11.72 Administration of Welfare Services. The advice, sup- port and initiative of the vice-chancellor or principal are indispens- able for an imaginative and effective programme of student welfare. But such work is so complex and many-sided that it needs a full-time dean of student welfare to look after its implementation. He should be an educationist with tact and vision trained specifically for the job and should be given sufficient status and authority to command respect and cooperation from the students and the staff. He should be expected to participate in academic work to the extent possible and regarded as a member of the academic community.
11.73 Student Unions. Student unions represent an important Way of providing student participation in university life outside the classroom. Properly organized, they help in self-government and self- discipline, provide a healthy outlet for students' energies and give the students useful training in the use of democratic methods.
11.74 It is for each university to decide how its students' union will function and we would welcome a good deal of experimenta- tion. But some broad principles can be indicated.
(1) Membership of the student unions should be automatic in the sense that every student should be presumed to be its member. But every student should be expected to choose at least one activity organized in the institution, e.g., arts society, football club, drama association, etc., and pay the required subscription. There should be no separate payment for the membership of the students' union as such: Each of the activities will thus have funds of its own and these would be handled by appropriate committees. The funds of the central union- to the extent they are needed-would be formed by contributions from each activity committee. The university or college should also give aid to the central union as well as to the different activities.
(2) It may be desirable to elect the office-bearers, not direct- ly by the large body of students (many of whom are fresh men), but indirectly by the different students' societies in the university who would send selected representatives to the union executive.
(3) There should be some disqualifications for office-bearers. For instance, persons who have spent two or more years in the same class should be disqualified.
(4) The successful working of student unions depends to a large extent upon the mutual trust and confidence between the teachers and the students. Greater teacher involvement in union activities should, therefore, be ensured. We would strongly commend the establishment of a university or college union in which all teachers and students automatically become members. All committees of the union and vari-
11.77 HIGHER EDUCATION: OBJECTIVES AND IMPROVEMENT 535
ous activity groups should have teachers on them and it should be their responsibility to guide the students tactfully on right lines without curbing their freedom to decide for themselves.
11.75 In some of the institutions, the educational objectives of student unions are being well realized and they are functioning satisfactorily. But in a majority of institutions, and particularly in recent years, they have tended to function like trade unions pre- suming to represent students' interests against those of the teachers and authorities. This idea should be firmly and definitely discour- aged. A university or college is an academic fellowship of equals where things can be discussed and decided reasonably, and the joint committees of teachers and students which we have recommended have this purpose specifically in view. These should be fully utilized to ascertain and redress the genuine difficulties of students. There is a general and, perhaps on the whole justified, complaint on the part of students that the college or university authorities sometimes take no notice of these difficulties and deprivations till they are backed by some form of so-called 'direct action' which has really no place in an educational institution. When, however, they are confronted by a strike or demonstration or some kind of violence,. they sometimes yield abjectly and students get the unfortunate impression that it pays to break the rules of discipline and good conduct. There is no justification for such administration. The members of the staff, the principals and vice-chancellors should all learn to be sympathetic, understanding, responsive and reasonable and yet decisive and firm, when necessary, in their dealings with students. What binds together students and teachers in a deep and creative partnership is the shar- ing of common interests, mutual regard and sense of values, and work- ing together for their main purpose which is the pursuit of knowledge and discovery. Anyone who is not committed to this philosophy or prepared to honour it has really no place in an institution of higher education.
11.76 It would be useful to convene a conference of represen- tatives of the students' unions in universities and colleges once a year, for the purpose of considering various problems of common inter- est such as the improvement of discipline and the promotion of academ- ic excellence. Such a conference could also promote a sense of par- ticipation in the student community in the development of universities and colleges, apart from affording them an opportunity to express their views on matters that concern their studies and well-being. We suggest that the UGC should take initiative in convening and finan- cially supporting such an annual meeting.
11.77 Student Discipline. In the last couple of decades, so much has
536 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 11.78
been written about problems of student unrest, its numerous ugly manifestations and the causes responsible for it that it is not neces- sary for us to repeat the details. Briefly, there have been many ugly strikes and demonstrations-often without any justification-leading to violence, walk-out from classrooms and examination halls, ticketless travel, clashes with the police, burning of buses and cinema houses and, sometimes, even manhandling of teachers and university officers. There is a variety of causes which has brought about these ugly ex- pressions of uncivilized behaviour, e.g., the uncertain future facing educated young men leading to a sense of frustration which breeds irresponsibility; the mechanical and unsatisfactory nature of many curricular programmes; the totally inadequate facilities for teaching and learning in the large bulk of institutions; the poor student- teacher contact-many a student goes through the entire undergraduate course without exchanging a word with his teachers; the inefficiency and lack of scholarship on the part of many teachers and their failure to `interest themselves in the students' problems; the absence of imagination and tact combined with firmness on the part of heads of institutions; the prevalence of what has come to be known as teacher politics in some colleges and universities, the attempt by political parties to interfere in their work, and by no means the least, the impact of the conditions of public life in the country, the falling standards of discipline among the adults and a weakening of their civic consciousness and integrity.
