- prescription of eligibility by the universities; and
- selection by the institution concerned of the best students from amongst those who are eligible and seek admission.
12.13 Determination of Places Available. We suggest that each university decide in advance the number of students to be admitted in each course in its teaching departments and separately in each of its affiliated colleges on the basis of the facilities available. This is already being done for professional and science courses. But even here, it is necessary to make the conditions more stringent. It is even more important to take similar steps in the courses in arts and commerce as well. The main difficulty is that no objective and specific criteria have been evolved for the purpose and the determination of the number of seats available with reference to the facilities provided is very elastic. We, therefore, recommend that the universities should evolve specific norms and criteria for determining the number of seats to be permitted in courses in arts and commerce. These should take into account, among other things, the student-teacher ratio, the facilities available for self-study, the library books, the journals subscribed, the number of library scats, the provision for tutorials, etc. The problem is so important that the UGC may consider the appointment of a committee to examine it in detail and make its findings available to the universities. It would then be possible to determine, with greater accuracy than at present, the number of students who can be admitted in arts and commerce courses with a reasonable hope of receiving a good education.
12.14 We would like to lay special emphasis on the determination of places in all affiliated colleges and in courses in arts and commerce because it is in these courses and in these institutions that most of the uncontrolled expansion takes place. It is imperative that the intake of students be fixed separately for each such institution and that this sanctioned strength should form an integral part of the conditions of affiliation. We have found many instances where the universities have not scrupulously discharged this responsibility and this has been one of the principal reasons for the deterioration of standards.
12.15 Eligibility. We have recommended elsewhere*146 that the present examination system should be reformed, that no one should be declared to have passed or failed in the higher secondary examination and that every student appearing should be given a certificate showing his performance. The universities, therefore, will have to prescribe, from time to time, conditions for 'eligibility', e.g., conditions for entitling a student to seek admission to their courses. These would naturally vary
146* Chapter IX.
12.17 HIGHER EDUCATION: ENROLMENT AND PROGRAMMES 559
from university to university and from course to course. Care should, however, be taken to ensure that they are defined with some measure of elasticity so as to permit the admission of all really promising students.
12.16 Methods of Selection. Once the number of places available is determined and the conditions of eligibility are prescribed, the stage is set for making selection for admissions. We visualize that, as secondary education expands and its quality improves, more and more students would become eligible and seek admission and that, in most institutions, the number of applicants for admission would exceed the places available. The position, however, would vary considerably from institution to institution. In good and well-established institutions, the number of applicants would be several times the places available while in some others, it may be just equal to or a little more than the number of seats. The selection of students for admissions would, therefore, pose a problem of varying magnitude and complexity from institution to institution. We recommend that each institution should decide its own procedure for selecting the best students from among the eligible applicants on the basis of its traditions and local conditions.
12.17 The search for good and reliable methods of selection is one of the important problems in higher education and vigorous research is needed to evolve them. Even in advanced countries, satisfactory techniques of selection have not been developed as yet. While the,search for good methods goes on, we have to begin the programme with such ad hoc methods as are available.We make the following general suggestions which, we hope, would be of use to institutions in devising their methods of selection.
(1) The common practice at present is to use examination marks rigidly as the sole criterion of merit and as the basis for selection. There is, however, little academic justification for it. Examination marks are notoriously unreliable for measuring attainment. Their prognostic value for determining the ability to profit from higher education is even more limited and several studies have shown that the correlation between school leaving examination marks and success in a college is not significant. Not many problems arise, however, at the extreme ends of the scale and it is easy to select a first or high second class student for admission or to reject one who has just scraped through the examination. But as one approaches the border- line of eligibility, the examination marks cease to serve as a reliable guide. For instance, the present situation where a debate often takes place whether a student with 39.6 per cent marks should or should not be admitted (the prescribed marks for admission being 40 per cent), and where such a student may be
560 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 12.18
admitted in one college or faculty but not in another, is Pickwickian, if not absurd. We recommend that while the use of examination marks as a major basis for admissions may continue as an interim measure until better selection methods are devised, their arbitrariness or lack of reliability should be compensated, to the extent possible, by taking other relevant considerations into account and by making due allowance for the socioeconomic handicaps of students so as to relate selection more directly to innate talent. As was stated above, this is specially important in borderline cases.
