THE higher education sector in India is undergoing a major makeover. Following the reports by the National Knowledge Commission and the Yashpal Committee, the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government of India has prepared a series of bills, purportedly to respond to their recommendations. These relate to the issue of malpractices and corruption, settlement of disputes of various kinds in higher education, accreditation, entry of foreign providers and a new all-encompassing central regulatory mechanism to replace the existing regulators.

Even as these bills were being drafted, the central government was busy creating new educational institutions. New central universities were established in different states. New IITs and IIMs were also opened. While this represented an expansion of the types of institutions considered ‘excellent’ in popular imagination, another set of institutions, which were entirely new, were also established or proposed. Apart from National Institutes of Technology, six Institutes of Science Education and Research are in their initial phase. The government is also proposing a set of innovation universities.

While these activities have been noticed by the media and commentators, there has been little effort to understand the rationale behind them. Current discussion also ignores other initiatives, viz. the report of the Indian Academies of Sciences on the state of undergraduate science education in India along with the more recent report on the issue of autonomy of higher educational institutions and other reports on the functioning of the IIMs.

Most of this feverish activity concerns the question of expansion. It relates to the perception that there is a direct correlation between education, power and economic wellbeing, which governments in democratic societies have an obligation to satisfy. Hence, expansion on this scale.

The educational space has been expanded in two ways. One, by enhancing seats for aspirants belonging to the backward/dalit sections of society, for girls and for people suffering from various disabilities. Second, by opening up new institutions. Note that such expansion has largely come about through central initiatives.

India is a federal country with states enjoying considerable power in many arenas, education being one. Law and order is another. In times of crisis, people seem to trust central agencies rather than those of the states, probably because it is believed that the central agencies are less prone to local influences. Yet, though education is on the concurrent list, states have contributed very little to the growth of this sector. Unlike politics which is increasingly becoming state-centric, the growth in the field of higher education is still national and not regional. Central institutions are seen as the only spaces with the ability to impart quality education.

For a start, they are better endowed than their state counterparts in terms of physical and human resources. Moreover, state governments have enacted laws that allow private players to invest in this sector, leading to a proliferation of ‘professional’ institutions, often of dubious quality. Some of them have even managed to get the deemed university tag from the UGC. They do not have the adequate physical and human resources and are mostly run as profit-making family firms. Their faculty lacks autonomy; nor do they follow recognized educational principles to organize their activities and programmes.

 

The last two decades have been a period of rapid deterioration, indeed, of collapse for state run educational institutions. Local political factors, with caste predominating, influence not only the appointment of vice chancellors and other officials, but also of the faculty. Central institutions in contrast, are seen as less amenable to these local pressures. No wonder they are much sought after and state governments are well aware that their own institutions are lagging behind in the race for knowledge, with little vitality left to counter the feeling of deprivation. Therefore, the decision to open more and more central institutions should be seen as an ‘equalizing’ measure, as also a state response to this sense of crisis.

It would be interesting to study the process of establishing and operating the new centrally funded institutions. Aware that they cannot influence either the selection of vice chancellors or faculty, state governments try to have their say in selecting their precise location. The first vice chancellors have to deal with this contentious issue and, in many cases, have to operate from places they feel are unsuitable.

 

There are also cases where state governments have turned hostile, making it difficult for the institutes to function properly. However, far more frustrating is their inability to attract good faculty. The brightest tend to gravitate toward the big metros or well established institutions, since the leaders of the upcoming institutions do not have the kind of freedom in the matter of faculty selection that the vice chancellors of universities like the JNU or Hyderabad University purportedly enjoy. Since there is no practice of documentation or archiving in our higher educational institutions, there is little we can learn about these processes. It would be worthwhile to study the relationship between the existing state institutions and the newly established central ones. Mostly, they stand and work in complete isolation from one another. There are places where we have more than one central institution working. Do they ever talk to each other?

The participation of the private sector in the field of higher education is yet another issue requiring study. Most of the private institutions enabled by state legislation are in the ‘technical’ or ‘professional’ field. No private investor has so far shown interest in setting up institutions of the kind the central government has been establishing for the last six-seven years. For instance, we have not seen any initiative to match the Indian Institute of Science or the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, which were set up by the Tatas decades ago.

