Privatisation doesn’t guarantee quality education, govts need to spend more: Rahul Gandhi

Quality education cannot be achieved through privatisation and financial incentives, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said Saturday, underlining the importance of governments spending more on education and strengthening public institutions. In a conversation with IIT Madras students held sometime back, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha talked on a host of issues including on the changes he would want to initiate to improve the education system. “I believe it is one of the foremost responsibilities of any government to guarantee quality education to its people. This cannot be achieved through privatisation and financial incentives.

“We need to spend a lot more money on education and strengthening government institutions,” he said in a post on X, while sharing an edited video of his conversation with the students.

On his WhatsApp channel, he said they discussed discuss “redefining success and reimagining education in India”.

“Our conversation centered on empowering students to explore paths beyond traditional careers, encouraging them to embrace innovation and pursue their passions. By prioritising fairness, fostering research, nurturing creativity, and driving production, we can position India as a true global leader. Their insightful perspectives made this dialogue deeply inspiring and hopeful for the future.”

Asked by the students how the Congress and the BJP are different in terms of how they operate, he said the Congress and UPA generally believe that the resources should be distributed more fairly and growth should be wider and inclusive. The BJP, he said, is more aggressive on growth. “They believe in what in economic terms is ‘triple-down’. On the social front, we feel that the more harmonious society is, the less people are fighting, the better it is for the country. “On the international relations front, there are probably some differences with regards to the way we relate to other countries but it will be similar,” he said.

On how to promote higher education, he said, a country needs to guarantee quality education to its people.

“I don’t think that the best way to guarantee quality education to our people is to privatise everything. Frankly, when you bring some sort of financial incentive into the game, you don’t actually give quality education.

“I have said this many a times that the best institutions in our country are government institutions, yours being one of them. I argue for much more money being spent in education by governments,” he told the IIT Madras students.

Gandhi said he has “serious problems” in the way the country’s education system is set up. “I don’t think our education system allows the imagination of our children to thrive”.

“You might not agree with me. I think it is a very restrictive, top down system… It is very narrow,” he said.

Gandhi said that during his Kanyakumari to Kashmir Bharat Jodo Yatra, he talked to thousands of children and asked them what they wanted to become.

They said they wanted to become a lawyer, doctor, engineer or an army soldier, he told the students.

“It can’t be that there are only five things to do in this country. But that’s what our system is pushing,” he said, noting that the country’s education system measures success only if one becomes an engineer or a doctor, or join the IAS/IPS or get into the forces, “which is just one percent or two percent of our population and 90 percent of our population is never going to do this”.

He said the system should allow kids to do what they want and allow them to experience and do multiple things.

“Our education system disregards many things, it undervalues many professions and overvalues these four or five professions. So those are the types of things that I would like to change,” he said.

On the international front, he said, the single most important thing going forward is how India balances China and America.

“In a situation, where the two superpowers are going head to head, we have a balancing equation, a balancing ability….So India is in a space where it can get quite a lot more than its power would give it. So if India intelligently navigates through this thing, without getting stuck or without making a major mistake, then we might benefit from it,” Gandhi said.

Noting that the country’s education system is a very hierarchical structure, he said its traditional system focusses on introspection, looking inside, and self observation.

Gandhi favoured pushing children for innovation, saying it can only come if they actually start production and their skill is respected and investment is made in it.

“One of the things that I want to push is moving more into the physical production space. To me, real innovation comes from that space. Put as much money you want in R&D, if you are not actually producing the thing, it will just be a budget,” Gandhi said.