Universities have made unparalleled contributions in bringing different civilizations together and nurturing them towards social and scientific advancements. University of Bologna which was founded in Italy in the year 1088 is considered to be the oldest university in continuous operation. It is believed that by the end of the 15th century there were about fifty universities, and all were in Europe. All modern universities of the world have evolved on the pattern of the 11th century European model of universities. According to an estimate, there are about 25,000 universities in the world. India is known to have the largest system of higher education in terms of the number of institutions, with 982 degree awarding institutions and about 40,000 colleges.
The western system of higher education has substantially influenced the system of the rest of the world, primarily because of its futuristic orientation and significant research contribution in frontier areas of knowledge. They have brought out critical understanding of social dynamics and invented modern technology which has permeated in all dimensions of human development. One unique feature of western universities is that they are continually moving ahead of time. There are universities which have a common practice of establishing curriculum and research groups that invest a considerable amount of time on a continual basis in planning and designing of futuristic curricula and determining research priorities for the present as well as for the unknown boundaries of the future. These are some of the unique characteristics, among others, that make them the leading universities of the world. These universities have been role models for a long time for most parts of the world. A large number of them have been continually capturing ace positions in global rankings that are carried out by different agencies. That has started mounting enormous pressure on universities in other parts of the world.
Ranking system in higher education is not a recent phenomenon. It has been there right from early times, but in different forms. It is said that even after the establishment of the University of Oxford in 1096, Londoners preferred to go for higher studies to other places of Europe, and that continued until the imposition of a formal embargo by the king. This perception-based ranking remained part of the system until the mid-eighties when American universities started domestic rankings based on limited parameters. It was followed by some other countries in different forms where it began in the form of program accreditation and institutional accreditation. This trend ultimately took the shape of global ranking of universities. Soon, the ranking system caught the imagination of some commercial organisations which saw great potential in it. They evolved their own instruments in consultation with experts and launched a global ranking exercise in the beginning of the 21st century which eventually gave rise to competition amongst universities as also among nation states. Soon, it generated a newer kind of enthusiasm amongst some countries which started aspiring for ‘world-class’ universities.
On the concept of the ‘world-class’ university, Phillip Altbach in 2004 said, “Every country wants a world-class university. No country feels it can do without one. The problem is that no one knows what a world-class university is, and no one has figured out how to get one. Everyone, however, refers to the concept.” Since then, the debate on world-class universities is on but no one has been able to articulate yet what it really means. A very big conference on world-class universities was held as late as October 2019 at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University where no one agreed on any one definition of the ‘world-class university’.
A world-class university is perceived to be a multidimensional concept. The most significant aspect of a world-class university lies in its capacity to lead the world through its academic rigour in frontier domains of knowledge besides churning out the most talented workforce needed by the modern world. People have been aspiring to have world-class universities for a long time. There is a famous anecdote about the University of Chicago. It is said that when John D. Rockefeller wanted to establish the University of Chicago in 1890, he contacted the then President of Harvard University, Charles William Eliot, and asked him as to what is required to build a great university? Eliot replied that it required USD 50 million and 200 years. On hearing that, Rockefeller said that he got the message loud and clear but he would not wait for that long, for he would like to invest much more than USD 50 million and establish a great university much earlier than usual.
Since it is difficult to turn a blind eye to the idea of having world-class universities in a highly competitive world, even less resilient economies came up with numerous innovative ideas to have world-class universities. India also realized the need to have a couple of world-class universities. The National Development Council (NDC), in its meeting held in November 2010, approved the setting up of as many as 14 world-class universities in the cities of Bhubaneswar, Kochi, Amritsar, Greater Noida, Patna, Guwahati, Kolkata, Bhopal, Gandhinagar, Coimbatore, Mysore, Pune, Visakhapatnam and Jaipur.
The idea was to have a two pronged approach to set up a few world-class universities. While some of them could be established under the de-novo category focusing on issues of national importance, others could be identified from amongst the existing universities and provided additional resources for attaining world-class standards. These universities would provide teaching and research facilities of the standard comparable to the best universities of the world and they would be under the category of institutions of national importance like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). Later on it was decided to change the nomenclature from world-class university to Universities for Research and Innovation. And accordingly a Bill was introduced in the Parliament on May 21, 2012, which somehow could not be passed.
Five years later, the government decided not to take the legislative route and instead opted to do it through the UGC (Institutions of Eminence Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2017. Hence the government constituted an Empowered Expert Committee (EEC) and entrusted it with the mandate of identifying ten public and ten private institutions of higher learning based on their academic standings that could be granted the status of Institution of Eminence (IoE). Ten public institutions that were shortlisted by the EEC are IISc, Bangalore, four IITs—Delhi, Bombay, Madras and Kharagpur—BHU, Universities of Delhi, Hyderabad, Jadavpur and Anna. The ten private institutions are MAHE-Manipal, BITS-Pilani, O P Jindal, Shiv Nadar, KIIT-Bhubaneswar, VIT-Vellore, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapitham, Jamia Hamdard, Satya Bharti Foundation and JIO Institute. Up till now only among the public institutions and four from the private ones have signed MoUs with the government. It looks like a work in progress but at a very slow pace despite claims to the contrary.
There are different dimensions towards establishing world-class universities. While some of them are related to frameworks, others are related to quality, governance and sustainability. One can understand the necessity of having world-class universities in the country because none of our universities is ranked among the top hundred in global rankings. Another reason could be that India’s innovation in higher education has generally side-stepped universities either in preference to premier institutions or to establishing new institutions. We also need world-class universities because most of our institutions are churning out graduates without skills required in the real world.
But establishing new universities especially those intended to be innovative require careful planning and understanding of the weakness of the current system. If we aspire to have universities with world-class standards then we have to consciously avoid the weakness of the current system like overwhelming bureaucratic burden, degree of severity of the toughness of decision making, little incentive to innovate, eliminating fragmentation of knowledge, freeing the universities from external control, substantial resources, etc. In addition, they have to have futuristic orientation in every aspect of their operation. It hardly needs any mention that they will have to provide an inspiring learning and living environment to their students.
Since such universities are expensive institutions, they require liberal grants over a protracted period of time and freedom to mobilize resources from other sources in a transparent manner. Enabling some of our existing universities to emerge as world-class centres of academic excellence, as envisaged under the scheme of Institutions of Eminence, can be most successfully achieved over a period of time provided honesty in honouring the commitments takes precedence over everything else from both the sides.
The author is former Chairman, UGC. The views expressed are personal.
