Founders of Indian Republic believed Future of Indian Democracy largely depends on the ability of the society to create new knowledge. This is true about Higher Education Reforms in India.
An interim draft report ‘Renovation and Rejuvenation of Universities’ which was prepared by committee headed by Prof. Yashpal, Chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University came up for wider informal consultation here in JNU today. This committee was established under the mandate to review, assess role of UGC & AICTE in providing institutional leadership to the emerging demands of access, equity, relevance and quality of higher education/technical education and the university system.
Hon. Vice Chancellor, Dean of various faculties, number of Professors and large number of students actively participated in the discussions about this report which originally aims to address in the problem in management of higher education sector in India. It was observed by all the dignitaries that there has been colossal neglect of higher education in last thirty forty years. A report which culminated after cumulative documentation and analytical discussion across the four regions of the country certainly provides a major opportunity for thinkers, policy makers stakeholders and decision makers to introspect what failed higher education remarks in India.
The mood in the committee was very energetic as more and more people wished to participate and record the suggestions by making the observations on institutional anomalies. Report confesses that the absence of institutionalized and well structured research on different aspects of higher education in India has lead to situation where many different kinds of perceptions and prescriptions are articulated without any supporting data and research. (Recently National Council of Applied Economic Research has come up with some significant surveys and reports which throw light on the plight of higher education systems.)
National Knowledge Commission through it`s submissions of letters and reports to Prime Minister has identified three main structural problems with Indian system, they are: lack of Access, Excellence and Expansion. Structural issues addressed by this report are holistic nature of education, curricular renovation, autonomy of academics in general and institutions in particular and desirable regulatory processes.
Emerging areas:
Opening of new, technology based work areas has created a huge demand for the training of youth on a mass scale in these fields. Indian system was not prepared for that. Report castigates both public and private educational institutions as former turned into mere certifying agency and latter becoming narrow commercial entity with very low quality. Across the forum, the manner in which hurriedly passed Act of new central universities was implemented was criticized. The consensus was that a model of JNU which is still considered best in terms of the home work done to establish a central university is not paid attention.
Small is Beautiful:
Impoverished undergraduate education was debated in details. A university must stand for both research and teaching. An efficient researcher is potentially capable teacher. This needs to be underscored with the realization that teacher makes progress when they are exposed to the inquisitiveness of the undergraduate students. As report emphasizes, “By not exposing oneself to UG level teaching, university faculty, especially senior faculty, deprives itself a rejuvenating pedagogic experience.” Prof Yashpal complements this by saying that we have to redefine the pattern of discourse.
Devil’s advocate and UGC:
Over the years the role of UGC has emerged as phenomenally distinguished to influence the progress of the higher education system. People are increasingly identifying functioning of UGC with intrusive bureaucracy, mindless regulation and commercial pressures. Report recommends establishing Higher Education Commission, a preeminent body which will look into all the issues of regulation, promotion and implementation of expert forecasting which will act as a preventive measure to avoid the crisis arising out of mismanagement.
Free and Clean Air:
Autonomy is fond word of the argument whenever higher education is debated. Report believes, ‘Autonomy ensures freedom in research and training and it is expected that the governments and the society would respect this fundamental principle. Freedom also involves autonomy to university faculties to develop their own curriculum.
Thus this new initiative regarding the creation of new model of higher education recognizes the need of enrichment and development of cultural, scientific and technical resources which is expected to be achieved in centers of culture, knowledge and research.
Committee asserts that “the need is to ‘lighten the load’ of the state universities affiliating many colleges. This can be done by freeing the better and large colleges to become independent of the university processes.
Where the monster lies: Problems of Indian Higher Education System
Prof. Yashpal was very categorical in his criticism of coaching institutions. These privately owned coaching institutions have destroyed the creativity amongst the students who are obsessive participants of the rate race of the competition prevalent to enter into some of the first class educational institutes like IITs and IIMs.
The much praised interdisciplinary method of teaching and learning is not being used upto efficient level because the lack of dialogue between different people working in diverse areas. The role of higher education in creating an institutional space for dialogue and liberal is well recognized but it`s seldom appreciated in the context of establishing norms of democratic behavior and exchange.
In a major indictment of the current execution of the administration report observes, “Outdated structures of governance have led to centralization of decision-making and low involvement of faculty and students in most policy decisions.”
With reference to increasing disparity and growing demand of quality education from vast population of country new educational institutions have to adhere to the creative and non obvious ways of teaching and learning.
Anger over Deemed Universities misusing section 3 of UGC Act.
Across the spectrum of speakers, a deep anguish was observed about the manner in which mushrooming of the deemed universities was allowed to take over the compulsions of Indian citizens aspiring for quality and affordable education. Despite admonition about the deemed universities playing the second fiddle to profiteering corporatisation rather that disseminating education to larger masses, there were some voices in the deliberation which asked the question there should be some reason how come deemed universities managed to fill the vacuum in higher education in a way created by public funded universities.
Eventually, I cite the top five priorities identified for the proposed Higher Education Commission:
Future Directions: Developing global benchmarks on performance, research directions, articulation of needs of Human Resource Development.
Accreditation Management: Independent system providing annual feedback to universities and organizing workshops in this regard.
Funding and Development: Define approaches to new funding patterns, developing corpus and endowment management, loan and scholarship programs for students
New institutions and Incubation: Cumulative training of top level officials of accounting, investment strategy, communication skills, negotiation and managing the relationship with vendors, human resource management etc.& finally
Information and Governance: Focusing on managing data needs of commission, display of information related activities in universities with a eye on achieving accreditation
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