Withdraw 'offers' made to WTO on Higher Education
Ongole, November 13. All India Forum for Right to Education (AIFRTE) zonal yatra reached ongole on Wednesday and its organizing secretary D. Ramesh Patnaik speaking to media that he demanded withdrawal of the 'offers' made by the Union government to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on trade in the higher education sector.
'Education cannot be treated as service and brought under General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)', he added.
'It is high time the Center takes back the offers made to the WTO before going to the next stage of giving an irrevocable commitment,' Mr Patnaik said.
Asserting that 'education is a social entitlement and a constitutional right of every citizen,' he said 'education, if made a tradable service, will result not only in denial of education opportunities to the poor people but also cause degradation of concept and content of education as also destruction of pedagogical practices.'
Right to education would be meaningful only by setting up a fully public funded Common School System in the country and strengthening of all State-funded universities and colleges, he said.
Students under the banner of PDSU and AISF and APTF took out a march to express solidarity with the AIFRTE activists.
Students led by PDSU State general secretary K. Mallikarjun and AISF leader Sk. Karimullah raised slogans against alleged privatisation of education by the NDA regime.
News Posted: 13 November, 2014
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