Towards excellence in higher education

(Mains GS 2 : Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.)

Context:

• The 2023 edition of the QS world university ranking reckons that only three of India’s higher educational institutions amongst the top 200 of the world.

More autonomy:

•  None of India’s institutions of higher education appears in the list of top 100 universities of the world. 
• The fact is that the best universities in the world are flush with funds as they get a great degree of academic, administrative and financial autonomy.
• Autonomy is regarded as a necessary and sufficient condition to attain excellence.

Tight regulation:

• Funded through the University Grants Commission (UGC), universities are all subject to a very strict regulatory regime. 
• Abiding by UGC regulations and AICTE guidelines, encompasses almost all aspects of their functioning be it faculty recruitment, student admission and the award of degrees. 
• In many cases, they are micro-managed by the regulatory authorities, therefore most of them have become so comfortable with the practice that they rarely assert their autonomy.

Examples from globe:

• The best universities in the world are continuously sensitised about the importance of their autonomy and are trained and enabled to make their own decisions. 
• For example, the European University Association (EUA), prescribes a ‘university autonomy tool’ that lets each member university compare its level of autonomy vis-à-vis the other European higher education systems across all member countries. 
• By focusing on four autonomy areas (organisational, financial, staffing, and academic) the EUA computes composite scores and ranks all the countries in Europe.

New education policy:

• A large number of commissions and committees, including the national policies on education (including the National Education Policy 2020), have highlighted the need for higher education autonomy. 
• The new education policy seeks to completely overhaul the higher education system, and to attain this objective, repeatedly emphasises the need for institutional autonomy.
• The NEP regards academic and administrative autonomy essential for making higher education multi-disciplinary, and that teacher and institutional autonomy are a sine qua non in promoting creativity and innovation.
• The policy considers a lack of autonomy as one of the major problems of higher education and promises to ensure faculty and institutional autonomy through a highly independent and empowered board of management which would be vested with academic and administrative autonomy.

Away from excellence:

• Higher learning centres in ancient India enjoyed no less academic, administrative and financial autonomy than the most autonomous universities in the world today. 
• Forcing higher educational institutions to follow uniform standardised rules and regulations run counter to what the NEP provides for. 
• Micromanagement of student admission, faculty recruitment, course contents, programme delivery and administration are a surefire recipe to take higher education farther away from excellence.

Conclusion: 

• NEP argues for a ‘light but tight’ regulatory framework and insists that the new regulatory regime would foster a culture of empowerment. 
• Further, it goes on to say that by relying on a robust system of accreditation, all higher education institutions would gradually gain full academic and administrative autonomy.