whether the institutions that offer higher education are on the right path

Updated on: Friday, February 15, 2013

The Planning Commission's recent proposal in the draft 12th Five Year plan to promote 'for-profit' initiatives in higher education is likely to have an effect on the education system, felt speakers at a seminar on the 'Role of Higher Education in Building a Knowledge Society'.

The panel discussion was held on Monday by the O P Jindal Global University, Sonipat in Haryana. National Capital Region of Delhi, held the panel discussion on Monday at a city club.

It was attended by educationists, principals, teachers of city schools and colleges, lawyers and others.

The speakers were Asok Kumar Ganguly, the chairman of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission, Justice Kalyanjyoti Sengupta, judge, Uttarakhand High Court, Malabika Sarkar, the vice-chancellor of Presidency University, Sujata Sen of the British Council, C Raj Kumar, the vice-chancellor of the host university and R Rajesh Babu of IIM, Calcutta.

The speakers showed a new path to reframe and reform the standard of Indian academia and also suggested how the institutes can adapt to the changes that have taken place globally in the field of higher education.

President Pranab Mukherjee's recent observation at an event in IIT Kharagpur that India had gained independence for over 60 years but still did not have a university of world renown was one of the main reasons for organizing the panel discussion, Padmanabha Ramanujam, the assistant professor and assistant dean (academic programmes) of Jindal Global Law School, said.

"The objective of the event is to understand whether the institutions that offer higher education are on the right path. It is necessary to create a knowledge society for the uplift of human resources and the institutes play a significant role in this regard," he added.

Ganguly defended the Planning Commission's proposal that welcomes commercialization in education and rued that the Right to Education Act was still not implemented properly throughout the country. Sharing his views he said, "Knowledge is power and in India, those who have knowledge have little power at their disposal. Having started my professional career as a teacher, I think schools, colleges and universities are more important than religious institutions."

"The majority of our countrymen are ignorant about several things including legal issues due to their illiteracy. It is time for the Indian institutes to gear up for the sea change in the academic field. Private institutes are demanding huge amount of money as fees every month, which middle class people cannot afford. To make a strong knowledge society, we need to keep the door for higher education open for all students, irrespective of their family backgrounds, caste and creed," he added.

Sarkar said that state universities were treasure houses of knowledge but could not beef up infrastructure because of a funds crunch. For international rankings, there are certain parameters, which seem to deter Indian universities from being marked in ther list to some extent. The policy makers should keep in mind that the education system entails revision and review. Her point was that awakening young minds is vital to create a knowledge society and basic facts about science and humanities should be encouraged, for these are the backbone of any social development.

C Raj Kumar discussed the critical challenges faced by the Indian institutes such as the lack of good faculty, infrastructure and resources. According to him, the Planning Commission has observed that the objective of their new proposal is to bridge the demand supply gap in higher education. A recent presentation by the HRD ministry reveals that central universities have 6,542 vacancies, 15 IITs have 1611 vacancies and 13 IIMs have to fill 111 vacancies. This year's rankings dominated Asian universties with those of China, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Republic of Korea.

"India should obliterate the discrimination between public and private institutions, rather there is a need to assess them on the basis of quality teaching, research and capacity building. Some of the world's top class universties like Harvard, Yale, Stanford and MIT are private. For the reformation of our academic standard, we need to develop some non profit institutes that aim to promote academic freedom. State universties are in a deplorable condition and the existing legal framework of the governance of Indian universities is based on a lack of trust on the part of institutions to be able to do the right thing. Our laws and regulations have reinforced the belief that regulatory control of varsities can only ensure quality and maintain standard."

He also added that Indian universities need to lure students from abroad and we ought to have an international outlook, discarding myopic vision that does not highlight global realities. Globalization and transformation of Insian economy created diverse career options for students and very few aspire to be teachers. Democratization of knowledge creation means giving freedom to faculty members the freedom to work in India regardless of their nationality.

whether the institutions that offer higher education are on the right path

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