Higher Education: Time for Self
Regulatory Autonomy
Bhagwati Prakash*
Higher
Education in its present state in India appears to be grossly disadvantaged in
keeping pace with the fast escalating global benchmarks of quality and
innovativeness. It is also being said to be disjunct with our ethos, values and
heritage, and not succeeding well to ingrain, requisite ethics and morals in
the conduct and behaviour of the graduating youth. The quality deficit in
education, places India at 60th rank in the Global Innovations
Index (GII) 1 and keeping it devoid of any place among the top 50
international destinations for higher education. India is able to attract only a
miniscule 0.61 % of the international students from abroad to study in India.2
Our patent filings under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) too have been very
meager at 1529 in 2016, against a large tally of 56,595, 45,239 and 43,168
respectively for the US, Japan, and China. In the field of nanotechnology, we
have 14 international patents and 5000 research papers to our credit for all
IITs together since 1970s. Whereas, the Chinese Academy of Sciences is fathoms
ahead of us with 705 international patents and 29591 research publications. No
Indian could secure a single Nobel Prize for his/her research conducted in
India after Bharat Ratna Dr. C.V. Raman in 1930.3 There are
universities with double digit Nobel Winners from tiny countries like Denmark,
Sweden and Switzerland, having a miniscule population of 50 to 90 lacs. The
highest number of 151 is from Harvard University, though a Private University.4
Moreover, 8 out of top 10 alma maters of highest number of Nobel Laureates are
American private universities.5
With
respect to the lacuna of education being disjunct with our heritage, one finds
that till date we have been teaching the same outcast Aryan invasion theory,
coined out of the European colonial politics, and altogether refuted by the present
day archeological and other studies. Besides, the infinite narratives embedded into
our ancient scriptures, corroborating the present-age scientific wisdom, as
well as several postulates of various social
sciences and humanities, including those of the Economics, Geography, Political
Science, Public Administration, Psychology, Sociology, History, Linguistic, etc.,
find no place into our curricula and the suggested readings. Endeavours to
ingrain values, ethics and national ethos in the conduct and behaviour of the
graduating youth by means of suitable pedagogies are also very feeble to
produce tangible results.
One way to remedy these
limitations can be the broadbasing the fora of academic autonomy with wider participation
of the academic fraternity for democratic self-direction and more open
brainstorming. Beginning can be made with open departmental committees, accessible
to all faculty members, along with participatory boards of studies to
incorporate all the members of faculty in the department directly or indirectly.
Moreover, 3 tier self regulatory autonomous councils, democratically
constituted for each subject and faculty, involving the entire academic
fraternity on the lines of professional councils for self regulation can offer a
better solution. For instance, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India,
the Institute of Company secretaries of India, the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants
of India and the Bar council of India etc. are able to continuously improve and
maintain the standards, through their respective 3 tier self regulatory
autonomous councils (comprising local chapters, state associations and national
level councils), all constituted democratically through one person one vote. In
higher education as well, beginning can be made from the teaching departments
of universities as well as colleges for having open brainstorming and spreading
it into the Boards of Studies (BOS) by making them participatory, instead of
constituting them with only handpicked nominees. It would help to overcome the
limitations of inbreeding of the vision of only handpicked members in the BOS. This
participatory self direction can be taken ahead, as aforesaid, by constituting
subject-wise ‘self regulating multitier autonomous subject councils’. Each of
the subject being taught can have 3-tier, self regulatory autonomous councils, comprising
national level council, state level associations, and the local chapters with
autonomy to set benchmarks for curricula framing; develop & prescribe
pedagogies- including the requisite and relevant teaching-learning approaches comprising
the andragogical, heutagogical, peeragogical, constructivist, transitory, transformative
and similar other approaches; evaluation patterns and practical training etc.
Such self regulatory autonomous councils for all subjects, faculties and for
the overall structure of higher education can revolutionarise the quality of
education, and place India in the league of countries known for excellence in
higher education.
'Indian higher education has suffered the brunt of
over-regulation in a top heavy system.6 Higher education in India is largely steered
in tandem with the recommendations of a series of independent commissions and
committees, comprising one or more handpicked experts, and all of them had invariably
been the academicians of very high repute. Beginning with the Sarkar Committee (1945-49)
to S.S. Bhatnagar Committee (1947), the Radhakrishnan Commission (1948-49)7
and so on, there had been around two dozen plus such committees and
commissions, whose recommendations have been instrumental in shaping our
education since Independence. Yet, certain sections air their grievances about
autonomy in the words that the policies formulated at the centre by the MHRD
along with a plethora of centralised regulatory authorities, keen on holding
the reins, are sent as commanding directives to universities, who themselves,
in quite a majority of cases, are silos having numerous colleges under them.8
So, room for curricular reforms, scope for renovating teaching-learning methods,
change in evaluation pattern or any other rationalized norms for admissions
does not exist in several cases with universities, let alone colleges.9
In a vast country like India, endowed with one of the largest higher education
system of the world, excellence in academics, good governance and financial
well being of institutions can no doubt be achieved with optimally decentralised
autonomy, along with participatory self-regulation, coupled with corresponding
responsibility and accountability.10 Indeed, autonomy, according to some thinkers, has to trickle
down from the very source of all powers, the HRD ministry up to the delivering units, comprising teaching departments of universities as well as colleges, across the country.10 Self
directional autonomy in spirit, needs to be deliberately infused with widest
possible, and optimally self regulated participatory mechanisms, to incorporate
pluralistic realities and pluralities aspirations of the vast category of
stakeholders and a variety of education providers in the country like India.
