A place for liberal arts in higher education

Shelley Walia

IN the context of drafting a national higher-education policy, Panjab University has taken a lead in opening serious discussions on reform initiatives, especially with a focus on systems of governance, financial management and decentralisation at all levels. It is a process of ushering in a new era of major qualitative changes that would streamline the governing bodies of the university with a view to impacting major decision-making processes that can ensure a culture of excellence with equal access to all, notwithstanding caste, class or gender. 

This must not merely be a dry administrative effort. We need to keep in mind large-scale challenges as well as collective commitment and social responsibility of higher education. The strategic imperative for the university governance is to formulate a policy on the basis of research, innovation and creativity. The committee headed by TSR Subramanian for drafting a new education policy for the country should deliberate on the retrogressive and bureaucratic role of the UGC. The compulsory quality audit of all education that has been suggested must not drown itself in mathematical calculations of the Academic Performance Index (API) but ensure that a more vivacious approach to education counters the perceptible symptoms of fragmentation and intolerance.

We all, and more so the leadership, have a stake in the shaping of the world of ideas with a commitment towards changing the future academic landscape through reform initiatives in setting up inter-university centres, restructuring teaching and research programs, promoting autonomy and accountability, as well as framing inclusive policies that will go a long way in outlining a viable and imaginative education policy. The hegemony of the UGC or the HRD Ministry has to be dismantled.

More than any other suggestion, it becomes vital to initiate a debate on the crisis in the humanities. Upon making a suggestion to consider changing the nomenclature of the ‘faculty of arts’ to ‘liberal arts’, the adjective ‘liberal’ becomes the subject of interrogation. It is often argued whether liberal is not a redundant adjective. Universities across the world have the liberal arts programme which straddles a host of subjects like literature, language, history, fine arts, music, history, science and philosophy. Such cross-disciplinary nature of education enables a student to become proficient in other areas of knowledge while pursuing one in depth.

Liberal education since Pythagoras has aimed to free the individual mind to think critically and coherently, both orally and in writing. The use of the adjective ‘liberal’ is therefore well suited, especially with its semantics of self-motivated free learners who can flourish in the historical process of societal transformation bringing their conscience to the subjects they intervene in, ready to revisit and revise their previously held views. This broad spectrum of intellectual engagement reinvigorates institutions that have a propensity to wilt if constant attention is not given to innovation and quality.

From classical antiquity, the liberal arts programme has been considered essential education for a free individual active in radical pursuit of knowledge with a focus on creativity and critical thinking. Incidentally, Smriti Irani is out and another right-wing minister has replaced her in the MHRD but the overpowering and retrogressive bureaucracy remains oblivious of the importance of higher education, inundated as we are with the auditing of direct hours of teaching or giving credit for below-mediocrity publications in journals with fraudulently obtained ISSN status.

The university in India is a handmaid of two main forces: the University Grants Commission and the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The leadership needs to take an intellectual position in introducing courses among the liberal arts that could enable students to master communication and problem-solving skills inculcated over a period of schooling, equipping them to think on their feet. Once in the workplace, it would become almost impossible to train an employee in the vital areas of economic and social pursuit, particularly because of a long-drawn process needed to acquaint students with the history of mankind, its intellectual, scientific, social issues as opposed to meagre technical or professional skills. 

I propose that instead of going through a training in business at a business school, a compulsory liberal arts initiative could side-step the mere economic principles to introduce history, politics and other areas that shape the world of business. This is the view of Bhaskar Chakrovarty, Dean of International Business and Finance at Tufts University, in his argument in favour of liberal arts at Silicon Valley: “A tutorial on even a selection of the babblings of the Bard’s many protagonists, with a dash of political economy, history and sociology, may not be such a bad thing for the Scions of Silicon Valley, who are so steeped in big data that they often miss the big picture.”

It is necessary to see ideas as they become a human force and universities exponents of conflicting ideologies. Effective problem-solving requires strong analytical and creative processes that give rise to unconventional approaches needed to challenge received assumptions. Employers must realise that liberal arts graduates have the indispensable transferable skills to adjust to varying working conditions, considering their greater flexibility.

Mere structural changes to the governing bodies like the senate or the syndicate of any university are not adequate. The recent UGC demands on running of the academic affairs must be more realistic and less blinkered. The drastic increase in teaching hours only takes teachers away from research. To teach for over 20 hours a week, not counting long hours of preparation, would be counterproductive. At Oxford and Cambridge, where teaching hours are no more than six per week – including tutorials – students labour on their own to produce tutorial presentations that are not only original but critically incisive, whereas most of the Ph.D. presentations in our universities remain shoddy and casual. It is a pity that we are inept at practising what we preach even in the most esteemed governing bodies of our universities. Presumably, it is the lack of training in the liberal arts that disables a culture from taking bold and imaginative decisions across disciplines or engaging in debates with meaningful outcomes.

The writer is a Professor of English at Panjab University, Chandigarh.