Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

Don't meddle with varsity freedom, Gnanam tells Central agencies

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI July 18 . Central Government educational agencies should not interfere with the autonomy and freedom of universities and colleges, A. Gnanam, chairman, executive committee of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, said today.

Granting of academic autonomy was one way of improving standards. An individual college should be the basic unit for granting academic freedom and assessing quality enhancement.

Inaugurating a workshop on ``autonomy in colleges'' organised here by the TN State Council for Higher Education (TANSCHE) and the National Institute for Educational Policy Administration (NEIPA), Dr. Gnanam said he personally felt that the University Grants Commission and the All-India Council for Technical Education were interfering with the university freedom to provide autonomy to colleges. The central agencies wanted uniform admission and examination systems at a national level. In a big nation with thousands of colleges, single agencies could not take care of individual institutions. If State Governments could establish universities or start colleges, there should not be any problem in granting autonomy.

However, autonomy should mean provision of transparent, modular and credit-based flexible courses, which met societal needs and changes. With autonomy, the colleges should offer different courses and, importantly, impart communication and leadership skills, which, Dr. Gnanam said, the university system might not be able to provide.

Nearly 25 years after the first college in the country was granted autonomy, the number grew significantly in the first two decades, but now there seemed to be a stagnation. During the same period, the concept of accreditation/assessment also grew. In Tamil Nadu, 32 of the 78 colleges which got `NAAC accreditation' were autonomous institutions. The other autonomous colleges should also strive to get it. On its part, the national council was taking efforts to accredit all colleges in the country by 2003, said Dr. Gnanam.

The TANSCHE member-secretary, S. Muthukumaran, who presided, said the Kothari Commission (1966) had recommended the grant of autonomy to colleges for improving academic standards. But it took over 12 years for implementation. Between 1978 and 1988, the concept grew; but after 1988, the number of autonomous colleges remained stagnant.

The workshop, he said, was organised to discuss what one could do to improve autonomous institutions and the modifications needed in statutes and guidelines to increase their number.

K. Sudha Rao, a senior fellow with NIEPA and head of its Educational Policy Unit, said the apprehensions that grant of autonomy would lead to arbitrary decisions against staff had to be removed. She explained the academic issues which came up in discussions on autonomy, especially restructuring of courses.

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