Seeking consensus for reforms

Updated on: Wednesday, November 17, 2010

A less radical but perhaps more consensual final report' is how the M. Anandakrishnan Committee has described its report on reviewing the Acts of universities in Kerala.

Evidently the committee has invested a lot of intellectual effort in seeking to redraw certain assumptions and principles which now guide the formulation of policy relating to universities.

Right at the outset the committee had made it clear that it would not come out with a uniform Act for all varsities in Kerala. What the committee has finally done is to lay down the broad principles which should govern the Acts of any university. The success and failure of this committee may ultimately lie in this abstraction. Many academics are already asking whether a consensual report automatically implies a realistic one.

It has been a standing joke in academic circles in Kerala that the state only wants the UGC scales of pay and not the UGC scheme in toto. The committee has unambiguously recommended that the State immediately incorporate the UGC Regulations 2010 into the laws of each university. How soon any government would actually put this into practice is a matter of conjecture.

A major political hot potato that the committee chose not to touch — after burning its fingers in the draft report — was the position and role of the Chancellor and the Pro-Chancellor. Initially the committee had felt that the Governor who is also the Chancellor of all universities and the Education Minister who is the Pro-Chancellor should be distanced from the everyday functioning of the university. The idea was to have an academician/ educationist of repute a Chancellor and have the Governor interact with the university through him. Moreover, the committee did not want the Education Minister, a politician, to be able to assume the role of Chancellor when the Governor is not able to.

This recommendation in the draft report however created a storm of protest. In discussions with various persons and organisations the committee was told that instances of interference by the Chancellor or the Pro-Chancellor in the everyday running of universities are unknown in the State. The committee chose to buy this argument and finally recommended that the present arrangement would continue.

On the question of setting up clusters of colleges, the committee has wholeheartedly supported the idea. The committee even feels that the whole system of affiliation should progressively give way to an arrangement wherein universities have small clusters of colleges under them. Perhaps mindful of the sharp divisions among the academic community on this issue, the committee has recommended that each university can formulate its own governance mechanism for such clusters. The recommendation to set up Social Accountability Cells in all universities and colleges, if implemented, could strengthen transparency and accountability in higher education.

The committee has also recommended that universities assess the affiliated colleges once every five years for quality performance. Such an assessment would be a prelude to ameliorative / deterrent / punitive action by the varsity, the report reads. While such a recommendation is academically sound and even imperative to improve standards of learning, it is highly doubtful whether any punitive action can be initiated by a university in Kerala today against a college for a fall in academic standards or for consistently poor results.

Yet another recommendation which should be implemented — in an academic sense — is the one relating to the “submission of annual performance appraisal report by each individual teacher showing his/her contributions to teaching, research and extension along with student feedback to the Departmental Council and for the submission of the annual performance report of each Departmental Council to the College Council/ University and for taking follow-up actions on such reports in accordance with the norms of academic accountability laid down in UGC Regulations 2010.”

The elections to the senate and syndicate of universities have long been contested on party lines. As such the committee's recommendation to re-constitute the Senate as an advisory body with only 60 members would have a tough time gaining political acceptability. Though, according to the committee, only one-third of the senate would be elected and the rest, nominated, it is not clear how such nominations too would not be affected by the same kind of political manoeuvrings that currently mark elections to senates and syndicates now.

The recommendation for the re-constitution of the Academic Council as the principal academic body responsible for broad level policy formulations and framing general directives for ensuring academic standards too would, on the face of it, be welcomed by the academic community. However, the main problem with academic bodies is not that they are constituted wrong, but that they function in an inefficient manner.

The top officials of universities are today clueless as to how to deal with such academic bodies in such situations. The committee is silent on the question of ensuring that such bodies function efficiently and on what punitive/ ameliorative measures can be taken against such bodies when necessary.

Another major recommendation of the committee is the constitution of three separate boards of study for university departments, college clusters and for individual affiliated colleges. The logic for this stems from the fact that the academic orientation of these three entities is different. University departments, for instance, should be focussed more on research. Clusters should offer flexi-education programmes while the individual affiliated colleges could be oriented to doing extension activities, the report argues. Significantly the report mandates that the Boards of Study should not only prepare textbooks, syllabi and model question papers, they should also be involved in monitoring the implementation of syllabi at various levels. It should be the statutory responsibility of a Board to conduct an annual review of syllabi and to comprehensively revise it once every three years, the report recommends. If implemented honestly, this one recommendation would go a long way in improving teaching-learning standards in Kerala's universities.

The Anandakrishnan committee has also recommended the creation of Council of Affiliated Colleges in each university, recommended the making of College Councils the decision-making body in each institution and strict adherence to UGC regulations in the selection and appointment of academic personnel.

The report points out that there is no sense in waiting for a consensus to emerge across the spectrum of recommendations. The government should implement those recommendations on which a semblance of consensus has emerged. The Higher Education Council which set up the committee will now deliberate on these recommendations and forward them to the government.

What the government is able to do with this in its remaining months in office is the million-dollar question.

Seeking consensus for reforms

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