Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

‘Free education from licence raj’

— Photo: M. Periasamy.

(From left) M.I. Savadatti, Vice-Chairman, Karnataka State Council for Higher Education, G.D. Sharma, president, Indian Colleges Forum, New Delhi, M. Aruchami, president, Association of Management of Private Colleges, Tamil Nadu, and B.K. Tyagi, Secretary, ICF, at the 16th National Conference of Indian Colleges Forum at PSG College of Arts and Science in Coimbatore on Friday.

Coimbatore: G.D. Sharma, president, Indian Colleges Forum, and former Secretary of University Grants Commission, has pleaded to free education from “licence raj”.

Presiding over the 16th national conference of the Forum here on Friday, he was introducing the themes for the conference which focussed on “reforming higher education in the context of globalisation”.

According to him, challenges of reforms in governance of higher education in India include multiplicity of apex organisations - UGC, AICTE, NCTE, medical councils, Agriculture Council, et al. Colonial system of affiliation of colleges and centralised curriculum and centralised evaluation are also impediments. Besides, higher education has to confront bureaucratic system of functioning of apex organisations resulting in lack of flexibility and innovations.

Hence, he called for an autonomous and accountable system at apex level with professional approach. There should be a clearly defined policy and indicator based system of assessment of performance of institutions. Besides, the colleges should be granted an autonomous and accountable system at State-level. While there should be a strong peer group involvement in development of higher education with civil society monitoring, higher education institutions should be given freedom with accountability. In addition, there should be a well-defined relationship between management-executive functions of institutions and system of mutual accountability.

Dr. Sharma, in his road map for “apex governance”, suggested that there should be single window clearance at apex level. Besides, they should be freed from government interference and such bodies should be made autonomous on the pattern of the Central Election Commission.

These bodies should have professional approach with flexibility and accountability. The State Council for Higher Education should play a pivotal role in terms of policy, funding and quality enhancement. There should also be State-level professional quality assurance agencies and national-level quality assurance agencies. Also the relationship between State and higher education institutions should be redefined. The control on use of infrastructure and mobilisation of resources should be removed. Strong measures of accountability should be implemented.

He suggested creation of a three-tier higher education system that envisaged public or private university (Central\State), deemed to be university (Central and State) and degree granting colleges. All of them should enjoy the status of creating and imparting knowledge, evaluating students and granting degree, diploma and certificate.

A digitalised system of students’ identity, education development, certification and career path should be set up. In addition, national qualifications framework should be formulated.

With specific reference to contents and delivery, he pleaded for curriculum reforms which focused on relevant programmes of studies with multiple options, modularisation of course, modular evaluation, semester and credit system, and expansion of higher education to reach at least 30 per cent of eligible age group population by 2025. Besides, the major emphasis should be on generation of knowledge keeping in view local, regional and national needs and free from dominant knowledge.

Above all, he called for a flexible and pragmatic mindset, ability to critically analyse, discern things with national and global interest, ability to change and adapt to new situations and create new situations and think out of the box in the interest of larger cause.

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