The Hindu Business Line : Raising education to a higher plane

Two reports on higher education provide important material and a unique opportunity to launch a debate among policy-makers and general public on how to build world-class institutions in India instead of taking the convenient route of ignoring international reputation as simply some Western Imperialist notion that need not bother us. If the reports are not used properly, it will be yet another missed opportunity, says Bhanoji Rao.

Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore... Autonomy and accountability, key to excellence in higher education.

THE CENTRE reconstituted the Central Advisory Board of Education in July 2004. Soon thereafter CABE constituted a number of committees to go into various aspects of education. Two prominent committees on higher education submitted their reports in June 2005: Report of the CABE Committee on Autonomy of Higher Education Institutions (155 pages) and Report of the CABE Committee on Financing of Higher and Technical Education (54 pages). The first had 10 regular and four co-opted members and was chaired by the West Bengal Education Minister, Mr Kanti Biswas. The second committee is relatively more populous with 20 members, four special invitees and three `other' invitees, chaired by the Planning Commission Member, Prof. Bhalchandra Mungeker.

The main terms of reference of the first Committee were (a) To suggest measures for enhancing the autonomy of higher education institutions, especially those with potential for excellence; and (b) To institutionalise regulatory provisions for promoting autonomy and accountability of higher education institutions. The Committee obtained views from a large body of stakeholders of higher education (Vice-Chancellors, Secretaries, Directors, Principals, etc.). It organised four Regional Workshops. It interacted with representatives of the All India Federation of University and College Teachers Organisation (AIFUCTO). Based on all these, the comprehensive report was prepared.

The executive summary (ES) of the report has several generalities and some important specifics. Examples of the former are: "There is a need to grant autonomy to individual institutions for designing curriculum" and "Each university should exercise innovative approaches in undertaking periodic revision of curriculum every two to three years and an intensive revision every four to five years depending on the developments in the subject area."

There are also some general recommendations that could lead to questions and more questions. For instance, the Committee notes thus about faculty research: "In order to facilitate research in institutions of higher education, funds should be made available to faculty member against duly worked out and approved research proposals. In return, the faculty member should be accountable to maintain progress of research of acceptable standards as should be evidenced by publications in reputed journals." Has this not been the case for the past several decades? Are we to understand that for the first time in the history of this country we are seeking research funds and accountability?

The more direct and important messages are given below along with a remark or two. A paragraph in the ES about self-financing courses goes thus: "All universities and colleges should be given the autonomy to start self-financing courses particularly in new and emerging areas where job opportunities exist subject to the overall framework provided by their funding and regulatory bodies." The Committee should have perhaps recommended that self-financing courses should never be mounted on an exclusive basis, they should take the form of self-financing seats/places in regular courses and if this principle is ignored, it would lead to divisive tendencies within universities favouring `milch cows' and neglecting first rate research and traditional disciplines.

An extremely valuable recommendation is that all universities should shift towards adoption of a choice-based credit system and semester system — key to promoting students' mobility both within the country and abroad. One should also applaud the recommendation about changing over to internal evaluation of students.

The Committee suggests that all universities adopt the practice of performance appraisal of teachers initiated through self-appraisal based on objective parameters. A missing ingredient is student feedback.

As for the selection of students, the suggestion is "a suitable combination of the scores obtained both in the entrance test and in the qualifying examination for admissions. A composite index is recommended with proper weights to academic performance in classes X and XII, extra-curricular activities, interview, etc. The Committee should have advocated a nation-wide test such as the SAT in the US, as many have been advocating in recent times.

The Committee chairman and members should be congratulated for having the courage of conviction to advocate the use of international benchmarks such as citation indices and patents for ensuring high quality research. Research is often cited and cited most if and only if the publications are in top journals of the world. The Committee should have dwelt on the issue of rewards for those who receive the maximum citation counts based on publications in top journals.

There is one major recommendation, which at the end may not receive support from the implementing authorities: "The present system of assigning fixed number of positions of professors, readers and lecturers to each department should be replaced by a system wherein the head of the institution should have the autonomy to determine both the rank and the number of these positions in accordance with the tasks envisaged in the development plan of the institution."

Of considerable import is the fixation of qualities and criteria for a full professor. In fact, the best option may be not to invite problems by putting stringent criteria for professorships after all these years, but to advocate the creation of positions of senior professors for which publication in top journals, citation counts and patents would be used as the criteria for selection.

This is one last instrument left for improving the position and prestige of our universities, since reputation of the academics is the single most critical parameter for judging a university's reputation. On the financial matters, a key recommendation is that a third of entire investment in the education sector should be made on higher education. This is way above the second committee's norm of 25 per cent for higher and technical education.

The general recommendation that within the context of overall funds constraints, universities and colleges have to search for alternative funding sources is well taken. Consultancy earnings, sponsored research and alumni supports are important sources, except that the `best' universities will get much and others little. Appeals for maintaining equity could take the steam out of the great idea. Regarding transparency and accountability, the Committee should have insisted that the university web sites put out audited financial statements.

It is important to note that the report is rich with a whole lot of information, most notably the primary data collected by the Committee. The data are valuable and must be studied from different angles.

The Committee on Financing has a more direct and clearer area of focus. It is a three-chapter report, the first being an introduction, the second dealing with all aspects of financing, and the third providing a summary of observations and recommendations. The Second Chapter has all the reasoning and statistical back up for the main recommendation — increasing the Central and State funding of higher education.

The key recommendation of the Committee is raising the allocation to higher and technical education from 15 per cent to 25 per cent of the total education budget. If public expenditure on education goes up from current 4 per cent of GNP to 6 per cent, then higher and technical education's share as percentage of GNP would go up from the current 0.5 to 1.5.

Other laudable recommendations include: Allocations for research to be substantially hiked; scholarships, in general, and for the weaker sections, in particular, to be significantly raised; putting in place a system of providing not just block grants, but a mix of block, maintenance, matching and development grants, aimed at promoting excellence in research and innovations in teaching; setting up a Higher Education Finance Corporation to coordinate the student loan schemes; monitoring and regulating distance education programmes; developing relatively stronger links between educational institutions and industrial establishments; regulating the growth of private educational institutions; and, finally, strengthening the educational data base in the country.

The two reports provide important contributions and a unique opportunity to launch a debate among policy-makers as well as general public on how to build world-class institutions in India instead of taking the convenient route of ignoring international recognition and reputation as simply some Western Imperialist notion that should not bother us. The reports are there; if they are not used properly, it will be just yet another missed opportunity.

(The author, formerly with the National University of Singapore and the World Bank, is Professor Emeritus, GITAM Institute of Foreign Trade, Visakhapatnam. He can be reached at bhanoji@gmail.com)

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