11.10 We are convinced that a keen awareness of these respon- sibilities of the universities on the part of all university teachers and students is indispensable to the renovation of higher education we have in view. If we may say so, these are a challenge to the con- science of the university men and women and we trust it will be taken up in all seriousness.

11.11 Programmes of Development. To realize these ambitious objectives is no easy task. To do so in all our universities would need an order of investment in physical and monetary terms which is now beyond our reach and a large number of highly qualified and dedi- cated teachers who are not available. What is necessary, therefore, is a well-conceived and a comprehensive plan spread over the next twenty years and its vigorous and sustained implementation. This plan would include, amongst others, the following programmes which have high priority:

- a radical improvement in the quality and standards of higher education and research;

- expansion of higher education to meet the manpower needs of national development and, to some extent, the rising social ambitions and expectations of the people; and

- improvement of university organization and adminis- tration. We shall discuss these problems seriatim in this and the next two chapters.

SOME PROBLEMS

11.12 There is a general feeling in India that the situation in higher education is unsatisfactory and even alarming in some ways, that the average standards have been falling and that rapid expansion has resulted in lowering quality. The examination results, the re- ports of Public Service Commissions, the views of employers and the assessment of teachers themselves, the results of research-all seem to support this conclusion. In view of the difficulties inherent in the objective measurement of standards over a given period and as no serious attempt to measure standards has been undertaken so far, it is difficult to say definitely to what extent and in what respects, they have been falling. What is, however, apparent and really matters is that over a large area of education, the content and quality are inadequate for our present

128 Report on Standard of University Education UGC, New Delhi, 1965, pp. 4-7.

504 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 11.13

needs and future requirements, and compare unfavourably with the average standards in other educationally advanced countries. What is worse, the large gap between the standards in our country and those in the advanced countries is widening rapidly. Many of our educationists and public men, however, have not fully realized how serious are the actual conditions, academic and physical, that obtain in the colleges and universities. Even those who are broadly aware of the situation, fall to notice its poignancy because they have become used to such conditions. It would, therefore, be useful to describe them briefly.

11.13 The existing situation in higher education during the academic year broadly alternates between slackness and strain- slackness during the session, strain at the time of examinations. in many of the weaker colleges and universities, a majority of teachers teach mechanically and listlessly. The subjects in which they lecture do not often involve their intellectual passion. They do not usually have a part in the formulation of the syllabus which they are required to teach, nor do they make-with a few bright exceptions-experiments in methods of teaching. There is little enthusiasm for learning or discovery of new truths because research is not considered an integral part of their duties and whatever research is done is usually of unconvincing quality. In the absence of a 'research impregnated' atmosphere, even the intellectually ambitious younger members of the staff are soon caught up in the general atmosphere of indifference or cynicism. A large proportion of teachers suffer from financial wor- ries-particularly in colleges where grade's are lowand are often unable to buy any books or journals. Even the physical conditions of work discourage serious, undistracted study or intellectual dialogue with their colleagues. Usually, there is one staff common room which is not large enough even to accommodate all the members of the facul- ty. In some of the institutions, there are additional factors which are uncongenial for the development of intellectual vitality. The hierarchical concentration of authority within the departments and colleges, the atmosphere of distrust between senior and junior teach- ers, the cynicism about administrative authorities, the unseemly conflicts about offices and positions and the attitude of envy towards persons of superior attainments-all have contributed to the deadening of the spirit of intellectual curiosity and adventure. Some of the members are diverted from intellectual concerns into intrigue and conflict over the small administrative or financial prizes afforded by Indian academic life. On top of all this, the bureaucratic structure within which research has to be done, the dependence on the approval of indifferent superiors, the elaborate procedures through which equipment made abroad has to be obtained, the difficulties in the maintenance and repair of equipment once obtained and in establishing contact with researchers working

11.16 HIGHER EDUCATION: OBJECTIVES AND IMPROVEMENT 505

on related subjects, have all had a depressing effect on the morale of teachers and on the quality and quantity of their research output.

11.14 The situation with regard to the students is no better. Many now come from comparatively or entirely uneducated homes and are ill-prepared at the secondary level to undertake genuine university work; they have little experience of independent study; their curiosi- ty is not quickened and learning for them is mainly a matter of me- chanical memorization. There is, as a rule, little discussion of intellectual matters with their teachers or fellow students; their main duty is considered to be to attend uninteresting lectures usually given in a language which they understand inadequately. When the medium is an Indian language, there is a dearth of suitable textbooks and supplementary literature necessary to achieve competence in their subjects. Many of them cannot be expected to read textbooks in Eng- lish because it has not become for them the language of the library. The capacities of the better students are not fully stretched by curricular offerings or the stimulus which inspiring teachers could provide. In addition, a large majority of students are beset with financial worries which make concentration on academic work difficult.

