importance to primary and secondary education which are merit and public good.

The Government of India: The government of India has committed wrong by circulating Discussion Paper concerning Government subsidies in India. The assumptions of the Discussion Paper on the Government Subsidies in India are: a) the recipients of higher education are the main beneficiaries (the society is not benefited), b) a decrease in the number of recipients of higher education will not harm the nation’s interests, c) a genuine increase in prices is certain, d) the beneficiaries of higher education are many from middle and higher classes and e) the children of higher salaried class and middle class can afford unsubsidized or nominally subsidized professional education. The Government of India’s views on higher education as non-merit good, and non-entitlement of government’s subsidies are based on the thinking of the World Bank. Hence the government directs the government added institutions of higher education to mobilize their own financial resources to the high cost of education by increasing tuition fee, and charging other fees for development of the institutions.

Private Commercial Educational Agencies: The Government of India has started shrinking its responsibility to finance higher education by cutting the percentage of subsidies to the universities and colleges, and also by encouraging private agencies to open the institutions of higher education through giving them recognition on no-grant basis. These agencies also did great harm to higher education by degrading the quality of higher education having no required infrastructure facilities, qualified faculty, and prescribed salaries and service conditions of teaching and non-teaching human resource. Today private commercial educational institutions have opened several professional institutions. They charge high fees for different courses and they earn more savings from the fees, but they fail to maintain the quality and standard of higher education.

The Supreme Court: The Supreme Court in its 11-Judge Bench decisions in Minority Education Institutions of T.M.A. Pai Case (2003) has also not done good to higher education with respect to government subsidy to it. The Supreme Court holds in T.M.A. Pai Case that the right to establish and administer educational institutions is guaranteed to all citizens under Article 19(1)(g) and Article 26 and to the minorities specifically under Article 3o of the Indian Constitution.

However, the Articles do not provide any scope to anybody to establish institutions of higher education for commercial purposes. Article 19(1)g of the Constitution of India clearly states, “All citizens have right to practice any  profession, to carry on any occupation, trade or business. Article 26 of the Constitution gives freedom to manage religious affairs. Certainly Article 30 of the Constitution tells about rights of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions, but for community purpose.

But the judgment in T.M.A. Pai Case empowers the private and minority education institutions to appoint teachers, regulate admissions and determine fee subject to reasonable provisions being made for minorities, non-minorities and poor. However, the Supreme Court was more concerned about entrepreneurial rights in the field of education than about the rights individual citizens to education. The Supreme Court in its judgements guaranteed the entrepreneurial rights to establish institutions of higher learning to private commercial agencies.

There has been gradual change in the decisions of Supreme Court concerning citizen’s right to education. In Mohini Jain Judgment (1992), the court asserted the right to education at all levels,

in Unni Krishnan Judgment (1993), the Court confined free education up to the 14 years leaving the right to higher education subject to the limit of economic capacity of the State. Now in Minority Education of T.M.A. Pai Judgment (2003), the Supreme Court restricted the right to free education to primary education holding higher education as ‘private good’ which benefits the individual who is recipient hence he should pay for it. In fact, Supreme Court judgment has also similar mistaken views of higher education as ‘non-merit good’ like the World Bank and the Government of India.

With this judgment of Supreme Court, education, which is regarded as sacred venture, has been reduced to commercial activity. This judgment of Supreme Court is self-contradictory also because institution of higher education cannot be both: trade and charitable activity. Hence, Supreme Court Judgment in T.M.A. Pai Case needs a review by 13-Judge Bench.

 Higher Education: What?

Higher education is synonym of university. It has a place at university or a college or  an institute. It is an authority to issue a licence to a person for a grant of a degree or certificate after completion of a particular course. It indicates that information and knowledge gained by the individual in a particular discipline or disciplines entitle them for degrees, diplomas and certificates in the respective subjects. However, higher education is not merely acquiring knowledge and information in the subject and/or subjects. But it is more than this. And its place may not only be restricted within four-walls or in ivory-towers. It may be in garden for Newton (who discovered “Law of Gravitation” in the garden); in bathroom for Archimedes (who discovered “Laws of Floating Bodies” in the bathroom); in kitchen for James Watt (who discovered the “Theory of Steam Engine” in the kitchen) or in prison for Nehru (the First Prime Minister of India who considered prison as the best of universities about which he wrote in his letter dated 7^th April 1932 from Bareily District Jail addressing jointly to his sisters who were both in Lucknow District Jail. Prison itself he made a university by his creative use of nine years that he spent in detention during the struggle of India’s freedom); and also in forest for saints, sages and their disciples (in ancient times in India); and also in homes of creative thinkers (like Saint Tulsidas, Surdas, Kabirdas, Tukaram, Gyaneshwar, and other enlightened persons in India; and scientists (in England, except Newton hardly any men of eminence were connected with universities until the end of the nineteenth century).

