The Hindu : The UGC at fifty

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Thursday, Jan 09, 2003

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The UGC at fifty

By Amrik Singh

The UGC's inability to remodel undergraduate education is the outcome partly of the States' indifference and partly of an absence of pragmatic planning.

THE PROBLEMS the University Grants Commission (UGC) faced in 1953 when it was first set up were more or less the same as those existing today: how to cope with the growing numbers and how to maintain high academic standards.

As anyone connected with higher education would recognise there is a close link between the two. It is easier to maintain higher standards when the numbers are small. When the numbers are growing the task of maintaining high standards becomes difficult. In our case the numbers are growing and the standards are declining. The question, therefore, is: can anything be done to reverse the situation?

The Centre's intervention in respect of two things could have helped. The low quality of performance at the higher secondary level and at the research level. While the pressure to join college stabilised in the early 1970s around five per cent a year, the planners still found it difficult to pay more attention to the quality of education at the higher secondary level. Secondary education has been systematically neglected.

Had things improved at the higher secondary level, the quality of those joining college would have become better. Today, students join college not because they always wish to pursue higher education but because, in the absence of job opportunities, they have little else to do. The irony of it is that those who crowd into colleges determine the academic agenda. They are not interested either in acquiring knowledge or undergoing any training at the skill level. On the contrary, most of them attend a couple of classes which are held, on an average, for about a 100 days a year with the result that when half of them do pass out they are only marginally better trained than they were in school.

When one compares the undergraduates in our country with those in other countries, the contrast hits one in the face. Our undergraduates who have spent three years in college have not profited from college education as they could have done. Though the baby-sitting function at the undergraduate level is being performed, the more productive functions, such as improved input of knowledge and better skills, are neglected. This is a colossal waste of manpower as also a considerable waste of resources.

What is required is an obvious increase, both in the knowledge content and in the skills of those who pass out from college. While the UGC does spend about one-third of its budget on colleges, it leaves almost everything else to the States. The UGC's inability to remodel undergraduate education is the outcome partly of the States' indifference and partly of an absence of pragmatic planning which would make the States deal with colleges differently.

Some half-hearted attempts have been made over the years but none of them has led to a satisfactory outcome. The UGC, as a matter of fact, has written off undergraduate education to the extent that it has left almost everything to the State Governments who deal with colleges as they please.

Market forces have no doubt influenced undergraduate education somewhat. The increased importance of commerce in the last 3-4 decades is a case in point. Also, the recent popularity of Information Technology owes more to private initiative than to any kind of planning. What is called for is a fresh model of undergraduate education which takes into account the changing situation, including the fact that the numbers will continue to rise.

Nothing would be easier than to set up a Commission to study the problem. That would, however, mean postponing a solution to the problem by a couple of years. Perhaps, a more useful way would be to appoint a Committee of about 50 people and ask them to work out a new plan of action. Included in the Committee should be 4-5 Secretaries of Education from different States, as many Vice-Chancellors, a dozen Principals, half of them women, 15-20 teachers, a few retired teachers and some others. Both big and small States should be represented and the point of view of small and marginalised States should not go un-represented. Ambitious plans need not be drawn up as it may not be possible to implement them. Instead, modest plans in which some of the intakes that went into the kind of vocationalisation attempted in the early 1990s should be given more importance than before.

Due attention should also be given to the problem of those substandard colleges which are established for reasons which are not always academic. Once the plan is drawn up, State-level committees should be asked to impart a more pragmatic edge to them. This particular plan of action should be worked out in such a way that while the UGC continues to interact and guide them, the main responsibility is vested in the States.

Coming to the quality of performance at the post-graduate and research level, it needs to be recognised that the growing dilution at the undergraduate level has hurt both post-graduate teaching and research. While the rest of the world is advancing, the situation in India has been close to stagnation during the last few decades. This has a good deal to do with what is done at the post-graduate level in colleges. It is in recognition of this situation that the UGC has now embarked on a new plan to identify certain universities with the potential for excellence. Once this plan takes off, at least a few universities would have something to boast of.

At the post-graduate and research level, the situation gets complicated in an important respect. In addition to the indifference of the States, there is active opposition from certain organised sections of the teaching community. For this, it is the Ministry of Human Resource Development rather than the UGC that is responsible. The wage policy adopted by the HRD Ministry has ensured two things — continued non-accountability of teachers and, second, their firm conviction based on past experience that all they have to do is exert pressure upon the Central government and what they want will get done. Their hostility to the idea of autonomous colleges has borne fruit after all.

This became painfully evident when, after the last revision of pay-scales, undergraduate teachers in Delhi University were made eligible to be promoted to Professorship. There was no discussion of this particular provision by the Rastogi Committee which had gone into the question of the revision of pay-scales nor had it been discussed in any other forum. On top of it, the HRD Ministry did not work out any financial estimates for clearance by the Cabinet nor did it take into account the national implications of such a decision. It was only when this decision was challenged in a court of law that the HRD Ministry thought it advisable to withdraw the concession given.

What the HRD Ministry's wage polices have done over the years is create a lobby in favour of the status quo which is based on non-performance in a large number of cases and an almost total lack of accountability. The premium is on non-accountability.

It can legitimately be said by the Centre that this is a job which has to be undertaken by the State Governments. That is why there is some rethinking at the Centre now whereby these scales of pay may be applied only to teachers of Central Universities. Whether they should be extended to States or not would be left to the discretion of the States. Even the UGC is known to be sceptical about the appointment of a UGC Committee to consider the question of revised scales of pay.

What is to happen, meanwhile? This is the question the UGC has to consider. On December 28, 1953, when the UGC first started functioning, the situation was fluid. A Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament was formed to go into the question of the proposed UGC Bill. A crucial change made by this committee was that while the Bill had vested the UGC with the power to derecognise any university degree, the Select Committee did not go that far. One has only to imagine how things would have been had the original proposal gone through!

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