11.15 This may appear an exaggerated picture. But it is not. If anything, it errs on the side of underestimation. It is, of course, true that there are bright exceptions to this dark picture which one must gratefully acknowledge. But taken all in all, the ideal of academic excellence is confined to a minority of teachers and students who have to keep it alive against the downward pressure of discouraging circumstances.

11.16 This situation has been in existence for a long time. What is new is the magnitude of the problems and their accentuation as a result of the extraordinarily rapid expansion of higher education and the development of new expectations in the post Independence era. In the past, the need for a better, more effective education was not felt so keenly because, so long as India did not supply the higher cadres of its own ruling class-or did so to a limited extent-the efficiency and effectiveness of its intelligentsia was of secondary importance from the point of view of the tasks it was expected to perform. Now that the responsibility for the progress of the country squarely rests on us we cannot afford to plead any alibis. The quali- ty of education, therefore, becomes of crucial significance. As the number of jobs and positions to be filled with highly trained persons increases, the gap between need and the capacity to meet the need is widening. It is obvious that, if higher education is not radically improved, our administration and technical progress, our intellectual standards and social advance will all be most seriously handicapped.

506 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 11.17

NEED FOR MAJOR UNIVERSITIES

11.17 The Proposal. While the need to improve higher educa- tion is widely recognized, difficulties begin when one tries to dis- cuss the remedies. The most common suggestions put forward in this regard are usually just the reverse of the defects described above. They try to bring the needed reforms into being through administrative measures, without taking into account the limited resources of finance and personnel available for such reforms or the administrative and political inhibitions operating against their realization. Indeed, it might be said without much exaggeration that many of the proposed remedies presuppose the existence of conditions which, if they really existed, would have made the reforms unnecessary! It is, therefore, imperative that we should adopt some new plan of action which would be both realistic and effective.

11.18 The new strategy that we propose has two important aspects. The first is the need to concentrate scarce human resources and not to scatter them over too wide an area. Even at present, our universities and colleges produce a small number of outstanding Indian scientists and scholars who, if they were to enter upon an academic career under the right conditions, would be able to make a great contribution to the improvement of our academic standards. But, apart from the fact that they are too few compared to our inherent national capacity and our population, they are unfortunately scattered thinly and at random over the entire system of higher education and have to work in comparative isolation and under unfavourable conditions; the burden of a heavy teaching load; large classes of unchallenging stu- dents; apathetic or intellectually unambitious colleagues; and an administrative system which intentionally or unintentionally does not encourage and, in some cases, even actively discourages high intellec- tual vitality and motivation. The able persons, who could have pro- vided the required leavening, are thus rendered ineffectual when they are so scattered and what is worse, their own creative powers decay under such conditions. On the other hand, experience has shown that the best results follow where a goodly number of persons or high potentialities come together in face-to-face intellectual communities and, by their constant dialogue and communication, stimulate each other to put forth their best creative efforts. If there is high quality of personnel, it makes all the difference whether people work in relative isolation resulting eventually in stagnation or in vigor- ous self-activating groups.

11.19 The most important reform that we envisage is the development of five or six of what we may call 'major' universities where conditions may be provided, both as to staff and students as well as to

11.22 HIGHER EDUCATION: OBJECTIVES AND IMPROVEMENT 507

the necessary equipment and atmosphere, to make first-class postgradu- ate work and research possible. The standards of these major univer- sities should be comparable to the best institutions of their type in any part of the world so that really gifted and promising students need not normally have to go abroad for receiving postgraduate or research training. We consider that the development of a few of the most promising universities in India (including, we hope, one of the IITs and one agricultural university) to such a standard within the next ten years is definitely practicable and should be taken up as a matter of high priority.

11.20 Why do we make this proposal and regard it as crucial at this stage ? There would be several advantages in creating such universities. In the first place, they would make their existence felt by their research and by the high standards of training which they would provide for their students. They would also supply a goodly portion of the outstanding personnel needed for the staffs of universities, colleges and other institutions of higher education. In this way, their graduates may be expected to infuse into them the standards acquired in their own universities and to spread the ethos of genuine intellectual activity and devotion into the institutions where they are employed. It is unfortunate that, at present, there are hardly any such universities in the country which perform this vital and catalytic role ill the Indian academic world.

11.21 One important advantage of these universities is that we would be able to provide, within the country itself, first-rate postgraduate education comparable to that in educationally advanced nations. The scholars and scientists trained in these universities will feel much more akin to their own centres of creativity. The importance assigned to foreign degrees, whether they are of high or average or poor quality, will be considerably diminished and those who have not 'returned' from abroad would not feel at a disadvantage. We realize that it will still be necessary for Indian scientists and scholars to go abroad for purposes of further training, research or for consultation with their foreign colleagues. We have made certain proposals in the scheme of scholarships for this purpose. But instead of going abroad to receive first-rate postgraduate education, *129 study abroad will primarily aim at bringing first-class Indian schol- ars to work with distinguished scholars of international reputation.

