The Hindu : `Scrap affiliation system in higher education'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 18, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

`Scrap affiliation system in higher education'

By Our Special Correspondent

Correspondent

COIMBATORE, JAN. 17. Eminent educationist, V.C. Kulandaiswamy, has called for the scrapping of affiliation system in higher education, describing it as a "curse".

Speaking at the valediction of the Pearl Jubilee celebrations of the Kongunadu Arts and Science College here recently, he said, "There is no salvation for higher education unless you free at least the large number of deserving institutions from this anachronistic and fossilised bondage."

He pointed out that all over the world, higher education was in university campus. There were big institutions and had the critical mass of staff and students to develop a big library, subscribe for a large number of journals and build infrastructure facilities and modernise them periodically.

"In India, unfortunately, higher education is badly fragmented and located in more than 13,000 colleges. They are small in number; poor in academic facilities". However, because of the large number, they had 89 per cent of the under-graduate students, 66 per cent of the post-graduate students and 82 per cent of the total faculty. But they had only nine per cent of the research workers. And the balance of 91 per cent was in the university departments.

Though the colleges had 66 per cent of the PG students and they also guided M.Phil and Ph.D. students, "they do not have professor positions. The last University Grants Commission (UGC) pay committee of which I was a member recommended that PG colleges must have professor positions. Unfortunately, the Ministry of Human Resource Development has not accepted that recommendation".

According to a college release, he also lamented that India had only about 300 universities as against 684 universities in Japan, which was a far smaller country. "India must increase the number of big institutions to promote excellence in higher education and must develop before 2020 at least 2,000 universities."

Admitting that it would be difficult to build so many new universities, he suggested developing a programme for granting autonomous status to a number of colleges and nourishing as many good colleges as possible to the status of Deemed to be University.

In this regard, he commended the initiatives taken by the UGC including introduction of a system of universities with a potential for excellence.

The UGC had identified five universities and sanctioned them a development grant of Rs. 30 crores.

Another set of 12 universities had been sanctioned Rs. 5 crores each. He advocated the system of private universities for which an Act should be promulgated by Parliament.

He pointed out that the objective of higher education was not only teaching but also research

"Progress of a nation in the science and technology environment depends on its capacity for innovation." It was a research environment that promoted enquiry and change and thereby brought about greater productivity and development.

"It is necessary for the teacher to bear in mind that theirs is a special position in the society."

He asserted that the health of the educational institutions depended on the "social consciousness of the management and the value system of the teachers". Only "healthy educational campuses" would be able to ensure "the health of the nation as a whole".

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