[ This is Essay No. 36 in our Spotlight Series. Click here for the archives.]
Is this really a ‘reform’?
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Hemali Chhapia reports that the hub-and-spoke system of colleges being affiliated to universities may come to an end soon, at least in some Indian states. Under this move, universities will not have colleges affiliated to them; those colleges will now be affiliated to ‘undergraduate boards’.
1. Is it good for the universities?The argument appears to be that this move will “liberate overburdened universities from the grunt work and tedium of a college overseer”; they can now concentrate on post-graduate teaching and research.
But let’s face it: our universities don’t do undergraduate teaching; they do only undergraduate examinations. I’m sure a lot of administrative effort goes into this stuff; but does it also consume a lot of a university professor’s time?
But, look at the potential cost: exams may be a burden, but it is this burden that brings some money to the universities — both grants from the government and exam fees from the students. Even more important, it seems to me, is that the affiliation system gave faculty in our universities some power over the colleges — in curriculum development, examinations, quality assessment, etc. If you take away both this money and this power, it’s not clear to me that the universities are better off.
2. Is it good for the colleges?My initial assessment is that this is a negative for our colleges. Instead of an affiliation with a university, they will now be affiliated to an ‘undergraduate board’ much like our schools belonging to an ‘education board’. Doesn’t sound nice, does it?
The ToI report doesn’t say much about what will happen to the ‘autonomous’ colleges — colleges that enjoyed a lot of autonomy in academic matters in the present system. Will they continue to enjoy this autonomy?
3. Is it good for our students?A criticism of our current system is that it separates UG teaching (which happens predominantly in colleges) and active research (which happens in universities). One may quibble with the details, but that’s a fair description of our current state. This ‘reform’ — at least the version reported by ToI — doesn’t do anything to address this problem.
The dismantling of the system of affiliation would make sense if (a) our universities are asked to develop and teach undergraduate programs and courses, and (b) our colleges — at least those with enlightened managements — are given incentives and a roadmap for transforming themselves into mini-universities with a teaching-research mix of their choice.
4. Is it progress if we replace 10-15 universities in a big state like Tamil Nadu with one ‘undergraduate board’? All said and done, there’s something to be said about diversity — in programs, in curricula, in approaches to knowledge. What are the chances that an undergraduate board will encourage innovation in education?
5. Finally, what good is this move if it encourages creation of more colleges — tiny, non-autonomous, offering programs in narrow disciplines? What good is this move if it doesn’t do anything to create and nurture Real Universities — universities that combine research with large-scale UG teaching, offer programs in many, many fields, and encourage interdisciplinary thinking?
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T.A.Abinandanan blogs at Nanopolitan and Materialia Indica.
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I think the idea of “autonomous colleges” has been a disaster. A college is probably not capable of giving a cutting-edge education on its own. I have heard that some years back the powers that be at St Stephen’s were discussing autonomy, but a significant number of teachers opposed it, saying being part of the university will keep them honest.
The university does not only conduct examinations; it also sets the syllabus and prescribes books. One good thing in DU, at least in my time, was that multiple books were prescribed per course and all of them were internationally well known. And in at least two courses I used a non-recommended book and did well anyway. The course content was pretty good, especially in quantum mechanics and mathematical methods where most undergraduate institutions cover the subjects only minimally. If all colleges are covered by a “board of education”, will the syllabuses also be made uniform, and if so, will it bring up the worst places or level down the best?
Nevertheless the idea may have merit — IF the universities also start taking undergraduates directly. That will relegate colleges to a sort of second tier, and some well known colleges may suffer, but if the overall level of undergraduate education improves it will be a gain.
Many students who join for undergrad courses in university-affiliated colleges, do not actually aspire to learn much. They want the degree for a job, or in some cases, just to call themselves BA/BSc/BCom. Only some of them aspire to learn and become proficient in their areas of study. We put them all together and teach a ‘common minimum program’. Therefore this board of education can be a good organisation to oversee colleges that teach students who just want a degree, while the universities can still admit some undergraduates who actually want to learn their subject of study. The course of study for these university taught BA/BSc (Hons maybe?or integrated masters?) must be rigorous while those getting their BA/BSc/BCom from colleges can go through a less rigorous course (as they do now).
Neither the present system, nor the proposed board of education will succeed in delivering good education unless we separate the also-want-degree people from those who wish to follow a career in a particular field of study.