The Maharashtra Govt has received 1338 proposals to set up new colleges and the Govt is in the process of granting approval to them immediately. Due to this, the education mafias will be getting a free hand and the already falling educational standard is to deteriorate further.
Ninety percent colleges are unaided and only 10 per cent colleges are aided in Maharashtra. The teachers in unaided colleges are supposed to receive salary as per the 7th pay commission. But far from receiving the benefits of the 7th Pay Commission, they have to work on a poor salary. They do not receive the salary for the months together. Even the salary of PhD holders is hardly around Rs 15,000/- per month.
Naturally the half-starved teachers do not teach dedicatedly and devote themselves. Some of the colleges have also not paid salaries for the last 11 months to their teachers. Yet no action is being taken against these education mafias running the colleges. Due to this, the standard of education is falling. But the MVA Govt has no time to look at these colleges. The Opposition has been keeping mum on the issue. The corrupt affairs of the Chancellor and Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari are controlled by the secretary of the Governor Ulhas Munagekar, described as the “Sachin Waze” of Raj Bhavan. His appointment itself is illegal. That is the reason he has no control over the Chancellor.
The plight of the teachers in aided colleges is no different. As of today, the number of colleges affiliated to Mumbai University is 700. Some of the teachers working in these colleges are retired and some of them have died. The vacant posts of the teachers have not been filled in and there is no possibility of them being filled up soon. As against this, the strength of the students is growing and resultantly the teachers are overburdened.
The educational standard of the aided and unaided colleges leaves much to be desired and the owners of these colleges have become educational mafias. They belong to all political parties who have thrown the norms to the wind. Now the Maharashtra Government is slated to grant recognition to 1338 colleges. This means the field will be left wide open for the educational mafias to swindle the gullible students desperate to seek admissions. Consequently there is no doubt that the standard of higher education will go down further in Maharashtra.