Union Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal recently used the neologism ‘omnishambles’ to describe the all encompassing state of higher education in India. These comments (made at the recent Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi) come at the end of what can only be described as a rather bleak year for our universities and colleges.
It is difficult to say what is worse, the fact that no Indian university or college made it to the top 200 of the QS World University Rankings earlier this year or the subsequent reaction of the Indian government and its regulators? Kapil Sibal’s Ministry of Human Resource Development argued that certain socio-cultural differences were to blame for our poor performance. Even more bizarre and almost comical, the University Grants Commission contemptuously slammed the study and announced that it would conduct its own survey, taking into account what they labeled as ‘India specific factors’. While the bureaucrats may be content to play ostrich, bury their heads in the sand and believe that the situation is not quite as bad as the media makes it out to be, the reality of the situation remains. That flimsy pretexts of ‘globally unprecedented challenges’, ‘India specific problems’ and ‘unique socio-cultural elements’ are routinely used by officials is hardly surprising, blaming everyone and everything besides themselves is quite characteristic of the Indian government and its regulators however, this myth cannot be allowed to continue.
As wonderfully articulated in a recent TV debate by Mohandas Pai, India’s education problems are hardly unique to the world. Problems of access, quality and cost are faced by every major emerging economy. Access to institutions of higher education by minorities, affordability and quality are common debates even in the United States and Europe. China has achieved dramatic increase in quality and enrollment rate on a similar or even slightly larger scale. Therefore, there are lessons that can be drawn from these countries on how to improve our universities and colleges. While entire policy briefs and volumes can be devoted to this topic, the fundamental issue, in my opinion, remains autonomy. Despite massive increases in investment, improvement in infrastructure and setting up new institutions altogether, our higher education sector will never flourish unless it is freed from the shackles of bureaucratic control and the tyranny of the University Grants Commission. Currently, the UGC continues to determine quality of teachers by archaic measures of attendance and periods taken, it discourages cross-disciplinary teaching. Research papers are rarely written and even more rarely read or discussed. Its guidelines and diktats, issued with an unexhaustive energy, makes hiring dynamic professors with multi-faceted interests and the introduction of new courses and texts difficult or impossible.
Unless colleges and university are given the freedom to assess and teach students according to their own means, and foster a truly dynamic spirit of research and innovation, our higher education sector shall continue to remain in omnishambles.
Good article motivated by freedom-inspired thoughts for the upheaval of the educational standards in India. But I think your factual premise for the article has somehow faltered due to an assessment of QS World Rankings as the only (or even worse, the best) ranking that has been put out for India. The fact is that there are several Indian universities in the top 300 (so, if you slide your quality criteria for excellence a little to the right, you’ll see IITs aren’t half as bad), which begs the question that are Indian universities equipped to embrace the sort of freedom in research and teaching that you are talking about? If so, then they must have well-trained professors and academicians to make full use of such freedom, failing which the university is at peril of falling into an abyss of poor standards.
Thank you for reading it. The only reason I specifically mention the QS World Rankings is because of the disproportionate amount of media attention it receives, and the short term interest in the higher education sector it bring about. In no way do I think it is the best assessment – but I do think the criteria it uses is fairly sound. My larger point is that instead of criticising the survey and specific methodologies, we should be in a situation such that Indian colleges rank towards the top of any rankings. Any while I agree with the fact that there are several in the top 300, I dont think having a some colleges in the 200-300 range is good for India, especially as we are trying to become an economic and knowledge superpower. Part of this means a true research spirit that leads to innovation. I am confident that under the right conditions our professors and academics can rise to the challenge. The problem is right now they have no incentive to do so. Research and training are thought of as two different things whereas, research and teaching go hand in hand in most global universities. If the regulations of the UGC that are archaic and disincentivise innovation, creativity and research are removed in favour of more autonomy perhaps all professors wont produce excellent quality work but at least, some will. And more importantly, we will be able to clearly identify good, smart and motivated professors from those that simply take attendance and lecture.
Very apt article and clearly outlines the basic need to increase autonomy and decrease Government interference. The Government cites problems, created in the first place due to overbearing and unimplementable rules, as a further excuse to create more rules. Obviously they are used by the corrupt and power hungry among the politicians and the bureaucrats for their personal agendas. Your organization and website is good, but only a few people speak and read English. There is a need to translate such thoughts into at least major regional languages and propagate them. The colonial Government promoted itself as “Mai-Baap” and the socialist oriented Governments in first 4 decades after independence, promoted rules and a politics of patronage and favours. Public debate of the type your site is doing is vitally needed in all languages to bring people out of their fear and sense of dependence on Government, which had anyway not delivered.
Thanks for your comment, Paresh. I completely agree with your point, which is also my central argument that government creates overbearing and unimplementable rules, leading to problems and then justify the creation to solve a problem that government created in the first place.
At CCS, we attempt to publish in Hindi as well. You can subscribe to you weekly newsletter azadi.me (www.azadi.me) to read more about liberal thought in Hindi.
Personally, I also hope that dialogue of this kind that reduce/remove the dependence created on government by spurious political interests.