Autonomy more effective academic model

Updated on: Monday, June 21, 2010

Of the two broadly practised modes of providing higher education, namely the system of affiliating to a university and the autonomy stream, the latter has been gaining ground in this part of the nation in recent times. Institutions of higher learning, cutting across disciplines — arts, science, commerce and engineering — are showing great interest in becoming autonomous.

The pattern of colleges getting affiliated to the universities and thus being dependent on them has changed. A paradigm shift in imparting education, towards independence in matters of academics and administration, by becoming autonomous or universities, is being seen.

Notwithstanding the advantages, the affiliating system practically reduces the status of institutions attached to almost registered academic agencies or extension centres of the universities to amplify the courses and course work as dictated by them. Further, the universities have to take a huge workload and carry out many functions of the individual institutions under their purview.

In the process, it is quite likely and, in fact, experienced by universities that administration precedes academics. The time and resources devoted to matters relating to administration take away the focus on the academic aspects, with the result that the universities could hardly reform, update and fine-tune the curriculum of various disciplines in time. This leaves the affiliated institutions far behind in adapting themselves to the demands of the industry.

Empowerment

Autonomy seems to be an effective academic model where the qualifying institutions are given the freedom of self-governance while the affiliating university's burden of work gets reduced to render attention to the primary activity of academics on the other. Autonomy empowers the institutions to chalk out their own curriculum and design the coursework for various permitted degrees.

Despite the fact that the autonomous institutions would have to take the broad framework of the affiliating university, the institutions enjoy an enormous degree of academic freedom. The implementation of the autonomous scheme calls for constitution of three important committees: board of studies at the department level, academic council at the college level and governing body at the management level. The board of studies and academic council are academic bodies, where experts from the discipline and the industry, nominated by the management of the college, the affiliating university and the State government, find place. These bodies go into academic matters such as framing the syllabus, scope of the testing, teaching and evaluation methods.

Involvement

In the autonomy model, the course teacher is involved in every aspect of grooming the students. For instance, the teacher has to frame the syllabus for the subject he/she teaches and get the same placed, considered and approved by the board of studies which will meet at least once a semester and whenever the teacher in consultation with the head of the department concerned desires to make amendments or additions to the coursework.

As this exercise is done in a time-bound manner, the autonomous colleges are in a better position to quickly adapt to the requirements of the industry. Further, the same teacher has to carry out the responsibility of assessing the student for that course. The evaluation of the answer-scripts of the student by the same course teacher or one suggested by him/her at the end-semester examinations will give more insight into grey areas which need to be attended to by the said teacher to make the students acquire good knowledge of the subject.

Therefore, this type of intense one-on-one academic binding between the teacher and the taught is bound to perfect the delivery system without any loss of time.

As all important sections, like admissions office, office of the controller of examinations and general administration are housed in the same campus of the autonomous colleges, there is free access for the students to approach these sections and their grievances are immediately attended to.

Students need not waste time and resources to get their complaints redressed, especially on the examination front. Thus, under this framework, the student is totally in the know of things.

Job-oriented courses

Another advantage of the autonomy model has been the freedom to offer job-oriented short-term certificate courses. The autonomous institutions, in association with expert agencies and corporates and even in collaboration with foreign universities, go into this noteworthy exercise. The students greatly benefit out of such programmes and, in fact, these add-on courses enhance their employment potential.

The autonomous colleges, through the expert guidance from the parent university and with the committed team of staff, both teaching and administration, can make higher education more learner-centric, meaningful and contemporary

S. NARASIMHAN

Autonomy more effective academic model

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