 

The story of the deemed universities too, many of which are privately managed, remains to be fully told. They suffer from corruption and lack of autonomy, and the education they offer is arguably of poor quality. Yet, while much is made of the strict control of the state, which is said to be detrimental to the entry of the private sector in this field, the latter’s own record has not been promising. The last few decades, especially the post-liberalization era, has witnessed the phenomenal growth of the capitalist class in India with global ambitions. It is intriguing why this class, which constantly complains about the low quality of education and the unemployability of university graduates, makes little effort to augment the depleting resources of our existing institutions. Instead, wherever we hear of private-public partnerships, be it in school or higher education, it appears that the private investors are mostly interested in the land that these publicly funded institutions possess.

We also have inadequate knowledge of the internal culture of our educational institutions. At times universities or institutes look like small states, beset with issues of finance, law and order, competing social aspirations, with different interest groups eyeing their resources. Moreover, in many cases the surrounding society wants to have its say in their affairs. The relationship between them is not symbiotic.

Another important aspect of the internal life of an educational institution is the issue of governance. Why is it that we do not have institution specific governance structures? Universities, however different in their scope or objectives, have similar governance structures. The question to ask is who the owner of the university or the institute might be. It is definitely not the government. Could it be the faculty? Or is it the students? They tend to act more as interest groups seeking the attention of the authorities for various reasons, right or wrong. Is it the alumni then? This needs more thought.

 

A note circulated in the course of the Yashpal Committee’s deliberations put the issue of the internal organization in the following manner:

Universities have become strongly centralized at the levels of the VC and Registrars with little or no participation of individual faculty. Institutions that are faculty governed (when it comes to academic leadership) are found to be more nimble and reactive to changes in the environment...

Persons associated with administering and managing academic institutions are most often not trained or equipped with knowledge of best practices in academia globally. Universities have not been able to attract talented administrators for a variety of reasons.

The leadership of universities is in hands of …agencies that are far removed from the institutions and do not have a good understanding of the needs of development and growth of institutions. In addition, these councils are too large in numbers to make nuanced decisions. Many a times the boards or equivalent are filled with ex-officio members who change so often that their presence on these bodies becomes disruptive. The VCs most often have low degrees of freedom in terms of administrative stretch.

Universities need autonomy to operate in a healthy competitive setting. The university leadership must be driven by the objectives of the institution and draw only macro policies from the government. …They need to be accountable to the various stakeholders – the society, government, students, recruiters, alumni etc…

The role of a VC is also to provide academic leadership to the university, develop and execute the vision of the university including its growth and to ensure that the university is academically and financially healthy. This requires skills that reach beyond academic talent. The VC must enunciate a sound financial model for the university and undertake the fiduciary responsibility of the university. He/she must also ensure that the regulatory requirements are met.

The note quoted above at some length argues for more deliberation on the respective roles of VCs or directors, the deans, and their corresponding powers. In the current circumstances when institutions of higher education are expected to not depend solely on state funds, the role of the vice chancellor or the director is also bound to change. S/he should be able to act as an interface between the university and society, which includes industry, the state, alumni and philanthropists. S/he should have the ability to persuade those with resources at their command about the relevance of the institution’s academic programmes in order to invest in them.

 

We should also think about the composition of the university administration. For example, is the post of registrar necessary or does it work as an impediment, marring the pace of decision-making and other processes? The role of the deans needs to be considerably enhanced to make administrative work more participatory and smooth. Similarly, there is need to give serious thought to the way executive committees or boards are formed.

The practice of having the President of India as the visitor of the central universities and the governor of the states as chancellor has not helped these bodies. They have little interest or time for the institutions they formally head. In many cases their role is performed by the governments, which adversely affects the autonomous functioning of these bodies. There have also been cases, the universities of Bihar being the most recent example where, taking advantage of their legally protected position, the governor has ignored the government in the selection of the vice chancellor and behaved much like the czars of old. Universities become helpless victims, caught in the stand-off between them.

 

Arguments have been advanced for giving more powers to the vice chancellors or directors who commonly complain that any steps to introduce change meets with stiff resistance or callous indifference from the faculty. Take the issue of semesterisation of the undergraduate courses in Delhi University. The proposal by the vice chancellor to introduce a semester system evoked strong opposition among the teachers. An ideological battle ensued, conspiracy theories were floated, and the vice chancellor was accused of playing into the hands of neo-liberal forces out to atomize the university, making it weak and vulnerable. It is quite another matter that in this case the vice chancellor emerged victorious, but the struggle did not cover either side with glory, with the courts rebuking them and society turning indifferent.

