Posts Tagged ‘Need for Finance’
Kerala needs lots of financial aid to enhance education delivery mechanisms. It also needs to look at adding more capacity to its educational institutions to enable them to dispense education to more and more students. Intake capacity is not great in technical education and professional education centers. It is so less, that people have to scamper for seats, like politicians do for theirs in the state assemblies. Increasing capacity will put paid to the problem of plenty. In Kerala, there are plenty of bright students, and it makes sense for the government to provide the financial aid for increasing intake capacity of colleges and institutes.
All these activities require funds. The supply of funds has never been sufficient. The government has to lobby for external funds to support the human resource development in the state. Statistics indicate a dip in government expenditure in education post the fifth five-year plan. The state has been undergoing a financial crisis constantly. Fingers have been pointed out at the state’s expenditure on social development sectors, especially education. Education is now facing the brunt of getting a slowed-down investment rate. Foreign direct investment in education also seems to be siphoned off to other development activities. A collective realization should prevail, about education’s role in giving Kerala an edge over other states in terms of qualified human resources.
The educational sector has found it difficult to break-even. It has not been able to fully recover the investment costs, and post significant profit margins. If investment has to be attracted, these things are crucial. Charging educational fees can retrieve cost. Given the state’s inclination for free education, not much education fee is being generated. Educational loans have also been discouraged, given the low employment rate in the state. Banks and financial institutions are unsure how to control long distance loan deliveries. However, if the government thinks of loan subsidy, banks might be more cooperative, since the repayment is easy on the students, and suited to run around their earning periods and finally close down.