Profits can improve universities

Apropos the article "Why a university must not go to the market," (Business Line, May 21), a university can really gain a lot of benefits after going public. We all know how infrequently the syllabus is revised in Indian universities. Also, most of them are still running only traditional graduate and post-graduate courses rather than profession-oriented courses of the kind demanded by industry. Once they go public, there will be professional managements looking into these important aspects.

Further, shares can also be issued to the faculty members and administrative staff who will be the owners and thus give their best. And as the focus will be on profits as an entity similar to a company, attractive compensation may be offered to the faculty; this may attract the younger generation towards teaching, as finding committed young people is a major problem faced by the teaching profession.

There should not be any concern with respect to increase in fees too as, with such increases, the number of scholarships can also be increased. Overall, the benefits will definitely outweigh the losses.

Corporate Non-governance

Government's attempt to increase its nominees on the board of Public Sector Banks is a step taken backwards. Earlier, it had directed these banks to go for their board's approval before taking any decision on raising the interest rates. This is unjustified keeping in view the increasing importance of corporate governance. Indian companies have been successful in acquiring the companies and raising large-scale funds from abroad because of the high standards of corporate governance showed by them. Either the Government should rethink its decision or it should also instruct SEBI for ignoring the corporate governance norms.