SOCIAL JUSTICE
Education at the higher levels, in general, and degrees, in particular, has suffered severe devaluation on two counts. Firstly, a reckless expansion of higher education, especially the liberal Arts. Humanities and Science subjects, without any relation to the available teaching-learning facilities to sustain standards. Secondly, there has not been adequate increase in jobs as compared to those successfully completing higher education. Hitherto two remedies were suggested both alternatively as well as in combination. One was the restriction of entry into higher education, especially those-the large majority-who enter universities and colleges for want of any better and fruitful option. Another is the proposal for delinking degrees from jobs, a nation based on the hope that it would stem the mad rush for higher education and universities and colleges, in turn, relieved of pressure, could concentrate on providing higher education, without dilinting the quality and standard. Although the annual growth rate of admissions has considerably decreased during the seventies and eithties, as compared to the sixties, there has., not been any appreciable increase in the jobs even for those relatively less number completing higher education.
The questions of Access to Higher Education and Delinking therefore, of late, have come to engage public attention so much that the document "Challenge of Education" squarely raises these two questions. in the deliberations of educational and non-educational organisations and professional bodies too, the issues of access to nigher education and delinking degrees from jobs have been debated and, of the diverse views suggested, the following appear worth noting.
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Access to higher Education The job prospects of a degree or the employment potential of higher education is the main question, which has more and more become remote over the years. The main issue is not excellence in higher education for its own state. Universities and colleges today function under conditions of severe shortage of facilities, students without motivation to learn and teachers without commitment to teach. But if they are relieved of the pressure of numbers, shortage and without complaints of unmotivated students and commitmentless teachers, universities and colleges could pursue higher education with as close relationship with the world of work/employment as they could. If educated unemployment still persists, the blame is not laid on the doors of colleges and universities, i.e. deterioration in the standard of higher education, but, perhaps to the absence of match between education and job requirements. Some would even suggest a faster pace of economic development giving rise to greater job avenues to absorb the educated. But this is not the main issue and the whole question has been viewed as one of "access to higher education", i.e., whether it should or should not be open to all; who should or in what proportion should go for higher education, etc.
The main contention of the observers is that access to higher education should be limited and restricted. Their suggestions indicate that two types of considerations should govern this restriction: (i) quality, talent, brilliance, those with scholastic aptitude, meritorious in school final examinations etc; (ii) higher education itself, i.e. the universities and colleges, should be checked from further expansion mainly along the traditional lines, and that admission should be selective. But behind both these considerations lay the fear that without these, higher education, depleted in its, quality and standard, leads to serious educated unemployment. This is why there, is the related argument for delinking degrees from jobs.
Delinking and Access to higher Education For a long time now an amorphous feeling has prevailed in our society that it is unjust to require a person to produce a degree qualification for the job he is applying. This feeling has acquired a pointed focus in the deliberations of many educational institutions and professional bodies especially in view of the proposed National Policy on Education.
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While a number of institutions and bodies have highlighted the injustice of linking employment with degrees, most of them have also accepted that we may have no alternative, as some testing criteria is necessary. Others have qualified their suggestions for delinking by prescribing exceptions for such professions like Engineering, Medical, Agricultural, lecturers and teachers.
It has also been pointed out that delinking will not reduce pressure on higher educational institutions; "on the contrary, there is the danger that SCs and STs might lose even their limited, chances of acquiring knowledge, and achieving some social mobility that they now have through education and the `employable' status which they are in a position to acquire after some education, especially in the professional areas, etc".
Furthermore, it was cautioned that delinking, though on the face of it may look attractive, has deeper implications, and may bring a host of malpractices in its wake. "It may pave the way for mushroom comercial tutionals springing up for training the job seeker".
There are also suggestions that to facilitate the delinking of jobs from degrees, there should be alternative to university education, in the shape of technical institutes.