The view has been expressed that we spend far too much time discussing the state of higher education in India — especially the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) — when our schools are in such poor shape. There is a point in this. However, so much of our national resources is being poured into this segment, when it has valuable alternative uses, that we would be naive(uninformed,भोला) to ignore the outcome. Therefore, we should welcome two recent public interventions that help us see what needs to be done to improve outcomes in higher education. Though these have been made by individuals from different vantages — as with the vanishing(disappear,गायब) point in the work of art — they lead to a singular destination in terms of our understanding.
State surveillance and control
Thus, Amartya Sen has appeared in the media to say that the present government aims to establish control over the institutions of higher learning in the public sector while N.R. Narayana Murthy used the occasion of the annual convocation at the Indian Institute of Science recently to challenge the institution to explain how it could have helped improve lives in India.
These interventions are vital to an evaluation of the democratic project as we build public institutions, and have poured our meagre resources into them for decades, so that they hold a mirror to society, helping us see what we may have missed or, more to the point, what we refuse to look at. For far too long, the functioning of these bodies has been kept off the radar of social audit.
Prof. Sen has stated in public that there is currently a concerted action by the National Democratic Alliance government to establish control over the research and educational institutions that report to it, claiming that this is designed to further its ideological agenda. It would appear that he is right. He has referred to specific cases, and the media has reported of professionals who head these institutions coming under pressure from the government or its agents. Instances range from favourable treatment of individuals close to the ruling dispensation to making financial contributions to specified external bodies and parachuting spiritual leaders into professional assignments for which they have no demonstrable competence.
India’s public educational and research institutions, which have high potential, are by now low-hanging fruit for a class of politicians that has done little to germinate(develop,विकसित) them. Its members are mostly uneducated when they are not downright anti-intellectual. This is in marked difference to the founders of these magnificent temples of modern India, pre-eminent among whom was Jawaharlal Nehru, who was assisted by his contemporaries in public life. They had nursed high ambitions for us, in particular that Indians should hold their own in the global field of ideas. They were aware that this could not be achieved by creating institutions controlled by the government.
Governance versus surveillance
Control is surely ineffective in producing intellectual output. Freedom for academics, and thinkers in general, is as water is to fish. As fish gambol, preen and strut in the water, so thinking beings give off their best only when left uncontrolled. But, it will surely be queried whether public funds should be made over to anyone without oversight. This is relevant, though a distinction needs to be made between governance and surveillance. Much of what we have by way of the administration of our institutions of higher learning is surveillance, with the metrics ranging from daily attendance to the number of years spent in a post. This colonial-era governmentality has succeeded in creating a vested interest in its continuity.
The production of knowledge, which Mr. Murthy was most likely alluding(mentioned,जिक्र) to, and which was the reason for setting up the institutions in the first instance, comes second in this scheme of things. The mandate of production of knowledge is not served either by surveillance or its conduit(medium,वाहक), the stuffing of boards of public institutions with those loyal to the ruling dispensation.
Of course, the practice of rewarding loyalty is not unusual even in democracies. For instance, it is considered quite appropriate that an incoming U.S. President appoints benefactors(helper,शुभचिन्तक) as ambassadors. But the impact of this is altogether different from that of appointing the head of an academy on the basis of political allegiance. Today, an ambassador is no longer a plenipotentiary(messenger,दूत), and a personal appointee assures expected performance actually ensuring efficiency. On the other hand, we certainly don’t want biddable heads for our educational institutions. We want them to be not only professionally suitable but also fearless and independent-minded. In the glasshouses of our existence that the media’s reach has by now created, anything less will be found lacking credibility, as the present government has discovered to its discomfiture in the case of the Film and Television Institute of India. While there is no disputing the state’s legal authority to appoint heads of public institutions, the professional authority of those chosen will henceforth remain subject to scrutiny(examine,जांच) by the public.
However, the practice of the government of the day appointing craven(fearful,डरपोक) individuals to further its political agenda has a long history in the Indian academy. Most political parties have done the same, whether it is the Congress, the CPI(M) or the two Dravida Kazhagams. They all attempt control and abet(encourage in wrongdoing,उकसाना) cronyism. It is interesting to note that even the fledgling Maharashtra Navnirman Sena extracts obeisance(respect,सम्मान) from academics. While the national media rightly highlights the high-profile instances of the Central government meddling(interference,हस्तक्षेप) in the premier institutions of the country, nobody gives a thought to this age-old practice in the State universities where the vast majority of our students is concentrated. So, it would be useful to extend Amartya Sen’s intervention to these reaches to establish the principle that the government’s action is rendered(provide,प्रस्तुत) credible only when it not only maintains a distance but also appoints only the best and the brightest to lead our institutions.
Autonomy and output
Now, to pursue Mr. Murthy’s query. Saying that we don’t want state control certainly implies that we want autonomy for our public institutions. But will autonomy necessarily yield(give,देना) the sites of research and education that we desire? Going by history, we have reason to be sceptical(disbelieve,अविश्वासपूर्ण). Until quite recently, India’s public institutions have had substantial freedom to function but this has not resulted in commensurately creative output. For instance, India’s social scientists have mostly been loath(unwilling,अनिच्छुक) to notice the glacial(cold,ठंडा) pace of human development in India where the vast majority has been left flailing due to the absence of effective public provisioning in health and education. In the context we might also ask, as Mr. Murthy did, what technical solutions for human deprivations have come from the archipelago(many island,द्वीप समूह) of science and technology institutions maintained by the state? Exceptions of course exist, the contribution of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research to the Green Revolution coming to mind. As for the IIMs, they seem to have recently set themselves up as cheerleaders of corporate globalisation, leaving you to wonder what may be expected if they are given the full autonomy that they believe they should have, and which should of course be granted to them ungrudgingly(in a generous manner,उदारतापूर्वक). Do they aspire to build liberal and democratic spaces committed to producing innovative ideas for India? Or would they remain content as purveyors of borrowed protocols at exorbitant fees? And, finally, how committed are the teachers in the mushrooming public universities to equipping our youth with the best in the world, a task involving high investment of time and effort?
Our higher education community has generally failed to govern itself credibly vis-à-vis the production of knowledge. The most egregious(worsening,ख़राब) instance of this is their having developed, of their own volition, criteria for evaluating faculty performance featuring quantitative scoring of research output, later on gleefully(joyfully,प्रसन्नतापूर्वक) adopted by the University Grants Commission as its Academic Performance Indicator. Crudely designed and pathetically childish, this scheme is entirely out of sync with anything in the wider world where India’s academics are expected to compete on equal terms. It privileges quantity over content, a device set to take us backwards. Interestingly, it was conceived of by academics without any micromanagement by government, a fact that the bureaucracy is naturally fond of recounting.
Will Prof. Sen’s salvo(burst,धमाका) and Mr. Murthy’s challenge lead to a new imaginary for the Indian academy? These interventions by two of India’s leaders must lead us to rethink the architecture of our public educational institutions so that they are made fit for our youth. The bottom line is “Swaraj by all means, but it is what do you do with that that counts”.
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