India, and Bangalore included, is in the midst of a knowledge renaissance with knowledge industries around the world experiencing an unprecedented boom and the white-collar workers in demand like never before. The educational institutions around the country are competing with each other to offer innovative and result-oriented courses. The demand is no longer confined merely to doctors, engineers, chartered accountants and lawyers, but a whole range of fields including management, IT, BT, fashion designing, microbiology, applied genetics and so on.
The universities, which have the wherewithal and are traditionally recognised as centres of knowledge, especially at the post-graduate level, should have been at the forefront to grab the opportunities to prepare students for the challenges ahead of them. But sadly, as the report of the “Triple A (academic, administration and audit) committee,” which went into the working of the Bangalore University indicates, even a long standing university of this size has failed to seize the initiative and respond to the situation. The “reality check” done by the committee presents a dismal picture with no more than five of the 40 post-graduate departments having research projects, all except three failing to publish a single research paper in international journals during the academic year 2006-07 and five departments, including mathematics and applied genetics, recording high drop out rates. The departments of MBA, MCA, Statistics, Geography,  and Commerce, however, appear to have done well with good placement records and the department of Chemistry being praised for some original discoveries for which it has acquired patents.
Bangalore University Vice-Chancellor  H A Ranganath is right when he says that it is the reflection of the scenario over the last three decades and matters cannot be improved overnight. The rot that has set in is the direct result of the politicisation of university affairs as the vice-chancellors have been reduced to dummies to carry out the dictates of political busybodies, who have come to dominate the varsity bodies. They interfere in everything from appointment of professors and heads of departments and meeting the academic challenges is far from their minds or comprehension. The practice of rotating the heads of departments with no concern for merit or competence has also played a major role in the deterioration of their performance. The committee report should serve as a wake up call for the Bangalore University to drastically re-orient its functioning to meet modern-day challenges.