This is a low point in the history of the University of Delhi. But in all the fracas the larger question has gone completely unheeded: What about the long awaited reform of undergraduate education? Not that there is no new thinking in this direction. The curricular exercise of some the newly established universities like the Ambedkar University of Delhi gives hope, but the older institutions are loath to take any initiative in this regard.

 

Why is the faculty, on most occasions, seen as defending the status quo and its privileges, and opposing reforms? If anything, the need to create opportunities for the educationally deprived communities within higher education was first recognized and articulated by political forces and their inclusion was only reluctantly and grudgingly accepted by the academic community. This is especially true for the institutes of technology, management and medicine, which believe that they are way ahead of the general universities.

Much before the furore that the statement of a minister on the quality of the IIT faculty created, it was the Yashpal report that had asked these premier institutes to look inwards and think self-critically about their contribution to the field of knowledge. It had asked them to judge themselves by global benchmarks.

The Yashpal Committee report seeks to centre-stage the university in the scheme of higher education. Stand alone institutions like the IIMs, IITs or the medical institutes need to expand their horizon and start thinking and behaving like universities with a multi-disciplinary vision. Highly specialized research institutes also need to create linkages with teaching universities. We cannot claim that the institutional frame of our higher education sector is sound when research and knowledge creation are located elsewhere and universities remain confined to the role of imparting this knowledge to the students. Universities and teaching institutions should equally be the sites of knowledge creation and for this it is important that the best minds interact with undergraduates, as is the practice in the best universities of the world.

It is recognized that the crisis sweeping the higher education sector has mostly to do with the loss of agency of the teacher, what a member of the Yashpal Committee termed as the story of a lost generation. Higher educational institutions have not been able to attract the best of our young minds. A key reason is of course inadequate compensation. More than this is the sense of lack of freedom which drives them away. The new, rigid service rules laid down by the UGC rob the teachers and employers of their autonomy. It is disturbing that even now our rules remain bound within disciplinary silos such that without a B.Ed. degree, one cannot even apply to a department of education, whatever one’s achievements. Encouraging an engineer to study sociology or literature is a far cry.

Rigid rules regarding appointments applied universally have made educational spaces dull and uninviting. We do have instances of institutions like the National Law Universities, IIMs and IITs, which have devised ways to attract good minds, but their practices have not been studied.

 

Criticizing the rules made mandatory for all educational institutions by the UGC, Pratiksha Baxi writes, ‘This imposition of a regime of evaluation is unfair and creates new academic hierarchies between faculty members… The minimum of publications expected from an assistant professor is no less than a grand total of three publications over a period of 12 years! …(It is assumed) that assistant professors research less, or should be expected to have less research or publications as compared to senior faculty, irrespective of the nature of the university.

‘This condescending viewpoint assumes that undergraduate and post graduate academics at the assistant professor level ought to be teaching machines, refreshed in their subject matter every few years till they move up the academic hierarchy. …Does rank determine academic creativity? If not, why are the conditions for academic creativity so adverse for those at the entry level?’

She goes on: ‘Do universities have no autonomy in determining our systems of academic standards, values and creativity? Are we to be an appendage to a funding institution without any space to negotiate, adapt and create?’

 

This anguished cry from a younger teacher has failed to stir the professoriate which is well-entrenched in the academic system. The gravity of its implications are not yet realized. Lack of autonomy makes teaching an unattractive proposition. The lack of research opportunities is another deterrent. The mechanical division of the workload spread uniformly does not allow the authorities to identify younger faculty who could be freed from teaching to give them more time for research.

The Yashpal Committee was right when it said that the universities or institutions of higher education need to be treated like self-regulatory bodies. Its report demanded autonomy at every level and therefore recommended a national regulatory mechanism which would not control but facilitate innovations by individual teachers and institutions. But the skepticism that this demand has evoked, especially in the academic community, says volumes about our own self-image: we do not want to break free of this suffocating stillness because it gives us a sense of secure stability.