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(a) If an undergraduate has to change his University in the middle of an academic year for any compelling reason, he will have no difficulty in fitting into the new system

(b) This would ensure at least a minimum quality in the curriculi of all Universities instead of there being a large disparity between them.

(i) Above is primarily an idea borrowed from the school system where within each system like the CBSE, ICSE, Matriculation and State Board, the curriculum is uniform across the State (the country in the case of the first two) and any student migrating within the same system from one school to another will have no difficulty in fitting into the new school. Not only is the number of such migrations at the school stage much larger than at the college stage but the latter students are intellectually more mature and more capable of adapting to the change.

(ii) Is a defeatist, fail-safe attitude towards curriculum which is the core of an education system . Instead of aiming at a dynamic high level, the Government is aiming at a minimum low. Curriculum quality and the frequency of its updating is a parameter for which the NAAC gives a substantive weightage in its accreditation ratings. A uniform curriculum would virtually nullify the importance of curriculum as a parameter of accreditation and hollow out and freeze the quality of pedagogy.

At present, the Boards of Studies (BOS) of each University determine the curriculum for any course. Who would do this under the new dispensation? The Government, or some super – BOSs specially constituted by Government? What to teach and how to teach are the two core ingredients of academic autonomy. The new dispensation would take away the first. We talk of preserving and enhancing academic autonomy in one breath and take away even the existing autonomy in the same breath! If curriculum design is not the responsibility of a university and only teaching is, it would just become a dignified tutorial college!

India is the only country in the world having the system of affiliated colleges. Recognising the stagnation in curricular innovation due to the centralised control of universities over even good colleges, the National Policy on Education (NPE) 1986 laid emphasis on developing autonomous colleges, a step in which Tamil Nadu leads the country. Apart from recognising the sheer infeasibility of any University being able to oversee and guide a couple of hundred affiliated colleges and freeing the colleges from the stranglehold of unnecessary day-to-day control by Universities, one of the main aims of the concept of autonomous colleges was to encourage these colleges to innovate in the matter of course design, curriculum development and pedagogy. (Even here, an example of a University’s unimaginative control is the case of a prestigious autonomous women’s college in Chennai which is given autonomy in arts and humanities but not in management subjects where updateness of the curriculum crucially affects the placement chances of students). In these days of competitive globalisation, the Government should encourage colleges to develop a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) in their curriculum so as to give their students a competitive edge in placements. Imposing a common curriculum on all Universities in this context is nothing short of an absurdity.

The NPE did suggest a Common Core Syllabus for all undergraduate students. However, this was not for each subject and was a general enculturalising, sensitising module exposing all undergraduate students to our country’s great past and heritage in various fields of knowledge, the values it has stood for, both ancient and modern , and the elements of good citizenship. Unfortunately, this good idea died a natural death due to efforts not being made either to develop a model curriculum or train teachers to teach this somewhat inter-disciplinary subject.

It may not be inappropriate for universities to come together and develop a common minimum core in each subject which every university should cover and build thereon a dynamic superstructure of currently relevant topics. However, press reports do not make it clear that this is the Government’s intention.

Due to the pressure of the changing external environment and the need to meet the employers’ expectations, a certain measure of commonality might exist in the university curriculi at any given point of time, but this would be acceptable as it would be dynamic and responsive to external demands.

There are several other areas in which the Government has neglected developing common standards of performance for all Universities. Punniah committee had pointed out that whereas some universities had only 0.5 non-teaching staff for every one teaching staff, others had 5! For the same number of affiliated colleges, some universities had twice as many clerical staff as others in the colleges section.

Block grants to universities are being made by Governments largely on ad hoc grounds and some degree of bargaining. It is essential and possible to evolve a formula for arriving at the block grant that a University is reasonably entitled to based on prescriptive norms for parameters such as overall size, teacher- student ratio, clerical strength, salary bill, administrative expenses and so on. A common academic calendar for all universities has been talked about for a long time.

It was Mao Tse Tung, the Supremo of communism, a most rigid ideology, who said, “Let a thousand roses bloom”. Even he never said that they should all be of the same colour and size!

P.K.Doraiswamy IAS Rtd.,

(Former Chairman, A.P.State Council of Higher Education )

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