The Hindu : Kerala News : Unitary universities mooted

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 04, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Unitary universities mooted

By T. Ramavarman

THRISSUR, SEPT. 3 . The vice-chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC), Rajasekharan Pillai, and president-elect of the Commonwealth Association of Universities (CAU), K. Mohandas, have suggested the setting up of unitary universities (universities having no affiliated colleges) in the country.

Dr. Rajasekharan Pillai and Dr. Mohandas, who were here to attend the ongoing South Zone Vice-Chancellors' conference at the Kerala Agricultural University (KAU), told The Hindu that the existing universities and some of the colleges could be converted into unitary universities after proper evaluation.

The huge size of the universities, with many affiliating colleges under them, had made them complex and unmanageable, which in turn was leading to drastic decline in the quality of higher education, they said.

The system of affiliating universities was being done away with in most of the countries. Smaller non-affiliating residential universities with full functional autonomy could contribute a lot towards improving the quality of education, Dr. Mohandas, who is also president of the Indian Association of Universities, said.

Selection of VCs

He suggested that the selection of Vice-Chancellors must be made through a rigorous process where merit and efficiency alone should be the criteria. Those who were equipped to make judgments on the competence of the applicants should only find a place in the selection boards for Vice-Chancellors. The Vice-Chancellors selected through such a process should have the full freedom to work according to their convictions, he said.

Quality education

Dr. Rajasekharan Pillai said that efforts must be made to integrate technology with the conventional education system rather than starting new facilities. The objective of creating wide access to quality education at low cost could be achieved by strengthening conventional university and collegiate education, he said.

Pointing out that the Centre had already amended the Constitution making it mandatory to provide primary education to all, Dr. Rajasekharan Pillai said that this meant that there would be about 13 million students in the country by 2006-'07 and at least 10 million teachers would be required to teach them.

"But at present, the country has only 3.5 lakh teachers. One route to provide the additional 7.5 lakh teachers will be to give a rigorous short-term orientation programme in teaching to the graduates in the conventional system," he said.

The funds allocated for schemes like the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA), which were now going largely unutilised, could be deployed for such teaching orientation programmes, Dr. Rajasekharan Pillai said.

Quality of teaching

Emphasising the need for maintaining the quality of teachers, Dr. Mohandas said the proposal for introducing evaluation of teachers by students was not a bad idea. There could be other forms of evaluations also along with it. But promotions should be linked to the quality of teaching and should not be decided by age or seniority alone.

He said it was possible to attract competent persons to teaching even without salary enhancement. Good teachers must be provided with incentives like books and opportunities to attend conferences and present papers.

Self-financing colleges

Dr. Mohandas and Dr. Rajasekharan Pillai said that there was nothing wrong in the entry of the private sector in the education field, provided there was strict monitoring of the quality of education.

"Ideally, the Government and society must bear the responsibility of providing education. But resource constraints have created a situation where private sector entry has become unavoidable," they said.

Dr. Mohandas said the primary objective of higher education was to provide the students placement and contribute to the development of their personalities.

"The universities in the country were yet to acquire the dynamism to keep pace with the changes in society. Hence some of the courses they conduct have become outdated and redundant and relevant to the requirements of job market," he said.

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