Why Indian higher education needs greater representation of 'Right' thinkers
Recently, a petition addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been making the rounds. It urges greater representation to the Arts and Classical Indic Heritage in the National Educational Policy (NEP). The prime mover of the petition is Bharat Gupt, former Associate Professor in English, Delhi University, and, at present, Trustee of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA).
The petition has been signed by several eminent teacher-scholars, including VN Jha, TS Rukmini, Subhash Kak, Prakash Shah, Ramesh Rao, Alok Pandey, V Ananda Reddy, T Ganesan, and Chandra Mohan. Signatories also include eminent and learned activists such as Rajiv Malhotra, Manohar Shinde, Madhu Kishwar, Radha Rajan, Shefali Vaidya, and Yogini Deshpande, among others.
Petition
The very first sentence clarifies the central concern of the petition: "The government has appointed a nine-member Committee under space scientist K Kasturirangan's leadership to prepare the final draft for the New Education Policy (NEP), but does not contain a single Sanskrit expert, artist, musician or philosopher. The exclusion of not only arts but also humanities, social sciences, and traditional systems of knowledge is complete."
The question that immediately arises is whether the petition is justified. A simple answer would be "Yes". True, there is a Professor of Persian in the Committee, but he seems to be the "token" Muslim; similarly, there are representatives of the SC and ST interest groups. But, arguably, none of the Committee members may be considered to have made a made a notable contribution in the Arts, Humanities or Social Studies. Similarly, there is no renowned Sanskritist in the Committee. Even the Chair of the Committee, K Kasturirangan, however eminent a technocrat, isn't a teacher or career educator.
What does this absence signify? Does the government have no faith in the capabilities of those in Humanities and Social Studies? Perhaps justifiably so. For too long have these disciplines been dominated by Left-liberals, who have done more harm than good to the cause of national education. But are there no "Right"-thinking scholars, professors, or intellectuals in these disciplines?
What about Sanskritists, Indologists, artists, and educators or teachers with a proven track record? Surely, the country doesn't lack in these? Again, it would seem that the government does not repose much confidence in them. Rather, the approach is to impose from the top, at the hands of technocrats and bureaucrats, diktats or edicts that are supposedly good for everyone, regardless of discipline or area of study.
The previous committee under the stewardship of cabinet secretary TSR Subramaniam made the infructuous recommendation of an all-Indian educational service on the lines of the Indian Administrative Service. As if the IAS is a model for all competent or desirable service to the nation. Are teachers, too, to be recruited by an apex government-administered examination? Surely not.
Teaching is a calling, a vocation, not merely a profession. Excellence in teaching must not be regulated by some centrally administered body like the UPSC. Luckily, the recommendations of the Subramaniam committee were not implemented; perhaps they were considered too expensive or impractical. Public money, of course, was wasted in the tenure of the committee.
Failure
Top-down, centrally administered policy proposals are, it would seem, doomed to failure. Why? Because Indian higher education is so diverse and heterogeneous that all attempts to impose a uniform paradigm from above are subverted, scuttled, or bypassed. Policy documents are merely periodic pretences to show that the MHRD means business.
Making the usual noises and gestures towards quality, inclusiveness, and the expansion of the education sector, they often copy overseas models, inapplicable to India to begin with. Throughout the last few years, however, most attempts to standardise, quantify, and measure quality in Indian higher education have similar lacunae or failings in not addressing disciplines other than the sciences and engineering.
No wonder the highest ranked universities in India, such as IISc or the IITs are not universities at all, but technical or science institutions. As if science or engineering can be the prototype of all learning. Even papers published by teachers are rated according to indices such as Scopus or Web of Science.
Flexible
These private rating agencies have a stranglehold on citation statistics, making profits from research and scholarship. They are, moreover, heavily weighted in favour of sciences. Why shouldn't free services such as Google Scholar also be used? Sadly, books which are the primary conveyers of knowledge in the Humanities and Social Studies are not even factored in the ratings.
With a scramble for APA or similar quantifiable yardsticks to measure either competence or fitness for professional advancement, we have the absurd situation in which nearly 42,000 journals have been included in the UGC's recognised list, all a consequence of much lobbying from various stakeholders. To return to the petition, should the PMO instruct the MHRD to include Sanskritists, artists, or Liberal Arts experts on the Committee? Not necessarily.
Just tokenism isn't enough. What is required is a change in vision. This means, at the very least, the sciences and engineering cease to be the primary measures of knowledge, expertise, or competence. More importantly, technocrats, bureaucrats, and empowered members of the academy should refrain from thinking that they know enough to impose their will and mandate on the whole country. Education is too important to be left in the hands of such "experts". There is a simple rule of thumb in these matters: standardise primary education by all means, but keep higher education flexible and decentralised.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)