College autonomy, not an end in itself

As a general norm, our colleges and universities have been very reluctant for change.

It is heartening to hear that the University Grants Commission has finally decided to move ahead with autonomous colleges by giving 45 of them the right to confer degrees across the country. Out of the 45 colleges, Karnataka will have a share of 10 and the state can feel proud of the recognition given to these aided colleges. When autonomy was granted to these colleges, it was a reluctant autonomy where the colleges have to fight for their rights. When the rules were enacted by the Universities, their obsession was how to control autonomy than provide freedom to the colleges. Any innovative idea rightly creates debates. Nothing wrong in it.

As a general norm, our colleges and universities have been very reluctant for change. Instead of transforming higher education, they have merely preserved the inherited British legacy of an affiliation system and what is intriguing is that the universities are comfortable with it. It is unfortunate that there have been forces in the university and outside who have opposed tooth and nail the concept of autonomy then and the present idea of degree giving status to colleges.

Highly competitive

As highlighted by some academicians not all things that take place in  autonomous colleges are perfect. Like any other system, autonomous colleges have limitations. It is true that they cannot be highly competitive given the fact that the college is placed to do its own academics without any relationship to other colleges and universities. With a limited faculty strength they have not been able to offer many innovative and new programmes. They lack in high level research. The leadership of some of these colleges may have also failed to think broadly, critically, creatively and academically at times. But to make allegations that the evaluation system in autonomous colleges is too lenient and there is corruption in the system is to say the least is unkind. 

What they need to look at is the need for reform of their own system instead of finding fault with changes in autonomous colleges. Inefficiency, corruption, red-tapism, delay in declaration of results and politics of caste and communalism has severely affected these universities. They may have to learn a few things from these autonomous colleges which follow a strict academic calendar with continuous assessment of students. Both extension activities  and student research have increasingly made these colleges what higher education ought to be in spite of several limitations to be rectified. 

When one looks at the history of these colleges, they have a glorious heritage, most of them of more than 50 or 100 years of existence. Weren’t these colleges obtaining the highest number of ranks in the universities  when they were affiliated colleges? Why did they choose autonomy and why did the University Grants Commission confer autonomy on them? It was simply because they were colleges of repute and to state that autonomy has made them to slacken is not correct. They had sought autonomy to set their institutions free from the traditional and standard approaches. With the academic independence that was granted these colleges have revised their syllabus and made their academics more relevant. 

Those who attack autonomy may not even be aware that it was the inefficient university system that was the cause of autonomy to colleges. The UGC document on the eleventh plan had observed that: “The only safe and better way to improve the quality of undergraduate education is to delink most of the colleges from the affiliating structure.

 Colleges with academic and operative freedom are doing better and have more credibility.” The colleges do not have the freedom to modernize their curricula or make them locally relevant. The regulations of the university and its common system, governing all colleges alike, irrespective of their characteristic strengths, weaknesses and locations, have affected the academic development of individual colleges. Colleges that have the potential for offering programmes of a higher standard do not have the freedom to offer them”. 

In the years in existence, even less than a decade the autonomous colleges have surely highlighted the necessity for academic freedom, a crucial requirement for development of the intellectual climate of our country. These colleges have made attempts with more than partial success to raise the quality of higher education. Autonomy is one of the instruments for promoting academic excellence and one hopes that the 45 colleges in the country of which ten are from the state that will be granted the degree giving status will be able to do better while delinking from their parent universities which in recent years have seen a greater decline.