Public-private partnerships can revive investors’ sentiment, says CII report

Public-private partnerships can revive investors’ sentiment, says CII report
The Financial Express, August, 07, 2009, Page 12

fe Bureaus, Chennai

Though Shayama Chona is completing her last week as principal of DPS RK Puram after working there for 35 years, she has no plans of slowing down. Work is her passion and as some one who believes there is “no cause and effect in the final analysis” she plans to continue working in the social sector and has chosen as one of her projects, to serve on the advisory board of Yatn, part of the Coca Cola India Foundation that aims at providing free drinking water to all railway stations in India. Chona shares her views in an interview with FE’s Malvika Chandan.

How do you feel about the Right to Education Bill being passed in the Lok Sabha?

The right to education for all children is a great thing and I’m glad the Bill has been passed. A lot of the credit goes to Kapil Sibal whose dynamism has been a great push for the education sector on the whole. My only comment is that even while “equity” is important “understanding” cannot be undermined. While schools start admitting students from economically weaker sections there should be an understanding that this would change the environment in the classroom. Economically well off students usually have a more urban outlook whereas students from economically weaker sections maybe more rural in their outlook.

What has been your experience with the quality of teachers and what improvements would you suggest in teacher training?

Teacher training in India is just not up to the mark. Countries like China have a five-year training programme for teachers and in India our bachelors in education (BEd) is just nine months. The entrance exam for a BEd programme is 80% based on a written assessment and only 20% based on communication skills. I don’t think this criteria is correct for the teaching profession. Much more emphasis needs to be put on interpersonal skills and communication as much of the success depends upon how a teacher engages with a student.

I do feel strongly about stopping teachers from giving tuitions and wish firmer guidelines supporting this could be put in place. Almost 99% of students today are taking tuitions and pay teachers anything from Rs 200 to Rs 500 per hour for the same. Teachers’ economic background is not the same as students and this changes the teacher-student equation wherein students’ respect diminishes and they start treating teachers just as paid servants. Also, there are thousands of coaching centres operating with no regulation. This could have got some consideration in the Bill.

The status of teachers needs to be consciously raised. There needs to be an “education core” or an “Indian Education Service” similar to the Indian Administrative Service that would give more definition and a sense of prestige to the teaching profession.

What has been your experience with public private partnerships in the education sector?

I strongly believe in privatisation in education. Private players can bring a lot of innovation and modernisation into this sector. Companies like Educomp have been front-runners in this endeavour and before having started their own schools they helped teachers conduct “smart classes” through content as well as hardware and technical support.

CII seeks separate budget for infra sector
The Financial Express, August, 07, 2009, Page 12

fe Bureaus, Chennai

Setting up of a national infrastructure facilitating and monitoring agency on the lines of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), independent regulators for each sub-sectors, separate budget for infrastructure sector, adoption of 20 cross-sector projects for the timely completion, forming land bank corporation are some of the 12-point key proposals, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) will be placing before the Centre in order to fast-track the infrastructure projects through public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

Addressing the media at the CII summit on infrastructure (Siminfra 2009) here JP Nayak, chairman, Suminfra said,

“In every area where human interaction takes place there should be monitoring agency, hence in PPP we need a facilitating and monitoring agency, most probably on the lines of FIPB.”

With a view to give more thrust to infrastructure spending, CII has proposed the government to present a separate infrastructure budget. “If government can present a separate railway budget, why can’t it have budget exclusively for infra sector,” said Nayak. Since infrastructure projects need huge investment proper earmarking and allocation of funds are of paramount importance, he said.

Asserting that land acquisition was still the single largest problem faced by the infrastructure developers, he said due to non-availability of the land on time, projects are getting delayed, which in turn causes cost over-runs. To address the issue of land acquisition, CII is seeking setting up of a land bank corporation, which can facilitate hassle-free land acquisition by identifying specific lands ahead of announcement of the projects, thus by minimising bargaining power of the landlords.

“Project delays adversely effect expected benefits from the projects and this should be avoided,” he said.