"Padho Pardesh" with subsidized educational loans - is it in national interest?
"Padho Pardesh" with subsidized educational loans - is it in national interest?
Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptulla proposed a scheme to offer subsidized educational loans for studying abroad to the students who belong to minorities groups including Christians, Buddhists, Parsis, Jain and Muslims. She named the scheme as 'Padho Pardesh' scheme. However, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has questioned easy credit given under the priority sector lending segment. Do you advocate subsidized educational loans for overseas studies?
Yes
• The new scheme ‘Padho Pardesh’ will brings parity between the scholarships granted to SC and ST students and minority students.
• The meritorious students coming from the weaker sections of communities can get better opportunities for higher studies.
• The scheme will be a booster to improve quality education that will further enhance employability in India.
• It might seem an easy credit scheme but it will be available only to deserving students who have the potential to excel in various fields.
• India wants to create a knowledge economy and therefore, subsidized student loans will result in quality human resources for the country.
• There are many sectors where government grants subsidies, however, education subsidies carry least default risk.
No
• Subsidized educational loans will come at a cost of lower subsidies grants to other sections of society.
• The students studying abroad will have necessary skills that can get them a job in market, and therefore they do not need the special dispensation.
• Subsidized educational loans have regulatory problems and do not fulfill any major economic or social objectives.
• The subsidized educational loans might create quality human resources but unfortunately they are not deployed in India.
• RBI governor is a developmental economist who believes to keep a balanced combination of capitalism and socialism.
• Promoting students to study out of India will drain the money out of the country. At the same time, it will lead to an increase in brain drain. Both these phenomenon are not in national interest. We should aim to impart world class education in India rather than promoting our children to go out and study.
Conclusion
Minority affair minister is considering just one part of the proposal which will benefit minority groups. However, subsidized educational loans will create numerous problems in economic and social terms. It can create an unwanted burden on financial system of the country. There are no clear benefits coming to the nation or the economy. Therefore, instead of making educational loans subsidized for studying abroad, the funds should be used for some other development projects in the country.
Discussion
- RE: "Padho Pardesh" with subsidized educational loans - is it in national interest? -Deepa Kaushik (09/24/14)
- The scheme ‘Padho Pardesh’ has a few questionable specifications. The scheme mainly concentrates on the minorities. In India, we have reservation for SC, ST and OBCs, we have reservations for the minorities, we have age relaxation and many other criteria for relaxations for them. When we account for the total subsidies to these groups with respect to the general category, often the general category seems to have become a minority sect who is being treated with partiality in every aspect.
If the Government aims to have brilliance being coated by the education abroad, then they should have extended this scheme in general to the student community of India under the specified limit of financial viability. Even the banks would find some faith and confidence in funding the creamy layer. The programme should have covered the brilliance and intellect rather than concentrating the same to the minority population.
The education loan is the requirement of the poor student who despite being intellectual is incapable to study further just for the lack of money. Belonging to the minority section does not imply that they are financially backward. People from the minority groups are often found to be well settled in a better living standard as compared to the other section of the society.
Now coming on to the next query, that is the lack of confidence of the Government in the standard of education within our country. We can very well understand and analyse the importance and acceptance of the Indian brains and education abroad with the appointments of the Indians worldwide in the high profile role. Our brain and hard-work is always being praised. Even if we find any lacuna within our education system, we need to seal that and make our system the best educational set-up which is universally accepted. On one hand we have our PM making special address to the student community on the Teachers’ Day asking them to find importance of the education and teaching profession; and on the other hand we are planning for a scheme which has a clear ‘no confidence notion’ in our own education system.
We also talk of ‘Brain-drain’ every now and then. We do have lot many debates and discussions on the same issue. With such a scheme, isn’t our Government boosting towards the brain-drain? It is a known fact that the students going abroad for education often get absorbed with a high package job abroad. Do we need to fund these students who are getting educated on our money and working for the foreigners? Such discussions always have their own points in favour and against, but this scheme is definitely not in national interest in any means.
