Letter to the Chairman, UGC

Letter to the Chairman, UGC                                         

                           February 14,2022

 

Dr.M. Jagadesh Kumar,

Chairman,

University Grants Commission,

New Delhi.

 

Dear Dr. Jagadesh Kumar,

 

I retired in 2009, after serving for 18 years as the founder-Principal of a State aided ‘A ‘Grade Autonomous College, affiliated to the University of Mumbai. I have published my autobiography- The Trial By Fire: Memoirs of a College Principal, described, in a rave Press Review, as “a Bible for the young teachers to mould their academic careers, retaining all the noble values humans are inherently imbued with.”

 

I had serious reservations about the manner in which you administered Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)- a premier national institution that produced a noble laureate Abhijit Banerjee- as its Vince Chancellor for six years, causing damage to its image and reputation. Now that you have taken over as the Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC)- a regulator of Higher Education- I wish to draw your attention to some issues in the Institutions of Higher Learning.

 

Soon after you were appointed as the UGC Chairman on February 4,2022, you said in a press conference, “My priority will be to ensure the implementation of the National Education Policy. The sooner it is implemented, the better it will be for us. I will be meeting the vice-chancellors of universities across the country regarding the implementation of NEP.” There are many shortcomings in the NEP. In this context, may I invite your kind attention to the article ‘New Education Policy: The Issues Unaddressed’, published on my Blog on August 2,2020 (https://nehrusideaofindia.blogspot.com/2020/08/new-education-policy-issues-unaddressed.html)

The implementation of NEP demands huge funding from the Centre and States, otherwise private bodies will take over our education system and run the educational institutions as commercial ventures for profit making.  Privatisation of educational institutions is leading to serious problems, making the quality education unaffordable to the poor and marginalised. Today, more than 78.6% of colleges across India are run by the private sector, accounting for 66.3% of the total enrolment. Of these, around 65.2% of colleges are private-unaided.  Who is benefiting by the corporatisation of education? It is the rich and the neo rich children from urban areas who wish to go abroad are the main beneficiaries. It is important to arrest this mindless indiscriminate privatisation in education sector in the larger national interest. We are creating educational divide- rich vs poor, and urban vs rural.

Public educational institutions have declined. The state is withdrawing funding. Most of us were the product of the public universities. The functioning of universities is highly bureaucratized and politized on an unprecedented scale. The Universities have lost academic autonomy, and are being run as appendices of the UGC and Education Ministry. The UGC itself doesn’t enjoy autonomy, being reduced to a desk office of the Ministry. The Ministry and the UGC have centralised all decision making, with universities losing academic freedom and autonomy. What we see is over-centralisation, bureaucratic structure and absence of accountability, transparency and professionalism in the institutions of higher education. What type of products these institutions can produce is hardly anybody’s guess?

It is important to recall what Jawaharlal Nehru said about the functions of universities. Addressing a special convocation of the University of Allahabad on December 13,1947, Pandit Nehru eloquently stated the objective of University: “A university stands for humanism. For tolerance, for reason, for adventure of ideas and for the search of truth. It stands for the onward march of the human race towards ever higher objectives. If the universities discharge their duties adequately, then it is well with the nation and the people. But if the temple of learning itself becomes a home of narrow bigotry and petty objectives, how then will the nation prosper or a people grow in stature?”

You have a responsibility of preserving and protecting and restoring the autonomy of our universities and colleges, creating an atmosphere of freedom from fear. Today, it is widely believed the persons appointed as the Heads of Higher Institutions of learning are the ones subscribing to a particular ideology, who prefer to toe the line of the ruling establishment. Unless this trend is arrested, it will destroy our educational system.

 

There is big mess in the working of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), now you happened to be the ex-officio Chairman of its Governing Council. The ratings and gradings of institutions are done arbitrary, depending on the peer team members.  In recent years, it lost credibility as the agency to ensure high standards in institutions of higher learning.  According to the guidelines issued by the NAAC on January 23,2022, now colleges and universities that have completed even one year are eligible to apply for provisional accreditation, and thereby accrediting nearly 20,000 colleges in a year and scale it to 40,000 by 2023-24.  This is a farcical exercise, considering the shortage of man power and wherewithal of the NAAC. As it is the NAAC has monopolised the assessment and accreditation of institutions of higher education, due to the absence of other accreditation bodies.  This is done to artificially boost the number of colleges accredited, as per the NEP, and please the Education Ministry. It is a flawed thinking that accreditation is the only parameter to judge the academic credentials of an institution.

 

Out of some 51,000 colleges, little more than 13,000 colleges are accredited by the NAAC.  What sense does accreditation of just born institutions make, when colleges in states like Maharashtra need six years standing to get permanent affiliation from their universities? Why this rush for accreditation instead of concentrating on improving the quality of teaching and learning and raising the standards of institutions?  Even the UGC does not recognise and fund the colleges for development unless they are granted permanently facilitation by their parent universities. The mushrooming of self-financing institutions, on the misconceived assumption of catering to the demands of market economy, has destroyed the professional ethics, besides deteriorating the quality of teaching and learning, due to non-availability of qualified teachers and poor and discriminatory service conditions.

 

It is the responsibility of the UGC to ensure that colleges and universities in the country adhere to standard norms with regard to qualifications, appointments, pay scales and service conditions of teachers across the country.  The UGC has failed to ensure this. Consequently, the teachers in private unaided institutions are left high and dry at the mercy of the managements.

 

We educationists have a duty to posterity.  We may have different political leanings. There is nothing wrong in that.  But that should not colour our judgment and result in compromising our integrity for personal and private gain. What is important is that we should be absolutely free, fair and impartial in our conduct as the Heads of Educational Institutions, on whom the future of country depends. Governments come and go, but we must continue to be guided by ethical and moral values, withstanding pressure from within and without. Belittling our status and toeing the line of the establishment do not bode well. 

 

With regards,

 

Yours truly,

Dr.G. Ramachandram*

 

*A Professor of Political Science and retired Principal; holds a doctorate on Pandit Nehru; author of the Book Nehru and Word Peace; has to his credit the book Quaid-e-Azam- a translation of biographical novel ‘Pratinayak’, based on the life of Muhammad Ali Jinnah; published his magnum opus The Trial By Fire: Memoirs of a College Principal.