Indian Universities and the need for Autonomy
What is a University? What purpose does it serve
in a society?
A University is a social institution whose main
purpose is the advancement of knowledge, skills and critical inquiry
throughout the larger society, of which it is but a small part. It is
supposed to be a space for intellectual creativity and innovations. A
place where experts and young initiates, from diverse fields, come
together to teach and learn, in every possible permutation.
It has the responsibility of creating new
knowledge, either as a consequence of innovation and ingenuity; Or as
a means of understanding things in a more comprehensive way, either
by building on previously accumulated knowledge or even by shattering
the established explanations and beliefs and putting new ones in
place. This responsibility of a University is towards the whole
society, it's advancement and it's welfare.
In an Industrialising society like present-day
India, it serves the additional purpose of providing medical, legal,
technical and vocational training in order to produce the
professionals required to keep a society functional, in the least,
and developing at most.
Now recall the constant discussions in the media
and in civil society in general, on the sub-par performance of these
institutions, their poor showing in world rankings, the negligent
level of patents filed and research papers published by them, as well
as the quality and quantity of it's successful alumni. Something
seems to be going horribly wrong, doesn't it!
First of all let's try to understand our higher
education sector a little better.
In India, Universities awarding their own degrees
are classified into five types based on their management – Central
University, State University, Private University,
Institutions-deemed-to-be-a-University and Institute of National
Importance. Colleges award degrees in the name of the university to
which they are affiliated.
There are currently 750+ universities including
40+ central universities, 350 state-run universities, 200+ private
universities and 100+ deemed-to-be universities. And at least 37,000
colleges are affiliated to these institutions (as per 2016 figures).
Whereas, only 4.5% of the country's population is educated till the
graduate level or above, as per 2011 census.
Institutions falling in different categories have
different levels of autonomy, different funding sources and different
reputations as centres of learning.
But what do all of them have in common?
They are all part of our out-dated,
heavily-regulated, bureaucratised and mismanaged higher education
system. They are the legacies of our State's general policy of
neglecting our education system. I mean, the education system as a
whole.
Moreover, there are 15 professional councils (like
MCI and AICTE) that regulate the courses run by the colleges and
universities. The University Grants Commission (UGC) acts as the
over-arching regulatory body. All these regulatory and accreditation
bodies exercise different levels of control over the universities,
and hence, their faculties and most importantly, students and
scholars. And the strongest safeguard these universities can have, is
Autonomy.
Now, lets look at some of the reasons behind this
dismal state of affairs.
The heavily-centralised nature of the sector;
The loopholes in the legislations and policies
regarding this sector;
The level of autonomy granted to these
institutions, or rather the lack of it;
The implementations of personal preferences,
ideologies and even fancies, of sucessive administrations with regard
to this sector, in matters ranging from the seemingly insignificant
to the fundamentally important.
By no means is this an exhaustive list. But you
get a fair idea of where the problems lie.
I, myself belong to one of the batches that were
sadly, subjected to these fancies. Needless to say, we were
considered as collateral damage in this botched attempt by the
benevolent government in introducing an “innovative” solution to
the problems in our higher education institutions. I am talking about
the 'four year undergraduate program' better known as FYUP, that
lasted just one academic year (2013-2014). Before that my fellow
graduates of standard 12th also faced the change in admission
criteria for the technical and engineering colleges throughout india,
in the merging of AIEEE and IITJEE, and also, the change in the
weightage of marks alloted to our CBSE board exam results and the
merged entrance exam results.
What is the common theme throughout this article?
If you were attentive enough, you might have noticed the word
'Autonomy' a few times.
What does autonomy mean in the context of a
University?
Autonomy of a university means, the freedom to
function independently, that is, without any interference from the
government. In the present scenario, it means minimised role of the
government in any of the academic roles and responsibilities of the
University, any aspect of it's day-to-day administration and
management, or even the ideological and intellectual debates
happening on campuses.
Here, 'government' could be any of the following:
the bureaucracy, the education department of the executive, or it's
regulatory and accreditation authorities like MHRD, UGC, AICTE etc.
Going into a bit more detail, we can outline the
academic and administrative spheres of autonomy.
Universities should have enough academic autonomy
so that the faculties decide what courses to offer, how the courses
are to be designed, what it's syllabus should be, what the
examination time-table should be like, etc. Whereas, administrative
autonomy would mean that all the important administrative issues like
the admissions of students, recruitment of Lecturers, Guest
Lecturers, Professors, academic council and administrative council
members, deans of colleges and even the Vice-Chancellor, the
finances, grants, scholarships, internal committees on bullying,
sexual harassment, racism etc., should be left to the university
staff and faculty. The next progressive step would be the involvement
of the students of the university in the aforementioned processes,
either indirectly through a student council or union, or directly as
part of a transparent and democratic exercise.
Granting autonomy to our Universities is a
sure-shot way of adequately addressing many of the problems that are
plaguing our higher education sector in general, and the reputed
institutes of higher-learning that are somehow still performing their
duties admirably, despite all the challenges discussed.
Some of the oldest institutes of higher-learning
in the world, which would have played a similar role as modern
universities, in the context of their times and societies, were
established as back as 500-600 BCE in the Indian subcontinent, for
instance, Taxila (or Takshashila), Nalanda and Vikramshila, to name a
few. If we wish to honour their legacy and better yet, become world
leaders in the domain of higher education and learning, we need to
start with granting autonomy to our Universities.