But one should not conclude from the above citations that for better learning and creation of knowledge and civilization, scholars should be sent to jungles or restricted them in homes, or they should be encouraged to learn in gardens, bathrooms and kitchens for creations, scientific discoveries and inventions. The main or basic point in the above examples is awareness about the situation which provokes the person s for learning, manifestation, and creation. Nehru also did not mean that students of universities should be kept in prisons or universities should be converted into prisons. The main thrust of his was how to use leisure creatively by being conscientized.

However, higher education is conscientization, awareness, awakening, imagination, contemplation, intuition, invention, discovery, creation and above all unfoldment of intellectual treasure already present within every human being everywhere. And products of higher education are science, technology, religion, culture, civilization and perpetual development and progressive change in all resulting to non-violence, non-exploitation, non-oppression, and the ultimate outcome of it is co-prosperity, co-happiness, and co-peace, which lead to create “a society that would be spiritually beautiful, materially affluent and humanly rewarding” as visioned by Korean Peace thinker, who was the Founder Chancellor of Kyung Hee University  South Korea and he was also President Emeritus of International Association of University Presidents (IAUP). Still higher education needs peace education in its syllabus as a core curriculum. This education (peace education), which is based on body, vitality, mind, intellect, and spirit, that constitute every man and woman irrespective of any discrimination, is perpetual integral manifestation till the end of life leading them to be just, peaceful and nonviolent. Then we will find university of dreams of first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru realized who said, “A university stands for humanism, tolerance, for reason, for adventure of ideas, and for     the search for truth. It stands for the onward march of human race towards ever-higher objectives. If the universities discharge their duties adequately then it is well with the nation and the people.”

However, the peace education, based on universally inherent five elements, viz. body, vitality, mind, intellect and spirit in every man and woman, is not in practice anywhere in the world. The method of communication of knowledge contained in higher education, and even in all grades, and types of education including in existing peace education is teaching – the pedagogy, the science of teaching, which is violence, hence it leads to violence, while the method of communication should be learning – the mathetics – the science of learning, which is peace, hence it leads to nonviolence.

Who Should Pay for Higher Education and Why?

Education of people is very expensive. All have no resources to meet the expenses of education. But better governance (service) and nonviolence in every walk of life and throughout life, education for all for all grades and free of charge is a must. It is the responsibility of the State, whether the nation-State is democratic or non-democratic, to educate all, and in all (what a man or woman possesses inherently) through peace education, and information, knowledge and imagination through primary to secondary to higher education. Nonviolence and sustainable development in the nation-states depend on the nonviolence and sustainable development in the people of the nation-states, otherwise nation-states would has to face different forms of violence and stagnation in their equitable developments. Article 26 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (of which all the Member nation-States of the United Nations are the signatories) states, “Everyone has the right to education…Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.” Here and also anywhere in any nation-state, there is neither any provision nor even any mention about peace education (man-making education) in the curriculum of their educational institutions.

The author of these lines, Prof. Surya Nath Prasad, has already differed with the views of World Bank and the Government on higher education as non-merit-good in his paper published in the Special Issue of University News, Vol. 42, No. 52, Dec. 27, 2004.  “Higher education is of benefit to the individuals concerned and that therefore they should pay for fully”, this view of the World Bank was also not endorsed by I.G. Patel (2003), one of the most distinguished economists and former Governor of Reserve Bank of India. He said also, “Society needs a certain number of teachers, engineers, accountants, artists, historians; and these cannot be produced in sufficient number without higher education.” UNESCO also rejected the World Bank’s view of higher education as a non-merit good, and it challenged the partial view of education and prioritization of one sector of education over another. UNESCO Document states, “State and society must perceive higher education not as a burden on federal budgets but as a long term domestic investment in order to increase economic competitiveness, cultural development and social cohesion… As a conclusion, one could say that public support to higher education is still essential in order to ensure its educational, social, and institutional mission.” The World Conference of UNESCO also considered higher education as a public good, the benefit of which cannot be fully estimated in monetary terms alone. Public support for higher education and research remains essential to ensure a balanced achievement of educational and social missions. Henry Rosovsky, Co-Chairman of the Joint Task Force of World Bank and UNESCO said, “The Task Force makes a simple point: Higher education has never been more important to all nations that is right now. By contributing to governance, culture, democracy, and the spirit of enterprise, higher education creates valuable public goods.” The report of the World Bank’s own Task Force (2002) revised the earlier World Bank approach to higher education acknowledging it as public good.

