Note: A version of this blog was posted on my Tumblr.
Today, I had an interesting discussion with a fellow Indian
post-doc here at UBC. Since both of us are at a stage where we are about
to start looking for academic jobs, the discussion moved towards the
university system in India. Both of us were in
agreement that the way universities are currently administered
actually does grave injustice to the young Indians that they are
supposed to serve. I argued that as things stand today, there is just no
quality control mechanism that can force these universities to reform
or aspire for excellence. There are so many Indians aspiring for a
university degree in the hope that it will help improve their social
and financial status, that even the worst among the private universities,
with barely any physical or intellectual infrastructure, manage to get
many times more applicants for each available seat in every course. The situation
in the public universities that charge almost nothing for a fee, the
demand is unimaginable. Given this, the government is obligated
not only to let these institutions survive despite their low standards but
also to actively support their existence to manage the ever increasing
demand and avoid riots on the streets. However, the government does have
the power, both financial and administrative, to push the universities
towards better quality. Problem is that they just don’t seem to think of
it as a priority issue. And in a democracy nothing becomes a priority
unless the voting public asks to make it one. If past experience is
anything to go by, politicians in India do nothing to address an
issue unless they are forced to by public pressure. And when they do
want to make things happen, they do; the success of pulse
polio campaign is a proof to that. In my opinion, one possible way to force this to happen
is by imposing a penalty on the public for tolerating sub-standards in
the institutions where they get degrees from. Let’s say the recruiting
agencies do not consider the degrees from all the universities as
equal. They could, for example, apply a normalizing factor that would put
the degree issued by a good quality university at a higher level and
pushes the one issued by a poor quality institution to a lower level.
Such a normalizing factor could be developed by an accreditation agency
like the NAAC. In fact, the entire function of UGC can be limited to
assessing the different universities in the country to determine this
normalizing factor for each university at regular intervals, instead of going around micromanaging universities. The
union government can make it mandatory for all its departments, to begin
with, to apply this normalization while assessing the applicants before any appointment. Government can also suggest the private sector employers to do
the same. If people realize that the degree issued by a particular
university is of no use to them in getting a job, they’ll hopefully
pressure their local government to initiate the much needed reforms
process. And eventually, probably in a couple of decades or so, our
institutions might be in the same vicinity as the best in the world.
What
do you think of this suggestion? Do you think it can work? Do you have
any ideas that you think can help improve our universities’ standards?
Do share. I would love to hear from you.
