New Delhi: Call it an antithesis or a synoecises but talking of education inflation on the one hand (increasing fees etc) and celebrating the sector’s share of expenditure in the total GDP of India (at 4.6 per cent) seems pretty paradoxical to start with. The context is two news items that dominated most of Thursday. One that spoke of a school in Bengaluru charging parents a ludicrous amount of Rs 1.5 lakh as fee for nursery admission of their ward and the other news item that compared India’s spending on education with that of China and Japan (we are doing way better).
So, do we acknowledge and rejoice the fact that India is finally spending some bucks on a sector that needs a boost, or should we be wary of the steep fees that is being charged for a basic necessity of studying in a school – even pre-school fees are touching the roof. And we are a country with a robust youth population that is growing by the minute. At present, there are more than 431,053,833 children under the age of 18 in the country, which makes it more than one-third of the country’s population, and 19 per cent of the world’s children. One can only imagine the cost of education for this entire population if it starts with Rs 1.5 lakh from nursery onward! Yes, in such a scenario, Rs 1 crore for higher classes does sound like a near reality.
The rising curve for education fee in India
The cost for pursuing higher education everywhere in the world is considered an expensive affair, with the US topping charts with the average cost of college being pegged at $38,270 per student per year, including books, supplies, and daily living expenses. In the UK, a student who wants to study a graduation course in a decent college will typically pay around £9,000–£9,250 per year, to complete post graduation, a student would require to spend £6,500–£51,360 for classroom-based programs, and £7,500–£54,500 for laboratory-based disciplines.
In India too, the cost of pursuing an Engineering or a medical degree is nothing short of a hefty investment where parents need to sell off land or other assets to afford tuition fees of their child.
- Basic cost of engineering college (government) is pegged at Rs 4-6 lakh per annum
- Cost of engineering at a private institute is many notches higher at 7-10 lakh per annum
- Similarly, for medical education, a student needs to pay Rs 50,000-1 lakh per year in a government college. Private colleges charge anywhere between Rs 10-20 lakh (not taking into account donations etc that some colleges may levy at the admission level)
- For an MBA the fees range from Rs 1-5 lakh in a govt college of choice and Rs 15-20 lakh (private)
Governing body of such institutions defend the fee structure saying the overall hostel cost and laboratory fees make it an expensive affair, they also take into account the cost of salaries being paid to specialised professors who will be imparting such education. They also partly blame it on the inflation rate of India, adding that “cost of living makes cost of studying also become unaffordable.”
This is the situation of higher education in India which is not considered to be niche sector anymore. There are 706 medical colleges pan India and nearly 9,000 institutions that offer B Tech course for interested students. There are also nearly 5,000 colleges from where a student can pursue a degree in Business and related topics.
While college fees are getting steeper by the time we write op-eds around it, it is the school tuition fee that is posing a huge challenge for India’s upper middle class and middle class families who are opting for home schooling to meet with the growing rates. Why are school fees in such a mess? Some blame it on the privatisation factor, others say it is because government schools haven’t maintained a desirable standard which is driving students towards fancier options.
Unregulated school fees touching the skies
According to a Bharti Axa Life insurance report published in 2024, in India, primary schools can cost anywhere between Rs 20,000 to Rs 1 lakh yearly. High School fee starts to increase gradually with an average of Rs 80,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh being spent per annum. A ET Online research in 2022 pegged the total expenditure of schooling in India (private school) from age 3 to 17 is Rs 30 lakh. Given the costs that are increasing by the day, the number may have gone up by a minimum 30-35 per cent in 2024.
It is not only that the costs are high, school fees are unpredictable on top of everything else. It is a fact that school and tuition fees keep changing every 2-5 years. This makes it even more difficult for households to financially plan for the future of their child. The middle class in India is left perplexed whether to save with a 20-year horizon or more in mind.
“One doesn’t know how much investment will be enough for a child’s schooling in India. While we have a broad idea of what college fees will look like, there is no sanity in the structure of school fees in the country. It not only differs from region to region but also from district to district, school-wise and even particular admission-wise. Without any regulation on the fees, it is nearly impossible to plan ahead. This a double edged sword for us,” says IT professional Deepak Sharma, who earns Rs 56 lakh per annum and ends up paying one third of his salary as tuition fees for both his kids in class 3 and 5.
The talk of regularising school fees in India has been a burning debate for a long time. There have been some policies in place for private schools to dedicate a certain number of seats to individuals of disadvantaged sections of society, but even such provisions have either been misdirected or circumvented depending on the school.
Even today there is a noise demanding a cap on the fees that private schools can demand. The move may result in equalisation with state-run schools, and ensure that the incentive for teachers is less lopsided than it currently is. But it is not a measure that can be adopted overnight. Stakeholders say school fees should be left to the autonomy of the school administration and while a cap can be suggested it should not be made a mandate. The onus is on the parent to choose a school and the fee they are comfortable with.
Not a demand-supply problem for nursery admission
If you can afford Rs 1.5 lakh for an admission fee in nursery, will you also be okay to cough up Rs 1 crore if you want to take lateral admission in class 5? And the monies are only going to go higher. “There is no choice left for parents who wish to enrol their children in Nursery. It’s the beginning of the journey and we want our child to have the best experience that we can afford. So, if there is a need to meet the escalated fee, parents will comply,” said Sidharth Anand from New Delhi who had also paid close to Rs 1 lakh for admission of his child to Nursery in 2023.
There are millions of 3 year-olds waiting to enter their first year of formal schooling in India and hapless parents who have no choice but to bow down to the price tag that is out on something so basic as primary education. If the onus is on parents whether or not to opt for expensive, fancier options for their wards, maybe it’s time we look the other way – look at choices that are not exorbitant yet demand for all facilities that have been promised as a part of nursery education.
If we are truly in Peter Drucker’s imaginative post-capitalist world, then education should not be considered as a privilege of a few but a right of many. In such a dystopian society, the parents should dominate this pricing policy rather than wait for the school to play the role of the arbiter of education.