(2) It would be desirable that, in selecting students for admission, the institution should take into consideration the examination marks, the school record, the proficiency of the student in fields not tested in the examination, and such other relevant factors. If necessary, there should be an interview and a written examination, specially designed for testing aptitudes in relation to the fields of study which the student desires to take up. The final selection should be made on the basis of all this evidence and not on examination marks alone.
(3) In very exceptional cases of students with unusual gifts in some limited field (e.g., mathematics) it should be possible to relax even the minimum requirements prescribed for admission. It is by no means rare that a gifted student is unable to fulfil the minimum requirements for university entrance. If the rules on this score are rigidly and mechanically enforced, many a gifted student would never enter a university and this could be a serious national loss. In exceptional cases, therefore, the universities should have the right and the courage to suspend the rules and give admissions to students whose talent has been identified but who may not have been able to fulfil the entrance requirement for some reason. This authority may also be delegated to a few select affiliated colleges which can be trusted to maintain standards and exercise this right with care and discretion.
(4) A major objective of policy in selecting students for admission should be to secure social justice and to spread the net wide enough to catch all available talent. It will be necessary, therefore, to make some allowance for the handicaps created by the adverse conditions in which many students from rural areas, from urban slums and from the unprivileged classes have to study. From this point of view, the procedure for selecting students on the basis of 'school clusters' which we have already recommended for the award of scholarships*147 may be adopted for making admissions, especially to much-sought-after quality institutions.
12.18 University Boards of Admissions. For the successful implementation of this scheme, it will be necessary to set up a suitable machinery
147* Chapter VI.
12.19 HIGHER EDUCATION: ENROLMENT AND PROGRAMMES 561
responsible for the selection and placement of students, for giving them special tuition, where necessary, and for providing the necessary financial support. At present, selection is usually not dealt with as a serious problem either at the university or in the colleges. At the commencement of each academic year, it becomes a hectic activity and is then forgotten.. It is obviously not possible to build up a good admission policy on the basis of such intermittent experience. We recommend that each university should constitute (if it does not already have one) a Board of University Admissions, which should include representatives of the teaching departments of the university, affiliated colleges and the university administration. Its function should be to advise the university about all matters relating to admissions to teaching departments and the affiliated colleges, to review the implementation of admission polices from year to year, and to recommend any necessary changes. it should also be a responsibility of this Board to collect data relating to annual admissions and to analyse them so as to find out to what extent the objectives of the admission policies have been actually realized. The results should be published for general information. The UGC as a central clearing- house, should also undertake studies and coordination of developments in this field.
12.19 Central Testing Organization. The development of appropriate selection procedures for different courses of higher education is a technical process and it is necessary to create a suitable agency which will be able to deal with it effectively in due course. We recommend that the University Grants Commission may take the initiative in setting up a Central Testing Organization with the following objectives:
- to develop improved procedures for selection of students at various levels of university education and for various courses or branches of learning offered by the colleges and universities;
- to provide the necessary services to colleges and universities such as administering selection tests, supplying the test results and suggesting ways and means of utilizing the results for selection;
- to promote research within the universities into testing and related areas, with special reference to improvement of selection procedures at the university level;
- to advise colleges, universities and other similar organizations with regard to the selection of students;
- to establish field contacts so as to determine the requirements of different universities and colleges for the selection of students and to coordinate these activities at the national level;
- to establish contacts with similar agencies in other countries; and
562 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 12.20
- to make a continuing study of new developments in the field, in order to refine and improve selection procedures further.
12.20 The work to be done by such an organization will be extremely difficult and cover a very wide field. It would, therefore, be unrealistic to expect that it would be able to make a definite impact on admission practices and procedures in the immediate future. It is all the more important, therefore, that a programme for its development be prepared in the current plan. This should be divided into two phases. The first phase, which may take about three years, should be devoted to the preliminary work needed to set up the organization and develop a few pilot studies and experimental programmes. In the second phase, to cover the next three years, we may expect the organization to be fully operative with the necessary staff, accommodation and equipment which would include a security printing press.
