Get on the path of learning : The Tribune India

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Get on the path of learning

It is that time of the year when Class XII students disembark from the Board exam bus to get ready for an exciting ride to college life. The importance of college courses and degrees can be gauged from the huge number of students enrolling each year.

Get on the path of learning


Brig (Dr) R. S Grewal (VSM)

It is that time of the year when Class XII students disembark from the Board exam bus to get ready for an exciting ride to college life. The importance of college courses and degrees can be gauged from the huge number of students enrolling each year. 

According to the latest edition of the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), 35.7 million students enrolled for different UG courses across the country in 2017. This makes the Gross Enrollment Ratio climb to 25.2 per cent in 2016-2017 as against 24.5 per cent in 2015-2016. However, college education system is one area where huge numbers don’t necessarily paint a very rosy picture. This is just one side of the story as quality, autonomy, research, and innovation are the benchmarks that define college education. 

For millions of students getting into colleges and institutes all across the nation quality of education and value of the much-sought-after degrees remain major concerns. For many a college degree is a necessary evil as you have no value in job market without a degree, whereas at the same time there are millions who remain unemployable even after getting a degree. Industry reports supported by NASSCOM, show that only 25 per cent of technical graduates and about 15 per cent of other graduates are considered employable by IT/ITES industry. Only 23 per cent of those having an MBA degree are considered employable.  The institutions on their part, rue the little room allowed to them to introduce changes due to AICTE-UGC norms.  For young students on the threshold of college and their parents, these figures increase the importance of making an informed decision regarding the college as well as the degree course to be chosen.  

It is important to pin point the pain points of the higher education space in our country.  

Teaching & learning process

At present the system is basically teacher-and-examination centric rather than being learning centric. A major challenge is the dearth of competent faculty. Even IITs are faced with a shortage of faculty to the tune of 30 per cent. A majority of faculty members are deficient in domain knowledge, leave alone multi-disciplinary knowledge, and communication skills. No serious effort has been made to meet this challenge. This flows from the fact that teaching is not a chosen profession with students in universities. Even in IITs very few faculty members are themselves from an IIT. And this reflects directly on the quality of postgraduate and doctoral-level studies at IITs. 

Concepts of self learning, learning by curiosity and critical thinking are conspicuous by their absence in the curricula and pedagogy of our universities. A concerted effort is needed to improve the quality of faculty through measures like those envisaged in GIAN programme under Singh-Obama agreement. 

A paradigm shift is also needed in the approach of students and parents towards higher education. At present, the societal demand is for degrees and jobs through campus-placements and not on acquisition of knowledge. This has resulted in aberrations and malpractices creeping in the placement processes adopted by industry and educational institutions. A system could be evolved wherein higher education institutions could be assigned the role of providing education and awarding degrees and there could be professional bodies that could certify individuals to practice a profession. 

This system would automatically force universities to focus on producing employable graduates because a measure of the quality of education being provided by an educational institution would be based on the results obtained by its students in certification tests. 

The certification process would also establish the credibility of education being provided through distance learning mode and help in overcoming the challenge of capacity generation being faced due to limited number of educational institutions, especially in remote areas. 

Our policy planners would do well to introduce computer-based testing to cater for large number of students. The tests should be designed to cover aspects like comprehension, application of knowledge, analysis, evaluation and creativity. 

Regulatory bodies

Multiplicity of regulatory bodies in the country has resulted in our system of higher education being over-regulated and under-governed. Moreover, excessive regulation has perpetuated inspector-raj. As suggested by Sam Pitroda-led National Knowledge Commission and later by Yashpal Committee, let there be an over-arching central regulatory body at national level and other regulatory bodies could be either subsumed in it or could be converted in to professional certification agencies. 

India is a massive country having a large population. Further, as stipulated in the Constitution, education is in the concurrent list. Thus, a degree of decentralisation is needed. The states could set up higher education commissions to oversee the quality of education being provided and these commissions could render advisory inputs to the central regulatory body.