11.22 This concept of providing first-rate postgraduate educa- tion to talented young persons within the country received strong support

129 According to the latest available information, 15,393 Indian students and trainees were studying in foreign countries on 1-1-64. Of these, 1,353 students were studying arts, 1,652 were studying science, 4,191 engineering and technology, and 1,402 medicine and veterinary science. The number in the USA was 7,153, in West Germany 4,000, in the U.K. 2,798, in Canada 418, in France 123 and in the USSR 76.

508 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 11.23

from Prof. F. Seitz, President of the U.S. Academy of Sciences, and Prof. P. M. S. Blackett (President of the Royal Society). It would be worth while to quote from the convocation address to the University of Leeds (England) delivered by Prof. Blackett in 1964. His remarks may or may not apply to some developing countries, they are certainly relevant to Indian conditions:

There are three reasons why it seems to be exceedingly impor- tant that all developing countries should attempt as soon as possible to create facilities in the major subjects for first-class higher degree work, so that normally a student takes his higher degree in his own country. First, the present widespread practice of sending most bright students overseas to take a higher degree makes it difficult to build up native research schools in the universities because an adequate supply of research students is the lifeblood of a creative university postgraduate department. Following this it will be difficult to keep good staff unless they have an adequate number of postgraduate students. Second, the loss of trained people to the developing countries, by overseas students not returning to their homeland after taking their higher degrees abroad, will be reduced. Third, it will save much foreign exchange. A three-year Ph.D. course will cost some (pond)3,000, taking fees, maintenance and fares into consideration, and this is a direct drain on foreign exchange whether the money is provided by the State or privately.

11.23 In addition, these universities would help Indian academic life to come into its own. At present, the 'Centre of gravi- ty' of Indian academic life is largely outside India. That is to say, our scholars and scientists working in fields which are 'internation- ally cultivated still tend to look outside India for judgment of their work, for intellectual models of the problems which they study, for the books they read, and for their forum of appreciation and approval. This is damaging to our academic life in a number of ways. First, Indian problems are not seen in their concreteness and particularity and, as a result, techniques and theories are not adapted to the Indian situation. Secondly, Indian academics suffer from a certain lack of self-esteem and lose the confidence and courage necessary to try out new ways of attacking intellectual problems. When these major universities, comparable to the best in any part of the world, have come into existence, we venture to hope that our scientists and schol- ars, instead of having to look to Oxford, Cambridge or Harvard or Moscow or Paris for inspiration, would be able to look to centres within our own country for similar stimulation and guidance. This would be a change of the greatest significance. Once the stimulus has become 'Indianized', it could act much more continuously and be less dependent on costly and infrequent personal

11.6 HIGHER EDUCATION: OBJECTIVES AND IMPROVEMENT 509

contacts. Also, by becoming naturalized in the Indian environment, it will be directed more confidently towards problems to which our scientists and scholars could give themselves without feeling dislocated from their milieu.

11.24 This should not be taken to imply that we wish to promote any intellectual isolation or chauvinism-that will be the road to intellectual anarchy and disaster. No country, however outstanding its scientific and scholarly accomplishments, can be entirely self- sufficient. But there is a great difference between participation in the world intellectual community simply from the periphery, as a reproducer or a marginal contributor to what has been discovered or invented elsewhere, and participating as an equal in a process of creating, giving and receiving. We should strive for the latter position.

11.25 A possible objection to these proposals may be that what is proposed here is not quite democratic, that it seeks to insti- tute a system of elite education by favouring certain institutions and impoverishing others. We recognize that our approach does involve at this stage a only inevitable in an economy of scarcity but is also the only sure and certain differentiation between the universities. This is, however, not only inevitable in an economy of scarcity but is also the only sure and practicable way to benefit all ultimately in the shortest time possible. Moreover, we must recognize that pursuit of excellence implies and requires a discriminatory approach; and that to provide equal resources to all irrespective of the quality of their performance and potentiality for growth merely promotes mediocrity. We are trying to establish a democratic social order in our country and obviously a democracy cannot flourish unless it has at its dispos- al the services of a highly trained and powerfully motivated educated class. Unless a system can be devised which will produce such persons in much larger numbers than is being done at present, every aspect of the country's development will be prejudicially affected. In fact, we may go further and say that there is always need for elite from Chica- go, Harvard and Columbia. The upper stratum of American higher educa- tion was developed in the first quarter of the present century, large- ly by the Ph.D.s from Chicago, Harvard and Columbia. The development of British-higher education in the first half of the present century was largely due to the fact that, until recently, the staff of the new universities in most subjects was supplied by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge which, by 1900, had taken their place as distin- guished centres of scholarship and high standards of teaching.

11.26 Implementation. We must now examine how these major universities can be developed within the relatively short period of about a decade. The idea of establishing new universities for the purpose

510 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 11.27