11.78 while such incidents and their contributory factors have been a feature of higher education for some years past, what is particularly disturbing at present is the noticeable trend towards a progressive deterioration and the fact that these acts are increasing- ly committed quite unapologetically and on irrelevant and frivolous grounds. This is specially regrettable in view of the considerable expansion of opportunities for youth that independence has initiated and of the critical challenges that the nation is facing in the fields of both defence and economic and cultural development. In such a situation, sociological explanations are not enough. Indeed, unless they indicate a feasible solution of the problem and lead to effective action, mere explanation is likely to be mistaken for justification. Urgent steps are, therefore, needed to curb these trends and to ensure that, whatever else education may or may not aim at doing, it should at least strive to enable young men and women to learn and practise civilized norms of behaviour and commit themselves honestly to social values of significance. It is also necessary to remember that the responsibility for the situation is not unilateral-it is not merely that of the students or parents or teachers or State Governments or the political parties-but multilateral. All of them share it, togeth- er with many factors in the objective
11.80 HIGHER EDUCATION: OBJECTIVES AND IMPROVEMENT 537
situation and no effective solution is possible unless each agency responsible for the malaise does its own duty. Some of the remedies for students unrest, therefore, go beyond the education system. But even if we leave them out, there are two major things that the educa- tion system itself can and must do:
- remove the educational deficiencies that contribute to it; and
- set up an adequate consultative and administrative machinery to prevent the occurrence of such incidents.
11.79 The first of these measures, the improvement of the educational process, is the heart of the problem. The discipline which higher education cultivates should aim at self-discipline- discipline directed from within, which does not depend primarily on external control. Moreover, such discipline can grow only if it is deeply related to the pursuit of deeper goals in life and rises out of interest and devotion to scholarship. In other words, the incentives to positive discipline have to come from the opportunities that the institution presents and the intellectual and social demands it makes on the students. From this point of view, we have emphasized, throughout this Report, the need to improve standards in institutions at all stages of education, including colleges and universities. We have also stressed the need, side by side, for providing a better standard of student services. Unless this is done, a radical cure to the problem is not possible.
11.80 With regard to the second of these measures, we would like to emphasize that the whole of university life is to be treated as one and that all attempts at polarisation between teachers, stu- dents and administration should, therefore, be avoided. From this point of view we have made a number of important recommendations such as the appointment of joint committees of teachers and students, the establishment of a central committee under the chairmanship of the vice-chancellor or principal consisting of students and teachers, and where advisable, the association of students with the Academic Council and the Court. What we have to strive to generate is a spirit of comradeship between teachers and students based on mutual affection and esteem and on a common allegiance to the pursuit of truth, of excellence in many directions and of the good of the society as a whole. If this spirit could be created, many of the problems of discipline which bedevil our academic fife at present will become easier to solve and, will, we hope, disappear in course of time.
538
NOTE
11.81 Universities and Colleges There has been since Independence, a large expansion in the field of higher education. The number of universities has increased from 20 in 1947 to 64 in 1966. There are now institutions 'deemed to be universities' under Section 3 of the UGC Act. The number of affiliat- ed/university colleges was 2,565 in 1965-66. A fist of universities, 'institutions deemed to be universities' and the number of university/affiliated colleges of each university is given below:
Year of University/Institution deemed to be Number of
Establishment University Colleges
A. Universities
1857 Calcutta University 168
Bombay University 58
Madras University 157
1887 Allahabad University 6
1916 Banaras Hindu University (Varanasi) 18
Mysore University 63
1917 Patna University 10
1918 Osmania University (Hyderabad) 61
1921 Aligarh Muslim University. 4
Lucknow University 18
1922 Delhi University 41
1923 Nagpur University 84
1926 Andhra University (Waltair) 61
1927 Agra University 143
1929 Annamalai University (Annamalainagar)
1937 Kerala University (Trivandrum) 140
1943 Utkal University (Bhubaneswar) 72
1946 Saugar University 67
1947 Rajasthan University (Jaipur) 75
Panjab University (Chandigarh) 149
1948 Gauhati University 75
Jammu and Kashmir University (Srinagar) 34
HIGHER EDUCATION : OBJECTIVES AND IMPROVEMENT 539
Year of University/Institution deemed to be Number of
Establishment University Colleges
1949 Roorkee University
Poona University 46
M.S. University of Baroda, . 6
Karnatak University (Dharwar) 53
1950 Gujarat University (Ahmedabad) 125
1951 S.N.D.T. Women's University (Bombay) 17
Visva-Bharati (Santiniketan) 8
1952 Bihar University (Muzaffarpur) 44
1954 Sri Venkateswara University (Tirupati) 28
1955 S.V. Vidyapith (Ballabh Vidyanagar) 13
Jadavpur University (Jadavpur) ..
