Indian Universities and the need for Autonomy

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.