Karnataka - Mysore   

Varsities urged to rethink college affiliation system

Special Correspondent

UGC Vice-Chairman calls for restructuring university education

WAKE-UP CALL: UGC Vice-Chairman V.N. Rajashekaran Pillai delivering the valedictory address at the South Zone Vice-Chancellors' Conference in Mysore on Friday. Seated on the dais (from left) are Mysore University Registrar N.D. Tiwari, Vice-Chancello r J. Shashidhar Prasad, AIU president Vachaspathi Upadhyaya, Srinath Batni, Director and Head, Global Accounts and Asia Pacific, Infosys, Mysore, and AIU secretary Dayanand Dongaonkar.

MYSORE: University Grants Commission Vice-Chairman V.N. Rajashekaran Pillai has called for restructuring university education in the country to meet the challenges confronting the higher education sector.

He was delivering the valedictory address at the three-day South Zone Vice-Chancellors' Conference held on the Infosys campus on Friday. Prof. Pillai questioned the wisdom of continuing with the affiliation system that was inherited in 1857 from London University, which itself abandoned the system in 1858, and called for structuring courses to meet the requirements of today. He stressed the importance of universities establishing institutional linkages with schools, the social sector and the industrial sector and called for introducing corporate culture in the administration of universities.

Prof. Pillai cited the example of a particular university, which has more than 1,100 colleges affiliated to it, and wondered if it is possible to ensure quality academic work without being bogged down by administrative work. In this context, he cited the proliferation of new-generation universities in India, some of which have only a few hundred students but are qualitatively superior. "When the IITs and the IIMs could emerge as centres of excellence thanks to a limited number of students, why is it not possible to emulate such examples and have a cluster of such institutions under the conventional system to improve the quality of University education," he asked.

He suggested that university departments open up undergraduate courses and restructure the content and called for promoting autonomous colleges to improve the higher education system in the country. A part of the solution to the ills plaguing the higher education system lies in addressing the major concerns related to the primary education system, he said, and referred to the challenges confronting the nation in meeting the constitutional obligation of providing free and compulsory education to every child in the age group of five to 14. "The country will need an additional one million teachers to cater for 30 million new students in the next three years, but the combined output of all the teacher training institutes in the country is less than 2.5 lakhs," he pointed out.

If India is to join the league of developed countries it should address the educational concerns of society in which a third of the people do not have access to education. In developed societies education is accessible to more than 90 per cent of the population, he said.

Distance education

In this context he underlined the importance of harnessing technology to promote e-learning and said another challenge is to equip teachers to be technologically competent. He said distance education plays an important role in meeting the requirements and called for its integration with the conventional system.

Dayanand Dongaonkar, secretary, Association of Indian Universities (AIU), in his concluding remarks said the three-day conference saw extensive brainstorming on key issues pertaining to higher education and recognised the need for greater collaboration between industries and academic institutions. He said the association had signed memorandums of understanding with many countries for collaboration in the past, but now recognises the need for similar collaborations with Indian industries. He said there is tremendous scope for greater manpower training and development of leadership skills in association with Infosys.

University of Mysore Vice-Chancellor J. Shashidhar Prasad, AIU president Vachaspathi Upadhyaya, and Srinath Batni, Director and Head, Global Accounts and Asia Pacific, Infosys, Mysore, were among those present.

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