Bringing higher education under GATS is a disastrous policy that must be opposed. It will be the final blow in the neoliberal assault on public education, writes Akhil Kumar.

At the tenth ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which got underway yesterday at Nairobi, representatives from 162 countries have gathered to discuss global trade agreements. Many of them hope that the Doha Round of multilateral negotiations, which is focused on opening global markets in agriculture, manufacturing and services but has been deadlocked for 14 long years, will finally see a breakthrough, though some would prefer they be junked altogether. While there has been much discussion on the issue of agricultural subsidies, a bone of contention between developed and developing countries, the fact that our government is voluntarily making way for privatising and attracting foreign investment in higher education hasn’t been widely discussed.

In 2005, India offered to open up its higher education sector to global capital under the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), an offer that will turn into a binding commitment if not withdrawn during the course of the conference. In other words, education will be considered a tradable service, which will inevitably lead to its commoditisation; universities will be seen in the same light as other service providers like restaurants, chartered accountants and couriers.

How this commitment affects us can be understood by the following example. Our prime minister was in Paris recently, attending COP21. He announced ambitious plans to lead the world in a solar energy alliance of 120 countries; it was all over the news. What didn’t draw nearly as much attention, though, was a report from a few months back that the WTO had ruled against India in a dispute with the US, who had complained of discrimination against foreign players by India’s solar power programme. What this means is that India cannot favour Indian citizens doing business in their own country even if it wanted to, as WTO members must provide a level playing field for all other members.

The Indian government will be more accountable to the WTO than to its own people; foreign agencies will wield more power than our elected representatives in all decisions pertaining to higher education.

This is important because higher education will soon be treated as a tradable service governed by similar regulations. The Indian government will be more accountable to the WTO than to its own people; foreign agencies will wield more power than our elected representatives in all decisions pertaining to higher education. Is this not a form of imperialism that our own government is willingly submitting to?

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he WTO is an expanded form of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), which came into being in 1947. The GATT was used by developed nations to reduce international trade tariffs for access to new markets in developing and poor nations. As membership increased and it started exercising considerable influence on global trade, the weaker nations found their protections reduced and their markets vulnerable.

After the GATT became the WTO in 1995, trade operations were classified into goods, services and intellectual property rights. The agreement on goods is called GATT 1994, the one on service is called GATS and that on intellectual property rights, used to maintain hegemony through patents, is called the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. All of these are multilateral and integral, and all member states of the WTO must implement them.

It is worrying that India did not ask for any concessions, offering its higher education in toto, even when the European Union passed a resolution saying that it wouldn’t include any part of education in its commitments under GATS.

However, being a general agreement, GATS provides for “appropriate flexibility for individual developing country Members for opening fewer sectors, liberalizing fewer types of transactions, progressively extending market access in line with their development situation and, when making access to their markets available to foreign service suppliers…”

This is important to mention, as D Ramesh Patnaik, Secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Save Education Committee (APSEC), explains in his writings, as this means that it is not compulsory for a member state to open its market in all services, and within a service, it can be selective over which sectors (health, education, transportation, construction, etc.) and modes (cross-border supply, consumption abroad, commercial presence, and presence of natural persons) to open. It is worrying that India did not ask for any concessions, offering its higher education in toto, even when the European Union passed a resolution saying that it wouldn’t include any part of education in its commitments under GATS.

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As successive governments see education not as an entitlement or public service but as a commodity that should be open to trade for profit, the challenge for those defending public education has intensified.

his attempted destruction of public education has been underway for quite some time now. Repeated attempts, from the infamous Ambani-Birla Report to the five bills relating to education introduced in Parliament by Kapil Sibal in 2010, have been made to sabotage public control of education. Regular cuts in funding for the education sector, attempts to dilute syllabi and imitate foreign universities through the likes of the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) and the Choice-Based Credit System (CBCS), which most teachers vehemently oppose, are all steps to comply with GATS directives, for India to be “ready”.

Ever since the liberalisation of our markets, global capital has eyed the vast education sector in India as it can be exploited for massive private profit. As successive governments see education not as an entitlement or public service but as a commodity that should be open to trade for profit, the challenge for those defending public education has intensified.

