JNANA - Pure Knowledge To know that you don't know is the real knowledge PART I (Collection of blog articles from 2005 - 2007) Krishna Raj P M Apr 2011 Page 1 of 366 This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 India Licence You are free ➔ to Share: to copy, distribute and transmit the work ➔ to Remix: to adapt the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work) Noncommercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes With the understanding that: Waiver: Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder Other Rights: In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license • Your fair dealing or fair use rights; • The author’s moral rights; • Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights. Notice: For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Page 2 of 366 GATS and its implication on higher education in India After opening up various sectors like banking, insurance and communication to Multi National Companies, the Indian Government has decided to open up the education sector for them. Finally, globalisation and commercialisation of education is becoming a reality. General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which came into force in 1996, provides legal rights to trade in all services except those taken care of entirely by the government. Education is one of the 12 services included in the list of activities binding member countries to allow market access and to remove restrictions in the path. India being a signatory to the WTO should be very much cautious about the functioning of the foreign educational institutions. At the advent of India’s independence, there were 19 universities and 591 colleges while students enrolment at the tertiary level of education was 0.2 million. Now, the number of universities, deemed universities and institutions of national importance has risen to 261. The number of degree and above level general education colleges have grown to 8,361. The number of professional colleges is 2,340 and total enrolment is 8.8 million. This certainly is a great advancement. But the share of higher education in the union budget’s total provision for education has fallen from 28.19 per cent in 1990-91 to 17.7 per cent in 2003-04. Further, allocation for education in the first five-year plan was 7.2 per cent of the total outlay. In the tenth five-year plan, it has come down to 2.9 per cent. International education definitely has advantages like - Regularly updated curricula are made available to the student. It is more practical, learner-centric and develops marketable skills. A large number of options in multi-disciplinary integrated disciplines with high degree of employability in industry become available. But, at present 150 foreign universities (50 from UK, 45 from Australia, 30 from USA and the rest from Canada and other European countries) that have been operating in India. But, hardly any top ranking university of the USA, the UK, Australia or New Zealand has shown interest in India. Only those universities with very low rankings in their own country and those which are badly in need of foreign students have made inroads into developing countries like India. It is estimated that out of the 50 foreign universities competing to woo Indian students, none have a good standing in their own education system. Since there is a lack of policy framework that can look into the credentials of Universities coming to India, they are allowed to operate in India. The prime minister’s Council on Trade and Industry (PMCTI) constituted a ‘special subject group on policy framework for private investment in education, health and rural development’. The Government found no experts in the concerned areas but the noted industrialists, Mukesh Ambani (Convenor) and Kumarmangalam Birla (Member) to constitute this special subject group. Obviously, they were among the best-interested people to suggest the implementation of the World Bank prescriptions and privatization and commercialization of higher education in the country. Ambani and Birla submitted their report ‘A Policy Framework for Reforms in Education’ to the PMCTI on April 24, 2000. They recommend, "Governments must encourage private financing by taking on some of the risks that makes financial institutions reluctant to lend for higher education." The GATS calls for drastic cuts in public expenditure on education. Accordingly, the committee in its report recommended that "there should be a freeze on recruitment of staff in all the autonomous organisations at all levels. In addition, Page 3 of 366 an ad-hoc cut of 10 per cent in the total staff strength should be imposed in all these institutions” (pages 7 and 26, part III). Following this, the University Grants Commission (UGC) issued a directive that only 80 per cent of the teaching vacancies will be filled up and that too on a temporary basis. This clearly demonstrates that GATS does not have any interest in improving the quality of education. They are only interested in exploiting the lucrative market. The present Indian education system has many drawbacks. Our syllabus is not international in nature and not upgraded to present needs. Infrastructure in a majority of our institutions is very poor. Our education policies are decided by political affiliations of ruling party and not by academicians who have global exposure. There is a need for introspection in this regard. Government should think of improving these areas rather than implementing GATS. Had the Government focussed more on higher education, we could have resisted GATS. But, the private sector’s contribution in higher education in India is gaining in strength. So, India cannot take recourse to article 1.3 of the GATS that allows exemption for services provided by the government. India remained defensive for most of change that occurred due to globalization. Now it is the time to take the early initiative in this issue and turn this into an opportunity to grow. Under GATS, even Indian Universities can establish their bases in other countries. But for a few like BITS and MAHE, not many have tried this option. Also, this crucial juncture should be taken as an opportunity by Indian Universities to rise to world standards. A definite strategy can be increased research funding for faculty with less political intervention, greater autonomy for developing curricula and flexibility for students to choose their area of studies. This along with a strong policy which oversees the functioning of foreign universities can benefit India. Page 4 of 366 Do we need software patent laws in India? Do you know how to turn a thin line into a broad line? You go up or down an equal distance from the ends of the thin line and then connect the four points. You probably learned this technique for turning a line into a rectangle in your high school, and, doubtless, you believe it was devised by Euclid or some such 3,000-year-old thinker. If you try to implement the same on Computer, beware! You may be sued by IBM, because this is their notorious "fat lines" patent. 1 Are you planning to go the e-education way? Do you want to “administer tests, lessons, assessments, and surveys on the Internet, scoring them, and maintaining records of test scores online”? Sorry, you cannot do this. This is patented by Test.com. 2 Have you designed a good user interface for your program? Do you think displaying icons on screens is a good idea? Think again. This is patented by Microsoft. 3 Thinking of an innovative way of printing - Can it be any different from “A printer responds to channel commands including coded data received over a channel from a data processing unit by printing characters represented by the coded data using an electro photographic printing arrangement”? It should be, for this is patented by IBM. 4 Do you think “providing a user interface control to modify properties of items within a main application window “ should include “a main application window, a gallery control window, a control object selection processing module, and a control object focus processing module”? Sorry, this is again patented by whom else, but Microsoft. 5 Are you a gaming enthusiast? Do you want to develop “Real-time multi-player online games”? Not surprisingly, you cannot do this also. This is patented by Sheldon F Goldberg.6 Introduction to software patents Patents were introduced to protect truly novel software ideas from unfair exploitation, while releasing the knowledge itself to the community. Patents are granted to “implementation of ideas” and not on “ideas”. The patents are issued in response to an application by the inventor for 20 years. In the case of software, the distinction between idea and its implementation is not clear. So invariably, a basic concept like data structures and algorithms also gets patented. Since there is no way an algorithm is patented, it is done under the pretext of some “apparatus and method”. Software that has been patented includes - system software and various types of application software, including business software, user-interactive software and expert system software. In general, the functional aspects of software have been patented. Examples include processes, editing and control functions, compiling and operating system techniques and the like. With respect to design patents, icons and electronic font types have been patented.