The Hindu Business Line : Reform of higher education

It is entirely understandable if the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD) does not want to be rushed into taking a final decision on the National Knowledge Commission (NKC)’s recommendations on revamping higher education. The NKC by some kind of quaint reasoning has put higher education at the head of the educational reforms process, relegating to a later stage issues and problems relating to vocational education, professional education covering medici ne, engineering, law, management, architecture and design, open and distance education and primary school education, in that order.

Actually, it is the exact reversal of what the priorities ought to have been. It is primary education that is the foundation for all other types of education. It moulds the personality and attitudes of the boys and girls in their formative years, and has a pronounced as well as profound influence for the better or worse all throughout their lives.

Also, educational reforms is a holistic endeavour and the several components of it cannot be considered in a compartmentalised or isolated fashion. Each of the stages of education and its scope and content, act and react on the others, and, therefore, the HRD Ministry may well have thought it better to consider the whole gamut of the reforms together after all the reports are in.

The other reason weighing on the Ministry’s mind may be the sweeping nature of the recommendations. Apart from the huge financial implications they entail, they are also likely to mire the Ministry in controversies which it cannot afford with the tenure of the UPA Government drawing to a close. Of course, these explanations of the tardiness of the Ministry are only surmises, and the delay might be attributable to nothing more than the usual procrastination to which bureaucracy is prone.

The NKC has its own reasons for starting off with higher education. In its opinion, it is facing a quiet crisis in India which runs deep. That is why, although primary education no doubt creates the base, higher education is “just as important because it provides the cutting edge”. It has a great bearing on the health of the body politic since it imparts dynamism to economic development, contributes to social progress, and fosters a vibrant political democracy. We may take the Commission at its word and have a quick look at what it thinks are the cures for the ills with which higher education is beset.

Moot question

One can certainly endorse its forceful plea for upgrading and revising curriculum and syllabi at short intervals, downplaying annual examinations and highlighting the importance of continuous internal assessment with an eventual weight of 50 per cent assigned to it, giving autonomy (with due accountability) to a greater number of autonomous colleges, and increasing the number of universities from the present 370 to 1,500. One can also go along with its proposal to establish a new regulatory body, Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education, and abolish the All India Council of Technical Education and limit the function of the UGC to grants disbursement.

But it is a moot question whether all these will effectively make up for the steep fall in the calibre of teachers and quality of teaching. All that the NKC has to suggest by way of remedying this is better working conditions, rewards for performance and higher emoluments to attract the best talents to the teaching profession, teacher training and peer evaluation of teachers by teachers.

NKC wants 50 National Universities to be established to serve as beacons of excellence, on the lines of Navodaya Schools conceived by Rajiv Gandhi. Why not, instead, make the existing 18 Central Universities serve the same purpose?

B. S. RAGHAVAN