Milestones in our higher education system

After the US and China, India has the largest number of higher education institutions (HEIs) comprising more than 975 universities, 51,600 colleges and stand-alone establishments, with about 12.85 lakh teachers having an annual enrolment exceeding 37 million amounting to a GER (gross enrolment ratio) of 26.4%.

The system generates about 30 lakh graduates annually. Against this phenomenal quantitative scale, an attempt is made here to highlight the major policy interventions of the Central government in developing this sector.

It is held that Thakshashila (700-400 BCE) was the oldest HEI in India providing for studies in religion, mathematics, philosophy and astronomy. It is indeed a matter of pride that this ancient citadel of higher education with a milieu for universality of learning had a true character of an university (unlike the present day regional and monofaculty universities) in having students from China, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Persia (Iran), Burma (Mymnar) and Turkey.

Some of the other ancient Indian universities were the Valabhi, Vikramshila, Nalanda, Somapura and Odantopuri. Unfortunately, the solid intellectual foundation laid by our scholars of yesteryears was dismantled by the ruthless Mughal invaders in the 12th century.

In the pre-independence era, Lord Macaulay in 1857, based on the recommendations of Charles Woods (1854 - the so-called Woods Dispatch) also known as the “magna carta of Indian education”, established the first three universities - Bombay, Calcutta and Madras with the objective of producing English–knowing graduates badly needed for administrative work of the then British Raj.

William Hunter was the Chairman of the first Indian Education Commission. Lord Curzon in 1904 formulated the Indian Education Policy. In 1938, the Wardha Education Scheme suggested to the then provincial government to have a National Education Policy. In 1944, the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) advocated the idea of ‘Indianising’ education. Some of the other old universities of 19th and early 20th centuries were: Aligarh Muslim (1875), Punjab (1882), Allahabad (1887), Banaras Hindu (1916), Mysore (1916), Patna (1917), Osmania (1918) and Lucknow(1921).

At the time of Independence, the country had about 18 universities, 590 colleges with an enrolment of two lakhs and GER of 3%. In 1950, the Radhakrishnan Committee recommended that “education must be free from the government control” and that “affiliated colleges should develop into unitary universities”.

This led to the establishment of the University Grants Commission (UGC) in 1956 through an Act of Parliament with the mandate for coordinating academic activities and maintaining certain standards of higher education and research in the country.

The D S Kothari Committee/Commission (1964-1966) dealt with setting up of model Acts for universities and suggested that “affiliating system should be dispensed with to provide for academic freedom and to promote innovation and research”. It was the Kothari Commission that recommended that education per se should receive annual grants equal to 6% of GDP – a quantum of financial support that no Central government hitherto was able to fulfil.

Secondly, this Commission’s report paved the way for formulating the New Policy on Education in 1968. The policy advocated ‘radical restructuring’ of the entire education system starting from the primary level.

The National Education Policy-1986 stressed the importance of knowledge, skills and values and conceived them as instruments of social change and economic prosperity. In 1990, the UGC set up the Gnanam Committee to examine educational management issues. In 1992, Acharya Ramamurthy Committee and Janardhan Reddy Committee reviewed the recommendations of NEP-1986.

In 1994, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) was set up as an autonomous body of UGC to evaluate and grade HEIs based on a set of quality parameters pertaining to teaching and research. The National Knowledge Commission was set up in 2005 headed by Sam Pitroda. This Commission recommended further expansion of higher education with focus on quality, relevance, equity and affordability.

The Yashpal Committee formed in 2009, with the objective of ‘renovating and rejuvenating’ HEIs, strongly emphasised the importance of autonomy and disfavoured permitting monofaculty deemed-to be universities.

In 2012, the Thyagarajan Committee, while advocating more autonomous colleges, suggested that not more than 100 colleges be affiliated to an university and that groups of colleges can form ‘cluster universities’ – an idea yet to be functionality effective although tried by the UGC.

The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF-2015) was designed to assess and rank HEIs on comparative basis in respect of certain performance parameters. Thereafter, the Karnataka government launched its own NIRF scheme for ranking different categories (general, professional, public, private, young, established and deemed-to-be) of HEIs.

In 2018, an ‘empowered expert committee’ was set up to identify 20 HEIs (10 each from public and private sector) to be designated as ‘National Institutions of Eminence’ with greater autonomy and considerable financial support (restricted only to public institutions) in order to elevate them to the elite group of world class universities in 10 years.

Apart from these, the Central government also established to coordinate and regulate education and research in Agriculture (ICAR – originally founded in 1929 but renamed in 1969), Veterinary Science (IVC-1984), Medicine (MCI-1956), Education (NCTE-1993), Dental Science (DCI-1948), Pharmacy (Pharmacy Council-1948), Nursing (Nursing Council-1961), Architecture (Council of Architecture-1972) and a host of other Statutory Apex Bodies to regulate education and research in areas such as Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Forestry and Yoga.

NEP 2020

First conceived in January 2015, the highly acclaimed reformative venture had a long gestation period of more than five years. The Kasturirangan Committee submitted the final report in mid-2019 and the policy was announced in July 2020. Indeed, it is a laudable policy statement and vision document spanning primary, secondary and higher education.

Major recommendations include spending 6% of GDP, setting up National Higher Education Commission and National Research Foundation, a four-year degree programme with multiple entry and exists, encouragement to private participation, phased discontinuation of affiliation, the National Testing Agency to conduct a single test for admission to universities, etc.

However, the toughest challenge is implementation within a defined time frame encouraging states to participate in right earnestness in true spirit of federalism

(The writer is former Vice Chancellor, University of Mysore)