The
Gajendragadkar Committee Report of the UGC on Governance of Universities had
considered autonomy a pre-condition for success of universities. The committee
has observed in its report that “the concept of University autonomy is often
misunderstood. It is not a ‘legal concept’, not even a ‘constitutional
concept’. It is an ethical concept and academic concept. This concept does not
question that, in a democratic society like ours, legislatures are ultimately
sovereign, and have a right to discuss and determine the question of policy
relating to education, including higher education. The concept of university
autonomy, however, means that it would be appropriate on the part of democratic
legislatures not to interfere with the administration of university life, both
academic and non-academic. The claim for autonomy is made by the universities
not as a matter of privilege, but on the ground that such autonomy is a
condition precedent if the universities are to discharge their duties and
obligations effectively and efficiently.’’11
A related issue, concerning the autonomy, often raised
while discussing the performance of teachers in particular and universities in
general, is that of 'academic freedom' and professionalism in teaching. According
to Tight "academic freedom refers to the freedom of individuals in
the academics to study, teach, research and publish; without being subject to
or causing undue interference".12 However it does not mean that
it confers upon the academic community any unfettered rights of action and
behaviour. The concept of academic freedom enjoins that the teacher be allowed
to express his views freely and openly, even though they may be at variance
with the 'official' view, without fear of being penalised. However, the
academic freedom does not extend to, for example, neglecting teaching
assignments in favour of research interest. Academic freedom is a privilege
that invokes with it the responsibility of ensuring that it is used only for
the welfare of the academic community and the good of the parent institution.13
In the views of Ramabrahmam I14, teaching can and needs to be
professionalized by following interventions:
(i). Promoting
meaningful innovations in the classroom.
(ii). Promoting
research interest among teachers.
(iii).Promoting
optimized participation of teachers in matters related to academics.
(iv).Promoting
uninhibited expression by teachers in matters related to administrative reforms
of education institutions.
(v). Promoting commitment,
challenge and control among teachers that reinforce accountability and are
reinforced by autonomy.
These
interventions require utmost autonomy, empowerment inspiration and facilitating
culture for individual teachers and not for the universities alone as a body. The
aforesaid intervention of optimized participation of teachers in most of
the matters related to academics can be said to be the cornerstone of any
meaningful autonomy in higher education. It requires widest possible
representative access to the academic fraternity in all the ‘fora of autonomy’ from
the departmental decision making, Boards of studies, Academic Councils, the
Boards of Management, and even the state level University Coordination
Committees. This would give access to every creative brain, may be on representative
basis, in shaping curricula, pedagogical and other teaching-learning
approaches, practicals and quality of research and to also facilitate integration
and ingraining of the national ethos, values and heritage into higher education.
