JOIN USRestructuring higher education in India
Niranjan R looks at what is plaguing our higher education system and keeping it from attaining global recognition
Education — primary, secondary and higher — all serve as capital for a society. Over the years, globally speaking, there has been an increased focus on this human capital, which spurs innovation, invention, critical thinking and a source of knowledge base for the society.
In this knowledgeable world, the state of higher education in India takes significance when none of the Indian universities failed to qualify for the top 100 universities in the world.
Our neighbouring emerging economy, China (including Hong Kong) has to its credit four universities in top 100 lists in the world. The two Chinese universities, Tsinghua University and Peking University are in 26th and 32nd position respectively, marking two entries in top 50 universities. The Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2015 is based on a number of parameters wherein, it judges universities across all of their core missions — teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.
If one looks into the reasons for the lagging of Indian universities, few questions arise — is it because of lack of professional research by the faculty, lack of modernised applied curriculum, financial support and infrastructure, lack of professional faculty, lack of academic freedom, excessive political and bureaucratic interference, so on.
Professional research
Out of all these questions, the first three are vital in shaping the structural dynamics of higher education. Firstly, the higher education policy should reorient universities to a steady balanced shift from teaching to professional research. The centres of academics - the universities, fame and recognition rests on their high quality research, experiments, and other academic endeavours.
Quality of faculty, quality of teaching and research are the prime indicators carrying high weightage in methodologies of universities ranking indexes such as Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). Today’s top universities are in top ranking because of their path breaking research and programmes.
The university faculty work structure is defined in terms of number of hours of teaching, which holds a lot of weight. But ironically, in pursuit of great volume, the research component in the work structure is overlooked, making professional research an option of individual, which in future makes higher education narrow and unsustainable. The university higher education is sustainable only when teaching is supplemented by professional research by the faculty. Teaching alone does not serve the purpose of maintaining quality in higher education. If it is given the sole priority, higher education in universities will remain stagnant.
As a constructive policy for enhancing quality in higher education the regulator of the centres of higher learning should predominantly enforce the universities to act as teaching and Research and Development (R&D) centres. The objective of the R&D centres in each department should be to seed new ideas and thoughts in young minds that are researchable and testable and which augment contribution to the society. These research activities in the long run will put the university to its distinction. As regulators are rooting for teaching accountability, it should also enforce mandatory research (professional) accountability for a sustained growth and recognition of universities.
Modernising curriculum
Secondly, from the students perspective, higher education gives an opportunity for students to excel in their dreams of becoming entrepreneurs, scientists, academicians, bureaucrats, writers and activists. Millions of young minds throng universities every year to make their dreams come true. The centres of higher learning reach out to the students to fulfill their dreams by regularly framing and updating the curriculum. The point of contradiction or the larger problem in recent days is that students are not being market-ready even after completion of their courses.
In general, not only in engineering courses, but also in a majority of disciplines such as humanities, languages and sciences, the modernising of curriculum is the need of the day, to meet industry requirements. Knowing the latest theoretical understandings, developments, scientific tools and techniques makes students market-ready giving them confidence to try their hands at diverse fields.
The unpreparedness of students for the job market can be corrected through academia and industry interaction, giving an entry for the industry professionals to have a say in the preparation of university curriculum,common entrance test and academic calendar. Also, inter-university short-term student and faculty mobility will enhance the productiveness of student as well as faculties in academic centres.
In view of students’ overall development, making them only being market ready will be narrow and will fail to serve the purpose of universities broad objectives, if they are unsuccessful in understanding the historical, literary, sociocultural, economic and political fabric of the society. At the outset, the end objective of the universities is towards the contribution of matured, civilised, qualified and ethical citizens.
To match these requirements, the centres of higher learning should be prepared by regularly changing and updating their curriculum to the market/society requirements to boost the employability of higher education seekers.
(The author is assistant professor in Economics, Vijayanagara Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Ballari)