March 20, 2018, will be remembered as a ‘Black Day’ in the history of higher education in India. Under pressure from the Government, the UGC has announced autonomy for 6o institutions of higher education across India. This autonomy has nothing to do with the freedom to teach and learn and engage with ideas. It is about giving financial autonomy to administrations and management bodies of universities and colleges so that they can start self-financed courses and hike student-fees at will. It is an autonomy from regulations and public accountability.
The autonomy clause was a major part of the recommendations put forward by a discredited draft of the National Education Policy. The Government (MHRD) had been forced to withdraw this draft from the floor of the Parliament after it became clear, during the early stages of a debate in the Rajya Sabha, that the drafting committee had not done any homework regarding the history of higher education in India, the needs of the people and the founding principles of Equity, Access and Excellence.
Shamelessly, the government has taken out the provisions of the draft and tried to push them in, through the backdoor of UGC regulations, using the UGC as a pliable body.
This is an extremely arrogant step that violates the founding principles of ‘Equity’ and ‘Access’ in higher education. The autonomy from regulations also means that there will be no check on the quality and adequacy of infrastructure (classrooms, labs, faculty, student-teacher ratio, etc.) leading to an inevitable and certain fall in the third founding principle, ‘Excellence’.
So, the government’s first-leg implementation of Graded Autonomy for universities and colleges makes a mockery of independent India’s inclusive and empowering vision of higher education as a critical means to progressive social transformation. It compels ‘autonomous’ institutions to go their hard-nosed way in the direction of cut-throat commercialisation. It compels these institutions to reserve 20% faculty positions for foreign faculty, and 20% students-seats for foreign students. It compels these institutions to sideline the academic community from statutory processes and decision-making, and to replace Staff Councils, Academic Councils, etc. by authoritarian bodies.
Delhi University has been saved from this curse, for the time being, owing to the valiant struggle launched by its teachers and students under the banner of the DUTA. The DUTA has a long and accomplished history in defending public-funded higher education. It fought back the Birla-Ambani Model Act. It fought back six anti-people bills on higher education (introduced by the previous government), and it will force this Government to rethink the Graded Autonomy scheme. The fight is on, friends. It may get tougher than this but we are fully aware of the implications, and we are fighting.
At the root of this skewed policy move is the Government’s move to mortgage education as a tradeable service to WTO-GATS and other multi-lateral commercial treaties. Our fight is to force the Government – this one or the next – to withdraw education from the list of mortgaged tradeable services. Higher education must remain in the hands of the people of India. It must serve the cause of the nation and not be sold to profiteers and mercenary corporations.
The author is an Assistant Professor at SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi. You can read the original post by Mr Ghosh, here.
_