Aug 25 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)
Leave IITs Alone
Instead of reforming higher education, UGC and HRD ministry are steadily assuming the role of Big Brother
oes the left hand of the NDA government know what its right hand is up to? Prime Minister Narendra Modi called upon the 16 Indian Institutes of Technology last week to teach bright minds the “science of thinking and the art of living”, challenging them to come up with new technologies in defence, healthcare and for common people in their day-to-day lives. Paradoxically, recent Big Brother-like moves by the education bureaucracy to force the IITs into following staid and unimaginative UGC course norms – which they never had to before – will end up damaging the very innovative spirit and creativity that Modi is appealing to at the IITs.New UGC guidelines after the fracas over the four-year undergraduate programme at Delhi University initially forced private universities to scrap some innovative programmes. Then the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, was constrained to tweak and rename a course. Finally, UGC mandarins decided to extend the deadening hand of state control over IITs too, asking them to follow UGC norms.
When two IIT directors protested that their institutes are governed by a separate Act of Parliament with no UGC jurisdiction – which is indeed the case – the HRD ministry reportedly advised them to list out non-conforming courses and review them jointly with UGC mandarins.
The PM must clamp down on all such efforts to interfere with IITs. They are a global calling card for India and remain a rare beacon of excellence in an otherwise bleak landscape of higher education precisely because they have had full autonomy to manage their affairs so far. A few bureaucrats sitting in Delhi – deciding on what can or can’t be taught across the country – may satisfy the controlling instincts of Big Brother but there can be nothing worse for education and creativity.
Instead of reforming higher education, UGC and the HRD ministry headed by Smriti Irani appear bent on a logic-defying fetish for control.
PM Modi announced recently that the Planning Commission would be wound up. A good way to look at UGC is as the Planning Commission of the educational sector. It ought to be wound up and an educational think tank, which can offer professional advice and ratings and perhaps disburse some funds as well without having coercive power over educational institutions, set up in its place.
When two IIT directors protested that their institutes are governed by a separate Act of Parliament with no UGC jurisdiction – which is indeed the case – the HRD ministry reportedly advised them to list out non-conforming courses and review them jointly with UGC mandarins.
The PM must clamp down on all such efforts to interfere with IITs. They are a global calling card for India and remain a rare beacon of excellence in an otherwise bleak landscape of higher education precisely because they have had full autonomy to manage their affairs so far. A few bureaucrats sitting in Delhi – deciding on what can or can’t be taught across the country – may satisfy the controlling instincts of Big Brother but there can be nothing worse for education and creativity.
Instead of reforming higher education, UGC and the HRD ministry headed by Smriti Irani appear bent on a logic-defying fetish for control.
PM Modi announced recently that the Planning Commission would be wound up. A good way to look at UGC is as the Planning Commission of the educational sector. It ought to be wound up and an educational think tank, which can offer professional advice and ratings and perhaps disburse some funds as well without having coercive power over educational institutions, set up in its place.