PART-TIME AND OWN-TIME EDUCATION 12.21 At present, a student at the undergraduate stage must either be admitted on a full-time basis or go without education altogether. This creates a great demand for full-time seats in colleges and leads to a deterioration of standards as the resources to provide all the seats needed are not available. One solution to this is to keep full-time seats strictly limited on the basis of resources available and to institute correspondence courses, part-time courses, evening courses, etc., for those who aspire to a university degree but are not able to get admission to the regular courses. This device is being increasingly used in many countries such as the USA, the UK, the USSR, and Japan. The correspondence courses recently started by the Delhi University as a 'pilot project' have proved to be a promising experiment and are producing satisfactory examination results.
12.22 We recommend that the opportunities for part-time education through programmes Eke evening colleges, and for own-time education through programmes like correspondence courses, should be extended as widely as possible and should also include courses in science and technology (either at the degree or diploma level). They will help to reduce the capital costs of expanding higher education and cut down even the recurring costs to a substantial extent, especially as enrolments grow. They are the only means to provide higher education to those who desire to study further but are compelled, on economic grounds, to take up employment at the end of the school stage. There need be no fear that they will lead to a deterioration of standards, especially if due care is taken to maintain personal contacts with the students receiv-
12.26 HIGHER EDUCATION: ENROLMENT AND PROGRAMMES 563
ing correspondence education by organizing academic programmes during vacations and holidays. In fact, it would be correct to say that, by and large, the standards in such courses tend to be better because of the more intensive motivation of the students. We suggest that by 1986 at least a third of the total enrolment in higher education could with advantage be provided through a system of correspondence courses and evening colleges. We also suggest that the UGC should establish a standing committee on part-time education.
LOCATION OF AFFILIATED COLLEGES 12.23 Most of the expansion of undergraduate education we have visualized above will have to be met in two ways-the expansion of the existing colleges and the establishment of new ones. The size of the colleges has an important effect on their costs and efficiency and it is, therefore, important to evolve a suitable policy in this matter.
12.24 We recommend that, in granting affiliation to colleges, the universities should emphasize the expansion of existing colleges, rather than the establishment of new ones. Unless there are strong reasons to the contrary, a college should have a minimum enrolment of 500 and and it would be preferable to raise the enrolment in as many colleges as possible to 1,000 or more. In granting affiliation to a new college, care should be taken to see that its location is properly planned so as not to interfere with the proper growth of an existing institution and there should be a reasonable chance that it would grow into an institution of an adequate size within a period of about five years.
12.25 Small Colleges. One unsatisfactory aspect of the present situation is the existence of a very large number of colleges with a very small enrolment. The latest data available on the subject is given in Table 12.4.
It will be seen that about 15.6 per cent of the colleges are in the unenviable position of having less than 100 students. If an enrolment of 500 students is regarded as the very minimum below which a college may tend to be uneconomic and inefficient, about 60 per cent of the affiliated colleges are below this level.
12.26 We carried out an examination of the small colleges with an enrolment of less than 100. Data was available for 168 institutions only, but even from this some interesting facts emerged.
(1) Age. The classification of the colleges according to the year of establishment is given in Table 12.5.
It will be seen that 72 per cent of these small colleges were established during the four-year period-1961-64. Whether these colleges can
564 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 12.26
TABLE 12.4. SIZE OF AFFILIATED COLLEGES (1964-65)
No. of % of No. of Percent- No.of Percent-
colleges the total arts, age profes- age
Enrolment within the science, sional
range commerce colleges in
colleges in the range
the range
Less than
100 320 15.6 168 11.0 152 28.6
Between
100-299 602 29.2 391 25.6 211 39.5
Between
300-499 296 14.4 243 16.0 53 9.9
Between
500-999 457 22.2 373 24.5 84 15.8
Between
1000-1999 328 16.0 297 19.5 31 5.8
2000 and
above 53 2.6 51 3.4 2 0.4
TOTAL 2,056 100.0 1,523 100.0 533 100.0