Skip to main content

Deemed Universities Should Go!!.....

Well we all know – as of us who follow edu sector – that Mr. Sibal means business. He has a point of view – refreshingly. And he is keen to wear it on his sleeves. Any follower of Indian governance, would like it. Cos – it’s a welcome change from sloth and follow the herd mentality. I unequivocally admire him for that.

However, – yeah, the ‘but’ had to butt in :) – lets ponder for a few minutes on Mr. Sibal’s pronouncements….. The scrapping of 10th board; uniform board exams and now scrapping deemed universities.

We can have mindless [can I use this term here] debate on all these issues – people who relish participating in turncoat competitions would have field day, we can have countless arguments on either side of the case. However in this blog, I want myself to a short piece on Deemed Univs – I have max 30mins, before I need to move into another activity. I wanted to write on this topic, when I head about it yday – here it goes…

As a part of our edu consulting [http://www.kalingasoft.com/education-consulting.html] thought leadership [in-house] sessions, we have dwelt extensively as to why India doesn’t have enough world class universities and what can be done to have more of them?

The pithy answer – was a loud – more of Deemed and State Private sector universities. Believe it or not – that’s the answer. I am prepared to defend this in any well meaning forum. We need greater autonomy for progressive and excellence hungry individuals to create the necessary institutions. More importantly, extant government set-up with affiliating university framework is not at all conducive for the same. By design, the affiliating university model is mass based. On the contrary excellence oriented institutions are required to have certain amount of exclusivity associated with them – even as they promote inclusivity.

Central Universities, structurally have the potentially to be vehicles of such excellence. In fact we already have a few good CU’s or autonomous Institutes which can be globally bench-marked. However, they cannot be replicated in the numbers that they are required – if not anything else, because of the sheer investment associated with them. Globally also we have seen, private institutions [many – maybe most/all - top 20 US Univs] have often outshone government counterparts.

Therefore from a steady state perspective – Deemed University framework have the potential to create wonders. The problem arises, when these Deemed Universities perpetuate rot – in values – and mediocrity of purpose. A good reason is lack of corporatisation of education. But a bigger reason is greed. Unfortunately many viles of society are perpetrated here – forgery, rent seeking, black money, land grabbing. Even worse, these organizations have the blessings of state machinery. We have such a case in our back door here – KIIT University of BBSR [to which dignitaries including Presidents and Prime Ministers visit quite regularly]…a good part of the land they use is not theirs..and all the other viles I have listed they would come in the fore front.

But a plane crash does not neet, we should stop flying. The mature approach is to take risk mitigation measures, create controls with appropriate feedback loops. Not to throw the baby with the bath tub water.


Lets hope we come out this rut with requite positive energy and re-energise the university set-up in India.


Cheers!
Srijat
Kolkotta - In Transit
Jan 20, 2009
Version 1 – Un-edited.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Foreign Universities in India: Boon or Bane?

    Dr. Partha S Mohapatra (Originally written in March, 2010)   The cabinet yesterday gave its nod to the “Foreign Universities Bill”. I first read the report on Wall Street Journal about the Indian Governments’ intention to open up the higher education sector to foreign universities [Delhi Seeks to Admit Foreign Universities,  Wall Street Journal June 11, 2009 ].  Subsequently, I read similar reports in other newspapers.  Most of the se reports make a compelling story to allow foreign universities to operate in India. The main argument that is made is on following premises: i)      It will save India about $4 billion in foreign exchange [“Leading foreign institutes may soon be here” Economic Times , 11 Sep 2006”]. ii)    India loses because of brain drain when brilliant people go abroad and study and stay there. iii)   We need foreign investments because the government does not ...

Dura Pahada Sundara [Far-away Mountains are Beautiful]

I realize how seriously we take a place we visit specifically to see it – an event in itself, and how much taken for granted are those places that we can hop in an out with regularity and ease. Interestingly I had never wrote or thought of writing about Puri or Konark or Cuttack. Places for which reams have been and can be written. The history, the culture, the cuisine and the local chutzpah [espl. Puri / Cuttack]. Even more interestingly, I have never pondered enough on these places and their unique niceties to have them simmering in my cerebral consciousness. They are somewhere deep there sedimented at best; and at [likely] worst, I do not have the desired ammunition to do justice to write anything substantial. Probably, I will have to resort to the frivolous flourish of the might of the language as a cover. A point to note - I have never seen the Bali Yatra [Cuttackis don’t faint please]. The Puri beach and temple I have always felt is my backyard [so had the taken for granted attit...

For a religion or a product, an open door policy will work best

In the recent past, we have been witness to catchy rhetoric with regards to religious conversion. Strident calls to banning conversion, Ghar Wapsi, Love Jihad et al. I would like to stick my neck out and say almost everyone, right (‘bhakts’), left (‘liberals’), centre (government), has missed out on the most balanced perspective. A person has a right to choose a city and country different from his parents, he or she can also change his or her name given by the parents, what is wrong with the person choosing a religion different from he or she was born with. Religion is an experiential product. Products thrive when they are responsive to customer feedback. We go to five-star hotel to get pampered, if we are unhappy with the service we may not return. If the hotel has a problem with service quality, then over a period of time it will lose substantial business; then either it will buckle up based on customer feedback or will go out of business. That is exactly relevant for a re...