The Hindu : New Delhi News : “Indian varsities have remained historically moribund”

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 11, 2007
ePaper

New Delhi

New Delhi

“Indian varsities have remained historically moribund”

Staff Reporter

Have failed largely to prove their worth of being given autonomy and the system is terribly colonised, says NCERT chief

NEW DELHI: The Indian university system has “failed largely” to prove its worth of being given autonomy and it has only itself to blame for having “succumbed” to one government or the other, lamented Krishna Kumar, Director of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), at a panel discussion here.

Speaking at the panel discussion on “Autonomy of Educational Institutions” here on Monday, Prof. Kumar said: “Autonomy for higher education is discussed mainly in relation to the State, but it should be done with respect to social forces, private funders, creators and founders also. Indian universities have remained indifferent to the task of refining and functioning of the Indian State.”

Hitting out at the higher education sector, he said universities had failed to create a culture different from the one that was inherited from the colonial masters.

“The system is terribly colonised. It leads to a conversion of a student into a mere roll number. There are hardly any courses in the universities that talk about poverty or reflect that 75 per cent of our population lives in rural areas. Students can’t see any reflection of the Indian Constitution in what they study.” Calling for introspection by the universities, Prof. Kumar pointed out that they have to look within to find out why they have remained “historically moribund”.

“During summer vacations, the infrastructure of over 300 universities lies waste for three long months. Most of our faculty members go abroad to teach. Why can’t we use the university’s resources to help elementary education because so much of updating of knowledge has to occur in the school system?” said the NCERT Director.

Earlier, University Grants Commission Chairman Sukhadeo Thorat spoke on accountability and autonomy: “There is no disagreement on the need for autonomy in educational institutions. But we must also have a mechanism for accountability which can serve as an instrument to ensure that autonomy is used for proper purposes and make it more meaningful.”

Touching briefly on the recent attack on Shivaji Panikkar of Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara, Bharat Wariavwalla of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies said there were many institutions where autonomy was nominal and the purpose was only to “propagate a prevailing policy”.

“Can an institution be autonomous despite getting funding from the Government? It depends on people how they take autonomy. We have to understand the relationship between public culture and autonomy. However hostile the public culture is to autonomy, you can still preserve it,” asserted Dr. Wariavwalla The discussion was chaired by Jamia Milia Islamia Vice-Chancellor Mushirul Hasan.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi