Knowledge Commission Recommendations On Higher Education

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This article is based on the following link: http://knowledgecommission.gov.in/downloads/documents/faq_he.pdf
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Sam Pitroda does not need any introduction. I had a chance to hear him on January 19, 2007 when he had visit my university- Dharmsinh Desai University on occassion of felicitation of the Vice Chancellor - Dr. H. M. Desai.

Sam Pitroda talked about 'Knowledge Commission' and its recommendations to Government of India. This post reflects my views on the same. Important highlights:

1. 1500 Universities in India: Right now, India has some 350 odd universities. This commission recommends this number to increase by 1500. It does not want creation of 1200 more universities, but it wants to break down the bigger universities into smaller ones and wants the Government to provide autonomy to the deserving college so that they can change fast according to the requirements of the environment. While I totally endorse this view that bigger universities are definitely required to be broken down into smaller pieces, at the same time if some 'profit making' colleges are given complete autonomy, their standards of teaching may decrease further. Some universities have opened shops to sell the degrees and this mechanism may be a blessing for them. For bigger universities, let us take an example of Gujarat University in Gujarat. It almost covers 35 to 40% of the cities/towns of the state and that's why its standards are not well maintained. Compared to that if you take M S University of Baroda, which is a residential university, has the reputation world over for its academic standards.

2. Establishment of State Boards and Central Boards for colleges situated in remote areas: This seems to be a fair idea as the colleges situated in remote areas would find it difficult to get affiliated to the cluster of some autonomous colleges. And if they get affiliated to the existing overloaded universities, it would serve no purpose. Thus, they can affiliate to these boards.

3. Commercial Utilization of land by Universities: This is a sixer! Most of the state universities have got acres of land unutilized. There must be some provision that makes the use of this land effective. Universities must generate the fund from this land. This will decrease financial burden on MHRD and UGC and the land can be alloted to private players for better and fruitful use.

4. For Profit Universities: The commission does not support the for profit universities in general. I disagree with this idea. What is wrong in giving education an industry status? Let all the players join the party and let the market decide the rules of the game. Especially in the disciplines like Management, Medicine and Engineering, this kind of system can be better. We have already some of the best colleges [ISB, IBS, IIPM to name a few] who do not care about government recognition and yet do wonderful on their own.

5. Entry of foreign universities in India: This is a panic point for quality teachers and researchers! The commission rightly favours allowing quality foreign institutes to enter India. But the main problem is autonomy. Two classic examples of how the Indian Central and State governments do not like to award autonomy are of ISB and setting up of Gujarat Technological Universities. ISB is continuously harrased by AICTE asto why its courses should not be shut down due to not having been approved by AICTE and Gujarat Technological Univesity has been set to centralize the government authority over technical education in the state! The commission rightly favours the fact that Indian institutes should be allowed to open campuses in foreign countries to maintain their competitiveness.

6. Setting up IRAHE: This is a good recommendation though it seems like if not properly defined, the powers of IRAHE may overlap with those of MCI, AICTE, UGC etc. which is not a healthy sign. Also the IRAHE would be independent of all the stake holders including Ministers, but at the same time, it alone may not be able to handle the workload that it is expected to perform. The idea of having people from academia as its committee members is reasonable though. The authority it has to assign powers to accrediatating bodies like AICTE would also be a good move.

7. Setting up of a Reservation Index: The commission believes that an index should be created for the reservation system. Idea looks good though compiling data for the same and updating it would be very difficult and complex task.

-CONCLUSION: The recommendations are really good but it remains to be seen if our Lalus, Arjun Singhs and Mayavatis allow them to be implemented or not.

-Disclaimer: These are my views and are not based on any standard piece of research. I leave it upto the reader to agree or disagree with them. The views are not meant to create any kind of offense too.