Time for a rejig?

Updated on: Monday, September 05, 2011

Over the past few years the concept of affiliation of colleges to a university has increasingly fallen out of favour with many in academia. To some it has almost become a dirty word, synonymous with the stifling inertia of a university's bureaucracy and indeed with almost everything that is wrong with the higher education system.

Many academics have stridently called for the abolishment of this “colonial hangover” in the nation's universities. Such academics have also mooted the idea of granting autonomy to colleges so that higher education becomes a federal structure of sorts with the university having only a broad, policy role to play.

All the same there are those who have sounded a note of caution; warned that doing away with affiliations at one go may actually further weaken the fabric of higher education. They have posited that what is required is a reshaping of the concept of affiliation so that universities and colleges become partners in a drive for creation of quality knowledge on a level playing field whose boundaries are quality, autonomy and accountability.

A recent study— ‘Affiliation System: A Study of Kerala Experience' — done by former Vice-Chancellor of the Calicut University A. N. P. Ummerkutty for the Kerala State Higher Education Council offers what could be a conceptual framework for recasting the relationship between universities and colleges in a Kerala context.

Prof. Ummerkutty, in delineating the evolution of the system of affiliation, points out that over the years the academic aspects of affiliation have been crowded out by the overbearing administrative and regulatory aspects of the university system. The one-time affiliation system has generated an overwhelming sense of academic inertia in the colleges. Very little of any accountability — of teachers to students, of students to themselves and to their course of study and of the universities to the society at large — is discernable in the higher education system. For this to change, Prof. Ummerkutty, argues, it is necessary to redraw the contours of the affiliation system.

For starters, affiliation need not be a permanent affair but should be something that the college earns periodically. Affiliated colleges should have the freedom to plan, design, review, monitor, and execute academic programmes. This ‘autonomy' for colleges would come with a rider; they should ensure that sustained quality education is given to the students. Lapses may invite punitive action including disaffiliation. Affiliating colleges would have to submit annual reports to the universities about their activities and plans. Each affiliated college should have a College Academic Council through which the institution operationalises its autonomy. Chaired by the respective principal, all teachers should be regular members of that body. Non-teaching staff, students, parents, subject experts, and other stakeholders too would find representation in this council. The CAC should create vision and mission statements for that college and should act as a catalyst for academic innovation.

Each CAC would have four committees; the Curricular Development Committee, the Examination Committee, the Financial Committee and the Monitoring Committee. The Curricular Committee would be constantly on the lookout for new courses, restructuring existing programmes and should be in touch with nearby institutions of excellence including research facilities. The CDC should also keep an eye on the labour market at the regional and national levels and should work to introduce “life-related courses” in the college, the study recommends.

The planning, conduct and publication of the results of all internal examinations shall be the mandate of the examination committee. For its part the finance committee mobilise societal support and the money that may be necessary for existing or new programmes in a college. Prof. Ummerkutty's study lays great emphasis on ensuring the accountability of the individual teacher. The former Vice-Chancellor argues that if accountability is ever to be considered seriously the system of teachers preparing ‘self-appraisal reports(SAR) — a concept embedded in the UGC scheme — should be reintroduced. By allotting marks to various elements of the SAR and by making in mandatory that a teacher earns at least 55 per cent marks for the SAR to enable him to continue in service, a powerful impetus for accountability can be generated, the study argues. The SAR should be supplemented by feedback from the students. The boards of study should be empowered to scrutinise and approve academic proposals from the colleges. Prof. Ummerkutty has recommended a drastic overhaul of the role of university departments which now have very little engagement with affiliated colleges.

Government colleges should be taken away from the bureaucratic control of the Director of College Education. Each government college should be placed under a Local Governing Body to be constituted by the government. The university should deal with the LGB for all matter relating to a college. In fact the study recommends that government colleges should be renamed Public Sector Colleges.

From an administrative and even a practical point of view it is desirable to have a full-time chancellor for each university. Such a chancellor would more or less be like the CEO of a company.

The Chancellor

The chancellor of each university should submit annual reports to the State legislature which would study the same and get back to each university with suggestions and recommendations for course correction. Prof. Ummerkutty also points out in this study that most of his suggestions would need only minor rewording or existing laws while others may need the government or universities to issue individual orders.

In his foreword to the study the vice-chairman of the Higher Education Council K. N. Panikkar points out that reforming the affiliating system has become an urgent need. “In the circumstances prevailing in the State it is neither possible nor desirable to discard the affiliating system in toto. So, a well-conceived alternative policy directed towards the progressive devolution of academic and administrative process is necessary,” he explains.

With professional education having all but elbowed out the arts and science colleges from Kerala's higher education arena, any delay in rejuvenating the State's universities would be unpardonable.

Time for a rejig?

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