School education and higher education have a symbiotic relationship as the former is the basis for influencing the quality of the latter. Higher education in real sense is the basis of social, cultural, political and economic transformation of the country. The role of the universities thus becomes of paramount importance. We need to emphasise that universities are not only for dissemination of knowledge, they have an onerous responsibility to create new knowledge in all domains as this is the perspective which is at the heart of the idea of a university.
The idea has been beautifully expressed in the Report of a Committee on “Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education” chaired by Prof Yash Pal, where it states: “A university is a place where new ideas germinate, strike roots and grow tall and sturdy. It is a unique space, which covers the entire universe of knowledge. It is a place where creative minds converge, interact with each other and construct visions of new realities. Established notions of truth are challenged in the pursuit of knowledge”. This vision of a university needs to be embedded into the thought process of the academic faculty and the students alike.
The annual growth rate of enrolment in higher education in India was frustratingly elusive until the mid-sixties. It showed some sign of improvement in the seventies when it registered an annual growth rate of about 2.5%. It remained in the commando crawl phase for a long time registering an annual growth rate of about 4-5% until 2005-06. Thereafter, it registered a sudden spike in 2012 crossing the Gross Enrolment Ratio of 20%. It was great but short-lived. Since then the annual growth rate has not maintained the same tempo, though the GER has crossed the 26.7% mark.
The current position reveals that the gender and social gaps seem to be narrowing down. Though the expansion process has accelerated during this century, it is still low for the country to become globally competitive. Therefore, there is a need to expand the system. It is also important to further pro-actively address the concerns of social and regional equity in higher education, as its futuristic agenda. This will require continued special support to historically disadvantaged groups for their faster, sustainable and more inclusive growth and enhanced effort to improve enrolment ratios and reduce drop-out rates, especially for girls among Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and minorities.
The expansion of higher education in India is accompanied by widening disparities across different regions, genders and social groups. The inter-state disparities in enrollment have increased over a period of time. Though the social disparities continue to be large, the disparities between gender groups are narrowing down. The state policies need to focus not only on expansion but also on equity in expansion. Some of the states like Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, etc, need to accord greater priority to higher education in the coming years.
In spite of the Persons with Disabilities (Equal opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995, a large number of differently-abled persons continue to exist on the margins of the society and have yet to fully benefit from participation in higher education. Initiation of special action plans in consultation with the stakeholders need to be ensured so that their concerns are adequately met.
Indian higher education provided in its majority of institutions needs a boost in its quality. Some of the important factors influencing quality are infrastructure, teachers and the teaching-learning process. Many universities and affiliated colleges have poor infrastructural facilities and face severe shortage of qualified teachers. In general, around 40% of the teaching positions remain vacant in many institutions which is a cause of concern. Scaling of teachers in the university system should become a priority agenda for the country.
The UGC established External Quality Assurance (EQA) mechanisms to carry out accreditation through the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in 1994, and the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) by the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) in the same year. Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) mechanisms have also been established at the institutional level. However, the progress in accrediting institutions is very slow in India and a majority of institutions are yet to be accredited. Recently, the UGC has stipulated regulations that accreditation is a pre-condition to become eligible for funds. Similarly, the AICTE has made accreditation by NBA mandatory for all technical institutions. The ministry has also introduced another quality initiative in September 2015 in the name of National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). This framework is used for ranking universities and institutions based on nine broad parameters. Efforts need to be intensified to meet the expectations in this regard as a significant input towards qualitative transformation of education.
Quality of higher education basically determines the level at which our university system is functioning. It sets a basic benchmark for ensuring the quality of mind of the youth coming out of the university system and their capacity to generate knowledge commensurate with developments taking place globally. In addition, it also has to ensure parity with international systems of higher learning. There is a need to move through the milestones which still have to be covered in bringing us closer to the coveted achievements in higher education.
Curriculum reform is at the heart of what happens to the young minds in enriching them with knowledge and values and inculcates in them a spirit of inquiry, courage to question, creativity, objectivity, problem solving skills, decision making skills and aesthetic sensibility. Updating of curricula in different subjects was undertaken in 2013 in Central universities but this exercise needs to be attended to periodically so that our students do not learn things which may have to be unlearnt later. It may be helpful in reviewing some basic concerns, namely: Do our curricula in different subjects match indigenous expectations and also match requirements of international competitiveness? Do our assessment and evaluation procedures go beyond recall of information embodied as content of different disciplines? To what extent have we become at home with Choice Based Credit System (CBCS)? What curriculum transactional approaches will shift the focus from only teaching to ensuring learning?
Good teaching is as important as good research. Proverbially, we have focused on assessment of performance of our academic faculty largely in terms of their research publications. The result of this has been that faculty and students develop greater interest in increasing the number of publications unmindful of what the publications contribute to knowledge. It has added to sub-standard research. There has to be much greater focus of the faculty to produce quality research which meaningfully contributes to the body of knowledge.
While research is important as a prime function of a university, it is no less important that the primacy to excellence in teaching is also catapulted to its place of rightful dignity. Good research has a symbiotic relationship with good teaching. Academics who have established their credentials as good pedagogues should also be treated at the same level as good researchers. Therefore, some fresh thinking is called for, namely: Should there be incentives for good teaching as for research? What parameters will assess it? Should we move to student assessment of teachers? Should publications of faculty on innovations in teaching not have parity with research publications?
Patents of innovations, based on research accomplished in the universities, have not received the attention they deserve. Multi- and interdisciplinary research, cutting across disciplines and the departments of a university, is confined only to a few islands in the university system. How do we ensure that interdisciplinary research takes firm roots in the culture of our universities? Can individual universities undertake substantive research initiatives to address issues of critical national importance like renewable energy, community health, climate change and disaster management? We have been talking about the university-industry interface to give a boost to research and development (R&D) for long, but there is not much headway. How this interface works in other countries could be studied so that we can adopt/adapt international best practices to strengthen this interface in our national context.
Creating Global Alliance for Institutes for Research, Innovation and Technology Development needs serious attention. It is admitted that establishing global alliance is more feasible among institutions operating at the same frequency of intellectual productivity as their counterparts in other parts of the globe. The issues of raising standards of research, innovation and technology development within the country would require to be addressed at various levels to improve the possibility of their becoming partners of a global alliance. Institutions that have had a long and reasonably good academic culture of research and innovations too have been facing serious procedural problems such as lack of administrative support, delay in clearance of research proposals, timely release of funds and institutional monitoring of research needs. Most of our universities need to strengthen the support for Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) related initiatives in order to encourage successful patenting as well as innovation in teaching and research. The problems which impede the intellectual output of the university system need to be mitigated for enhancing global partnership in higher education.
These are the long-standing concerns that have repeatedly been raised, debated and investigated in piecemeal manner with no end to problems faced by the ambivalent university system. The time is running out when the yesteryears’ fail-safe approach needs to be replaced by a shared understanding of the issues and the strategies to resolve them.
The writer is former chairman, UGC. The views expressed are personal.