Thousands of students from across the country have been carrying out a sustained struggle under fund cuts for more than 55 days now under the banner of #OccupyUGC in what can be called the biggest students’ movement in Indian history, in terms of numbers, geographical diversity, public appeal and duration. After a committee set up to review and consider enhancement of research fellowships decided to scrap them altogether, hundreds of students stormed the UGC building and occupied the premises for over two days.

The HRD ministry was forced to issue a statement that the fellowships wouldn’t be discontinued for current students, but a review committee would be set up, which will consider merit and other criteria to grant fellowships. The students see this as a diversionary tactic and demand unconditional fellowships for all research scholars as well as an increase in the amount. It is no surprise that the committee is supposed to submit its report around the same time as the Nairobi negotiation.

Nothing has broken the students’ spirit, and the movement has now transformed into one about more than just UGC fellowships. They have turned the movement into one against WTO, as they immediately recognised that the scrapping of non-NET fellowships was just another step in compliance with the WTO agenda.

The students have braved lathi charges, teargas shelling and water cannons, but are still camping in the harsh Delhi winter on the road in front of the UGC building. Repeated police crackdowns, serious injuries, harsh weather, confusing circulars from the MHRD—nothing has broken their spirit, and the movement has now transformed into one about more than just UGC fellowships. They have turned the movement into one against WTO, as they immediately recognised that the scrapping of non-NET fellowships was just another step in compliance with the WTO agenda. The struggle to save research fellowships has transformed into a much larger struggle to transform the entire education system itself, and also to save the sovereignty of the country.

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he opening of higher education for trade will change the very fabric of our society. Allowing foreign universities to profit from the destruction of public education is a question of social exclusion. It goes against the spirit of the Constitution, which guarantees social justice as a first principle.

Under the GATS, foreign players will be eligible for “national treatment”, which means that if the government provides land, aid, subsidies or reimbursement to native education providers, even public universities, it would have to provide the same to the foreign entity so as not to discriminate against them—the for-profit foreign players would have to be given a “level playing field” with public institutions meant to serve the people.

If the government provides land, aid, subsidies or reimbursement to native education providers, even public universities, it would have to provide the same to the foreign entity so as not to discriminate against them—the for-profit foreign players would have to be given a “level playing field” with public institutions meant to serve the people.

This would lead to further cuts in funding public education and fees would increase considerably, making access to higher education unaffordable for most people. It would also increase the number of students seeking educational loans, eventually trapping them in debt bondage, the way it is in the West.

It is also important to think about the products of this new knowledge system. When education and research are controlled by private players and corporate capital, what sort of knowledge would they produce? Would it be in the interest of the people, or capital itself? Gramsci’s “organic intellectuals” can be of help in understanding this. When knowledge producers are trained in such a neo-Macaulayan setup, their knowledge will surely be biased towards the interests of global capital.

This neoliberal assault on education is dangerous, as the degeneration of public education and rise of private capital in the sector will also further Western hegemony, as is evident from the jobless economic growth we are pursuing. I use “Neo-Macaulayan” because it is most apt for describing the imperialist motives behind this new paradigm; higher education and research isn’t the priority in education anymore, and creating a class of educated consumers content with clerical and other low-level jobs just to keep the system running seems to be the priority. Literate enough to read advertisements but not educated enough to see the flaws in the system and recognise exploitation. Public intellectuals are dangerous to this system.

Higher education and research isn’t the priority in education anymore, and creating a class of educated consumers content with clerical and other low-level jobs just to keep the system running seems to be the priority. Literate enough to read advertisements but not educated enough to see the flaws in the system and recognise exploitation.

In the first Foundation Day lecture of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, Prof Prabhat Patnaik presented two different perspectives on higher education. The first perspective sees higher education as a transaction between teachers and students in colleges and universities where teachers impart a certain training, which enables students to improve their skills and get better placements in the job market. The second sees higher education as an activity in which students and teachers jointly engage on behalf of the people of a society. One does not have to necessarily agree with all that the professor says in the lecture to understand the important point he makes through this, that our conception of the function of education influences how we see our role in it.

The protesting students and teachers held an “All India Resistance Camp” against the WTO in the week leading up to the conference. They demand that India must withdraw from the WTO in this conference. Events have been planned from the 15th to the 18th as well, and it doesn’t seem like the struggle is going to stop anytime soon.