On Indian Universities

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.