Indian Higher Education: A Ship without Rudder
Dr. D. Mukhopadhyay
The countries which achieved socio-economic development are those countries that achieved economic prosperity only through academic excellence. The economically developed nations include USA, UK, Canada, Australia and other European countries whose formal education system is more than one thousand years old. Education plays a significant role in capability enhancement as it minimizes problems involving unemployment of the people. Mr. Pranab Murkerjee, the Hon’ble President of India, expressed over time and again his displeasure over the dismal performance of higher education delivery system when the sees that none of the Universities of India is in top 200 in the world ranking of Universities. Everybody blessed with wisdom shall accept that manpower equipped with knowledge is capable of bringing about socio-economic development of a nation. India is a vast landmass and abode of 125 crores of people attributed with Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of just 19% which is far below the level of GER of the economically developed countries including neighbouring China.
Presently , there are 750 Degree awarding institutions which include 46 Central Universities, 320 State Universities, 130 Deemed Universities , 200 private Universities and about 50 Institutions of National Importance besides about 39, 000 Degree Colleges in the country. The seed of higher education of India was sow when University of Calcutta, University of Bombay and University of Madras came into existence in 1857. In the Country, the number of 30 Universities and 695 Colleges in 1950 has grown up to 750 Universities and other institutions of higher education as of now. The present teacher-student ratio is 1:20. The Colleges and Universities including IITs and NITs are suffering from acute shortages of qualified teachers. Out of 20,00,000 students enrolled for higher education, 86% end up with Bachelor Degree, 12% acquires Master Degree, 1% with Certificates/Diplomas and 1% only acquire Ph.D. Degree and this trend is definitely not a healthy sign for a country like India who aspires to be one of the super economic powers across the globe in the forthcoming days. To call a spade, the higher education delivery system is in dismal state and it fails to attract the learners since the current education system is found to churn out only unemployable graduates. Whatever education is offered appears to be purposeless and directionless. Teaching and research are the twin tasks of education delivery system and both are not given due priority by the planners and policy makers. The Universities and Institutes of higher learning are devoid of basic infrastructure, connectivity, transportation, communication and other necessary facilities. It is worth noting that the names of Universities are announced first without giving adequate thoughts and attention to the provisions of infrastructural and other incidental issues related to creation of an institution.
There is a poor quality of governance since the people remaining responsible for formulating policies and strategies are far from the ground realities. The regulatory bodies of higher education in the country are heavily repressive instead of being supportive. The Universities and Institutions of higher learning are controlled by UGC in particular and government in general. It is a transparent truth that creation of post, fixation of pay, designing syllabi and curricula, allocation of fund etc. are regulated by bureaucratic action. Teachers and scientists are appointed on the basis of favoritism, politics and nepotism and merit is kept aside when merit should be the sole criterion for selection and appointment of the teachers. Academic Performance Indicators (API) is not a foolproof mechanism for quality control. It hardly serves any purpose. Teachers are getting their third graded papers published in the paid journals in order to earn and comply with API requirements. It is imperative to accept that research and teaching are complementary to each other. Quality of teaching depends upon the quality of scholarship of the teachers and on-going research. The policy makers hardly keep in view that a University to become a good University must be able to support the learning process and research activities. Research is the instrument for creation of knowledge. The Universities are hardly in a position to subscribe the renowned journals, enrich libraries with good collection of books and journals and laboratories are not well equipped for conducting investigation. Comparatively, there is little encouragement for undertaking research in Social Sciences, Commerce and Management from Government and other project funding agencies. A University needs all-round support consisting of infrastructure, qualified teachers, and library and research activities. Our policy makers speak about many things about promotion of world class Universities but there is considerable degree of gap between thoughts and actions. Presently, higher education delivery system is directionless and is twisting hither and thither with every change of direction of wind and in nut shell it is nothing but a rudderless ship. Universities shall be able to discharge the social responsibilities if they are strategized to achieve their goals keeping in view the purpose for which they are created.
Oxford, Cambridge, MIT and Harvard are not built overnight but by honest and sincere efforts of the meritorious academicians who are completely independent of bureaucratic influence and because they enjoy academic freedom. World class Universities cannot be created without support of sustained research. Moreover University education needs to be linked with the requirement of the industries. A balance needs to be maintained between basic research and applied research. Research means progress, research means socio-economic development and setting up both short term and long term planning and periodic review of the same after due implementation of the strategies may perhaps make Indian higher education delivery system meaningful, relevant and significant. Simply Americanization of Indian education system may not generate desired results since a sapling suitable for frozen climate may not be able survive in tropical atmosphere. It is now high time to take care of the inherent shortcomings of Indian higher education delivery system which is a prerequisite for promotion of World Class Higher Education.
(The author is a Professor of Management at School of Business, Faculty of Management, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra, J & K)
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