Now it is very clear that education is very much merit good or public good, and it is obvious that people finance the exchequer for better management and governance. Hence, like road, public street light, public hospital, public sanitation, cleanliness of public places, public library and like other public services, education of all grades should also not be taxed and charged. It should be totally free to make the direct beneficiaries to be indebted towards national and global societies. In the past also ‘Shala’ (School), ‘Goshala’ (Dairy) and Dharamshala (Inn) were run on charity. In n modern times, considering higher education as ‘public good’, developed nations did more investment in higher education. In 1980s State funding for higher education was high in OECD countries. It was 88 percent in Australia in 1988, 85 percent in France in 1984, 68.5 percent in Germany and 90 percent in Norway in 1987. It would not be fair and just for India with allocation of 9.5 percent on higher education in the budget of tenth five year plan (2002-2007, and 6 percent of the relevant age group to declare higher education as a non-merit-good or private good, while “nearly 86 percent of the total exchequer’s revenue is realized through indirect taxation. This is paid by big or small, and small consumers being in large numbers they contribute a great share,” wrote G.D. Sharma (1992). Stressing the need for much higher investment in education, told Hussain (2003) , former member of the Planning Commission and Ambassador to USA said, “We need a qualitatively different state to meet the opportunities and challenges of globalization. Providing access to education for all with an expansion of scientific and technological forces would prevent people trapped in poverty from being excluded from the opportunities created by the global links between wealth and knowledge.”

Therefore, higher education including other all education – primary, secondary, and in all, peace education – all people good, public good and highly merit good. Hence, expenditure on all educations is not “expenditure”, but it is an “investment” – investment in human resource development, and in long run not only the particular society, but all societies of the world will get heavy returns for centuries while the cost of ignorance can be very for every society. So all educations including higher education and peace education in all educations and perpetually till the end of life for all are not only necessary for all but essential for non-exploitative, non-violent and peaceful society – national to global.

Who Can Share with Government in Financing Higher Education?

The World Bank can be the first and foremost financial institution to enable the under-developed and developing nations by granting them fund for proper planning and execution of higher education and other educations for their people. Rich nations can also generously donate money and other things to the poor and needy nations to facilitate higher and other educations for the people. Every nation has some affluent persons in its territory, and they can also be encouraged to help their government in managing higher education and other educations by extending their financial support. Philanthropists’ financial help can also be taken by the government in the management of higher education and other educations. Buildings, lands and other movable and immovable properties of the institution can also be used properly for the purpose of managing higher and other educations. Alumni of the educational institutions can also assist the government financially in managing higher education and other educations. Private educational charitable trusts which are founded only for charity work can also share burden of the government with regard to the financial responsibility in discharging the duty in managing education by opening the institutions of higher education and other educations with motive of no-profit. Distance mode of education can also share more financial responsibility with government in managing higher education including other educations in much effective way with less investment for more people by minimizing the cost of higher education and other educations. And in the long run, this very mode of virtual institutions can take the place of traditional seats of learning knowledge and skill like in the past when ever home was a type of polytechnics. In future also, every home can be an institution of higher education and other educations. A teacher of one subject may be either in Delhi or Mumbai or Calcutta or Madras or even in Moscow or Beijing or Washington D.C. OR Tokyo, and Black Board as T.V. Screen or the Screen of the Computer may be in every home.

Truly, wealth of the world belongs to all. The world’s population is 8.2 billion today, but the world has still enough to meet the needs of all the people including better all types of educations. Few persons’ freedom of want and ignorance is danger for them and the rest of others. Therefore, world resources must be distributed and used properly in the planning of higher education with other educations of the people of all nations.

However, the sole responsibility of higher education including all educations should be on the government. And in a democratic country, it is a must because the government is of the people.. It is people’s government. Democracy can survive only with the highly educated people. And where there is no democracy, there higher education and other educations can give birth to democracy which leads to peace and nonviolence. Therefore, government should mobilize the resources to finance all levels and types of educations to build a non-exploitative society.

In brief, if higher education with all other educations is understood as merit-good/public good by the world body like United Nations and the World Bank, and national governments, and accordingly higher education and all educations are planned as free for the children of all – rich and poor both – without any discrimination through mobilizing the variety of national and world resources in the development of all nations equally, the future national societies and global society will be bound to be non-exploitative, non-violent, and cooperative which would again create peace within the individuals, between the nations, and ultimately in the whole world.

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Dr. Surya Nath Prasad, Former President, Executive Vice President & Secretary-General of the International Association of Educators for World Peace (IAEWP); associate professor of education emeritus, the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea. Founder and editor-in-chief of Peace Education: An International Journal. dr_suryanathprasad@yahoo.co.in

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 28 Apr 2025.

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