BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today
The Narendra Modi government has come up with a measure which seeks to strengthen the Centre’s control over institutions of higher education in the name of regulation.
Currently regulatory functions in respect of universities are vested in the University Grants Commission, which has academic and financial powers. It lays down standards of teaching, examination and research, provides for their needs and ensures maintenance of standards.
A draft bill the government has put in the public domain provides for abolition of UGC and creation of a new body called Higher Education Commission of India in its place. The HECI’s powers will be limited to academic matters. It will have no financial powers. The stakeholders, including the academic community, have been given just 10 days to convey their views on the draft bill.
In the remote past there were institutions of higher learning in the subcontinent at Takshashila (near Rawalpindi in Pakistan) and Nalanda and Vikramshila (both in Bihar) which reputedly attracted scholars from far and near.
The first modern universities were established by the British at Calcutta (now Kolkata), Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai) in 1858. More universities came up later, some, like the Aligarh Muslim University and the Banaras Hindu University, due to private initiative, and some under patronage of rulers of princely states.
The UGC was created by an Act of Parliament by Jawaharlal Nehru’s government in the 1950s on the lines of the recommendations of a commission headed by John Sergeant, who was Educational Adviser to the Government in the closing stages of colonial rule.
Nehru believed science and technology can help better the lot of the poor. Outside the university system, his government fostered the Indian Institute of Sciences, a brain-child of industry pioneer JN Tata which was brought to fruition by the colonial government in 1909.
It also established a number of institutions of higher learning like the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Management and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The IISc and a couple of older IITs are the only Indian institutions that have found their way into any global or Asian rankings. The great measure of autonomy these institutions enjoy in academic matters has enabled them to function without undue governmental interference and maintain high standards. The regular universities have seen a decline in standards under political control.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological parent, the Rashtreeya Swayamsevak Sangh, have not been well-disposed towards the new-generation institutions of higher learning which they view as centres of liberal thought.
Reform of higher education was mentioned in the BJP’s 2014 election manifesto. Although it is only now that the Modi government has come up with a legislative measure in this regard, efforts to control institutions of higher learning have been on from the very beginning.
The RSS set the stage for the assault on these institutions with its journal, Organiser, launching an attack on the IITs and the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University, dubbing them centres of “anti-India, anti-Hindu” activities.
The RSS’s student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, fomented trouble in several campuses, including those of JNU in New Delhi, IIT in Chennai and Central University in Hyderabad. It specifically targeted Muslim, Dalit and left-wing student leaders.
Rohit Vemula, a Dalit scholar of the Central University, was driven to suicide. Sedition charges were slapped on several JNU students. Two students reported missing from the JNU campus still remain untraced.
RSS-affiliated groups were fighting liberal thought at various levels even before the BJP came to power. Five years ago a leading publisher, Penguin Books, bought peace with one group by agreeing to pulp all copies of US Indologist Wendy Doniger’s “The Hindus: An Alternative History”.
More recently another group proposed to the Centre the removal of all foreign languages from the curriculum of institutions of higher education in the national interest. It also wanted stoppage of UGC funding for all research not connected with national requirements.
The move to replace the UGC with the HECI can be seen as the first step in that direction. The Centre’s decision to keep the power to allot grants in its own hands is undesirable for more than one reason.
In the first place, it will leave the HECI with no means to enforce its directives with regard to academic matters other than the extreme step of ordering closure of the institution. More importantly, as the one who pays the piper, the Centre will be in a position to call the tune even in academic matters. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, July 3, 2018,
Gulf Today
The Narendra Modi government has come up with a measure which seeks to strengthen the Centre’s control over institutions of higher education in the name of regulation.
Currently regulatory functions in respect of universities are vested in the University Grants Commission, which has academic and financial powers. It lays down standards of teaching, examination and research, provides for their needs and ensures maintenance of standards.
A draft bill the government has put in the public domain provides for abolition of UGC and creation of a new body called Higher Education Commission of India in its place. The HECI’s powers will be limited to academic matters. It will have no financial powers. The stakeholders, including the academic community, have been given just 10 days to convey their views on the draft bill.
In the remote past there were institutions of higher learning in the subcontinent at Takshashila (near Rawalpindi in Pakistan) and Nalanda and Vikramshila (both in Bihar) which reputedly attracted scholars from far and near.
The first modern universities were established by the British at Calcutta (now Kolkata), Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai) in 1858. More universities came up later, some, like the Aligarh Muslim University and the Banaras Hindu University, due to private initiative, and some under patronage of rulers of princely states.
The UGC was created by an Act of Parliament by Jawaharlal Nehru’s government in the 1950s on the lines of the recommendations of a commission headed by John Sergeant, who was Educational Adviser to the Government in the closing stages of colonial rule.
Nehru believed science and technology can help better the lot of the poor. Outside the university system, his government fostered the Indian Institute of Sciences, a brain-child of industry pioneer JN Tata which was brought to fruition by the colonial government in 1909.
It also established a number of institutions of higher learning like the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Management and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The IISc and a couple of older IITs are the only Indian institutions that have found their way into any global or Asian rankings. The great measure of autonomy these institutions enjoy in academic matters has enabled them to function without undue governmental interference and maintain high standards. The regular universities have seen a decline in standards under political control.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological parent, the Rashtreeya Swayamsevak Sangh, have not been well-disposed towards the new-generation institutions of higher learning which they view as centres of liberal thought.
Reform of higher education was mentioned in the BJP’s 2014 election manifesto. Although it is only now that the Modi government has come up with a legislative measure in this regard, efforts to control institutions of higher learning have been on from the very beginning.
The RSS set the stage for the assault on these institutions with its journal, Organiser, launching an attack on the IITs and the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University, dubbing them centres of “anti-India, anti-Hindu” activities.
The RSS’s student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, fomented trouble in several campuses, including those of JNU in New Delhi, IIT in Chennai and Central University in Hyderabad. It specifically targeted Muslim, Dalit and left-wing student leaders.
Rohit Vemula, a Dalit scholar of the Central University, was driven to suicide. Sedition charges were slapped on several JNU students. Two students reported missing from the JNU campus still remain untraced.
RSS-affiliated groups were fighting liberal thought at various levels even before the BJP came to power. Five years ago a leading publisher, Penguin Books, bought peace with one group by agreeing to pulp all copies of US Indologist Wendy Doniger’s “The Hindus: An Alternative History”.
More recently another group proposed to the Centre the removal of all foreign languages from the curriculum of institutions of higher education in the national interest. It also wanted stoppage of UGC funding for all research not connected with national requirements.
The move to replace the UGC with the HECI can be seen as the first step in that direction. The Centre’s decision to keep the power to allot grants in its own hands is undesirable for more than one reason.
In the first place, it will leave the HECI with no means to enforce its directives with regard to academic matters other than the extreme step of ordering closure of the institution. More importantly, as the one who pays the piper, the Centre will be in a position to call the tune even in academic matters. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, July 3, 2018,
No comments:
Post a Comment