There is also a need to put a cap on the number of colleges affiliated to a university. On an average our universities have 200 or more colleges affiliated with each. There are many universities which have more than 500 affiliated colleges. To ensure better governance, a university should not have more than 20 colleges affiliated to it and the number of students in a university should not exceed 50,000.

There is also a need for fresh talent in regulatory bodies and proposed certification agencies. Government would do well to induct some talent from industry and reputed foreign universities at the top and middle level leadership positions. 

Accreditation 

At present there are two accreditation agencies, namely NAAC and the NBA. These are unable to cope with the quantum of work involved. Moreover, the processes followed and the grades awarded by these two agencies have put a question mark on their credibility. There are institutions that have been graded 'A' or above but these institutions figure nowhere in international rankings. Thus, there could be more number of accreditation bodies even if it involves outsourcing the task to reputable private agencies. The processes adopted should conform to Indian system instead of merely copying those from abroad. 

Conclusion

A nation derives its strength from its education system. Our country did well during the Vedic period because of its robust education system. The system was well developed when Nalanda and Takshishila Universities were contributing to the society. However, later there were some aberrations when knowledge sharing was inhibited due to certain barriers to learning in our institutions. The problem was aggravated further due to neglect of higher education during the colonial period and poor governance after Independence. There is an urgent need to put in place a viable and effective education system if the country wants to reap its demographic dividend and emerge as a power to reckon with in international arena. For the first time in a decade three higher education institutions from India have figured in the QS ranking of top 200 institutions. Though this is heartening news, yet it just shows how long the road ahead is.   

— The writer has been teaching in prestigious training establishments of the Indian Army


Cause of concern

The latest AISHE figures show that higher education space in India is severely understaffed. The quality of education being imparted is adversely impacted due to lack of teacher-taught connect, while unavailability of adequately qualified teachers also lead to unfair practices in the appointment of faculty. Though the pupils-to-teacher ratio in universities and colleges has eased from 24:1 in 2012-2013 to 22:1 in 2016-17, it is way behind that of 12.5:1 in US (2014), 19.5:1 in China (2011) and 19:1 in Brazil (2014).


Focus on research

First of all the  Indian higher education institutions are unable to get in the top bracket of various rankings basically because of poor quality of research. The fundamental problem is that both the research scholars and research supervisors are not familiar, leave alone being competent, with research activities. UGC has framed policies to improve the quality of research being carried out by our universities. UGC regulations dealing with research have tried to focus on the end product without taking into account the inputs. It has stipulated qualifications for enrollment of research scholars — specifying marks at the post graduate level and performance in an entrance examination. No attempt is made, as is done in elite universities all over the world, to assess the aptitude of a candidate to take up research activities. For example, instead of relying on marks at postgraduate level and making qualifying in an entrance examination mandatory, the UGC could have stipulated that a candidate must have at least two publications to his/her credit in a reputed journal before becoming eligible as a research scholar. Similarly, there could be some other means to assess the suitability of a candidate to undertake research activities. UGC regulations are silent on qualifications of research supervisors. Thus, there are faculty members who start guiding research the day they receive their PhD degree. Consequently, and this is not an exaggeration, there are PhD holders who do not understand the nuances of a thesis, dissertation, treatise or monograph and even are unable to identify the hypothesis of their thesis.

HR policies framed by UGC have stipulated possession of a PhD degree for recruitment and promotions of faculty at various levels. Thus, there has been a mad rush by faculty to obtain doctoral-level degrees, as against their eagerness to engage in meaningful research, and universities have basically become 'degree mills' churning out 'sympathy PhDs'.  It may be prudent to allow only selected elite universities, may be top 30 per cent in the country, to award PhD degrees. Instead of going merely by NAAC grading, the selection of the universities could be based on their research publications and the quality of research that has helped solve problems of local communities or has resulted in innovative product development.


India’s top league institutions

1 Indian Institute of Science Bangalore

2 Indian Institute of Technology Madras 

3 Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

4 Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

5 Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi

6 Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

7 Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur 

8 Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati

9 Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee

10 Banaras Hindu University

11 Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru

12 Jadavpur University, Kolkata

13 Anna University, Chennai

14 University of Hyderabad 

15 University of Delhi  

NIRF-2018 rankings

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