In most of
the cases, the BOSs are often, comprising the dean and 3-4 handpicked very
senor experts who may not be well familiar with many new developments. Moreover,
as our universities are silos, incorporating hundreds of affiliated colleges
under them, with thousands of teachers in each discipline; including regular as
well as visiting ones, all overflush with immense subject-related intelligence,
including latest as well as ancient wisdom,
which cannot be used for lack of their participation in academic brainstorming
and decision making at any level, except in teaching the lectures, allocated, by simple
lecture method, without requisite autonomy in adopting right pedagogical,
androgogical, heutogogical or peeragogical approaches and so on. So, it is no
strange a fact that most of the disciplines are devoid of the latest and
emergent developments, as well as the rich ancient heritage of ours, related to
that discipline. Therefore, swayed
by the mythic Anglo-European narratives of Aryan invasion theory, which
has its origin more from the European politics, than anything else in Indian historical
record or archeology,15 when extensive explorations carried out upto
Northern Mesopotamia in the recent preceding decades, including that of a joint French-American team
led by H. Weiss of Yale University and several other investigations have
established beyond doubt that most of the old-world civilizations were severely
affected by a prolonged drought that began about 2200 B.C. and persisted for
about 300 years. The most drastically hit region seems to have been the
Akkadian civilization neighbouring India. Yet, most of the syllabi are replete
with the Aryan invasion theory. It is so, inspite of scores of studies
indicating that in most likelihood the drought triggered by massive volcanic
eruptions had caused migration. Some satellite pictures indicate flooding as
one of the reason for the migration of Harappan civilisations. Several
independent explorations, conducted over a vast belt from southern Europe to
India, clearly prove that civilizations over a large part of the ancient world
were brought to a calamitous end by an abrupt climate change on a global scale.16
These
discoveries could help to put an end to all speculations regarding the Aryan
invasion as the cause of breakup of the Harappan civilization. Now when it is
beyond doubt that the Vedic civilization far from coming into existence after
the Harappan civilisation, in fact ended with it. The mature Harappan
civilization was the last glow of the Vedic age. This recognition has brought
about a fundamental change in perspective in the history and chronology of not
only ancient India, but also nearly all ancient civilizations. It helps to answer
several fundamental questions about the source of the Harappans - they should
now be called the Vedic Harappans - and the age of the Rig Veda. Thanks to
recent discoveries about the mathematics and geography of Vedic India, we are now in a position
to answer both questions.10 Numerous findings of the archeological
investigations are waiting to find place in our curricula and texts. Only wider
access to the academic fraternity in departmental and BOS level deliberations
is one of the easiest way to facilitate induction of quality and innovativeness
as well as imbibing our ethos, values and heritage.
In most of
the subjects of study, our rich heritage lacks, even a mere mention in
curricula and texts. For instance the practice of supplementing of
electromagnetic impulse of heart by a Silver-ion battery is corroborated by the
hymns of Yajurved and hundreds of thousands of other scientific narrations
related to Physics, Chemistry, life Sciences, Mathematics, Geography, or the
doctrines of social science are vastly and well embedded in our ancient
scriptures. But they not find place in our modern university curricula. We
should incorporate all such new revelations into the curricula of all subjects
from humanities to science and technology, including the social sciences.
This idea of constituting
the national level and state level, local level and department level discrete multi-tier
autonomous subject councils in all the subjects like, Botany, Zoology councils
for History, Sociology, Political Science, Economics, Geography, Physics,
Chemistry, Mathematics and so on for each subject including all professional
disciplines faculties and overall all India council for higher education can
bring a sea change with respect to quality benchmarks, imbibing our ethos and
heritage and in ingraining ethics in the conduct and behaviour of graduating
students.
Notes
- Issac Wolfe, India moves up six places to rank 60 in Global Innovation Index, Jun 15, 2017, www.forbesindia.com/article/special/india-moves-up/47267/1
- Quamar Furquan & Bhalla Veena, Internationalisation of Higher Education in India, AIU 2017, N. Delhi p6
- Remembering C.V. Raman, Indiatoday.in, Story, November 2, 2016.
- Alder Jeremy, 50 Universities with Most Nobel Prize Winners, www.bestmastersprograms.org
- Out of top 10 universities with maximum Nobel laureates 8 are American private universities having 60 to 151 Nobel laureates. These universities are, Harvard, Columbia, University of California, University of Chicago, MIT, California Institute of Technology, and Stanford. In India as well some of the private universities inspite of some discrimination, are doing well and can further outshine, if given a facilitating environment. Even, to date these are 11 private universities out of total 36 universities, including the elite institutes, ranking in top 1100 universities ranked by the Times Higher Education
- Dash Sambit, What Indian higher education needs a lesson on autonomy, [Modified] https://www.dailyo.in>story, 3 Sept. 2016
- Saha, Samir Kumar and Ghosh, Sangita, Commissions and Committees on Technical in Independent India, Indian Journal of History of Science, 47.1 (2012) pp 109-138
- ibid 6
- Powar K.B., Accountability in Higher Education, in Edited Vol.- Accountability and Autonomy in Higher Education , edited by Veena Bhalla et al. Association of Indian Universities, New Delhi p.15
- Sambit Dash has also opined as above, though in different words, in the above cited article.
- University Grants Commission, 1971, Report of the Committee on the Governance of Universities and Colleges, (Gajendrahadkar Committee Report), UGC, New Delhi, 68pp.
- Tight, M., 1988, So what is Academic freedom? In Tight, M. (Ed), ‘Academic Freedom and Responsibility’, p 114-132. Open University Press, Milton Keynes.
- ibid 9
- Ramabrahmam I, Accountability of Teaching Profession: The Role of Academic Staff Colleges, Edited Vol.- Accountability and Autonomy in Higher Education, Edited by Veena Bhalla et al., Association of Indian Universities, New Delhi p.88.
- The Politics of History, Hindustan Times, Nov.28, 1993
- The Harappan Civilization and Myth of Aryan ‘’Invasion’’ http://archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/aryan-harappan-myth