1956 Kurukshetra University (Kurukshetra) 4
Indira Kala Sangit Vishwavidyalaya
(Khairagarh) 32
1957 Vikram. University Ujjain) 39
Gorakhpur University 41
Jabalpur University 21
1958 Varanaseya, Sanskrit Vishvavidyalaya. 75
Marathwada, University (Aurangabad) 28
1960 U.P. Agricultural University (Nainital) 4
Burdwan University 43
Kalyani University ..
Bhagalpur University 44
Ranchi University 35
1961 K.S. Darbhanga Sanskrit Vishvavidyalaya 28
1962 Punjab Agricultural University
(Ludhiana) 5
Punjabi University (Patiala) 9
Orissa University of Agriculture and
Technology (Bhubaneswar) 3
North Bengal University (Siliguri) 19
Rabindra Bharati University (Calcutta) 20
Magadh University (Gaya) 34
Jodhpur University 2
Udaipur University 11
Shivaji University (Kolhapur) 51
1964 Indore University 17
Jiwaji University (Gwalior) 30
Ravi Shankar University (Raipur) 44
University of Agricultural Sciences
(Hebbal) 3
Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University
(Hyderabad) 6
Bangalore University 31
Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishvavidyalaya
(Jabalpur) 8
1965 Dibrugarh University . 34
1966 Madurai University ..
TOTAL (Colleges) 2,565
540 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Year of University/Institution deemed to be Number of
Establishment University Colleges
B. Institutions deemed to be Universities under UGC Act
1958 Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore)
Indian Agricultural Research Institute (New Delhi).
1961 Indian School of International Studies (New Delhi).
1962 Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya (Hardwar).
Jamia Milia Islamia (New Delhi)
1963 Gujarat Vidyapeeth (Ahmedabad),
Kashi Vidyapeeth (Varanasi).
1964 Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Bombay).
Birla Institute of Technology and Science (Pilani).
541
SUMMARY 1 Objectives of Universities. In broad terms, the functions of the universities in the modern world may be said to be the following:
- to seek and cultivate new knowledge, to engage vigor- ously and fearlessly in the pursuit of truth, and to interpret old knowledge and beliefs in the light of new needs and discoveries;
- to provide the right kind of leadership in all walks of life, to identify gifted youth and help them develop their potential to the full by cultivating physical fitness, developing the powers of the mind and cultivat- ing right interests, attitudes and moral and intellectu- al values;
- to provide society with competent men and women trained in agriculture, arts, medicine, science and technology and various other professions, who will also be cultivated individuals, imbued with a sense of social purpose;
- to strive to promote equality and social justice and to reduce social and cultural differences through diffu- sion of education; and
- to foster in the teachers and students, and through them in society generally, the attitudes and values needed for developing the 'good life'in individuals and society. 11.02
2 In addition to these broad functions which they share in common with all universities, Indian universities will have to shoulder some special responsibilities in the present state of our social and educa- tional development. For instance,
- they must learn to serve as the conscience of the nation; and from this point of view, they should encour- age individuality, variety and dissent, within a climate of tolerance;
- they should develop programmes of adult education in a big way and to that end, evolve a widespread net- work of part-time and correspondence courses;
- they should assist the schools in their attempts at quantitative self-improvement;
- they should shake off the heavy load of their early tradition which gives a prominent place to examinations and strive to improve standards all-round by a symbiotic development of teaching and research; and
- they should create at least a few centres which would be comparable to those of their type in any other part of the world and thus help to bring back the 'centre of gravity' of Indian academic life within the country itself. 11.04-10
542 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT