Keep politics far away from the V-C’s office
As long as governments grant vicechancellorships as political practice, the slide of university education will continue
Higher education in India is widely believed to be in crisis. The University system, in particular, is dogged not only by issues of access and quality but also suffers profoundly from failures of administration.
In recent years, several vice-chancellors have been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Chandra Krishnamurthy, erstwhile VC of Pondicherry, had to ingloriously quit sometime in 2016. Her forced resignation, it must be pointed out, was not only a result of an agitation by students and faculty. Rather, the tipping point followed from the findings of a high-level probe, which found her guilty of academic fraud: involving claims about listing a fictitious D. Litt degree in her CV. Earlier, in Bengal, Abhijit Chakrabarti, vice-chancellor of Jadavpur University, was compelled to exit office. While his failure to meaningfully respond to a molestation case sparked a student agitation, he added fuel to the fire by getting students beaten up by the police. This January, in an act of foresight or pre-emption, the Rajasthan University vice-chancellor J P Singhal tendered his resignation a day before the High Court was to decide his fate over a petition filed by two Jaipur-based activists. The petitioners were questioning the academic worth of the VC.
Vice-chancellors, especially those in charge of central universities in India, enjoy considerable, if not, overwhelming powers. And how little disdain and respect they show to deliberative bodies such as academic councils or executive councils was made most palpable by former Delhi University vice- chancellor Dinesh Singh. In a show cause notice issued to him by the human resources ministry on March 17, 2015, for example, one of the allegations was that he introduced the Four Year Undergraduate Programme without ‘clearance from the academic council, executive council, university court and the visitor who, in this case, is President Pranab Mukherjee’.
Contempt for internal dissent within the university was taken to the next level in the drama that recently unfolded at Hyderabad Central University. Here the VC Appa Rao Podile, who has also admitted to having plagiarised, is believed to have successfully used strong arm tactics to sort out his ‘disagreements’ with the students and faculty . In what is now well documented, the travails of HCU extend from caste oppression, violence, suspensions and beatings; all crowned, furthermore, by a Bollywood style spectacle involving the disappearance and sudden re-appearance of the VC.
This is undoubtedly grim and disturbing stuff. Several studies have argued that the fate of the demographic dividend in post-liberalisation India critically rests on balancing three legs: a) employment; b) education and c) access to debt/loans. Some indication of what the future storm will look like when any one of the legs fall short is indicated in the now portentous mobilisation of the youth amongst Jats, Gujjars, Patels and Mahars. These communities have correctly grasped how critical education and not simply ‘skill development’ has become for the new jobs of the digital economy. More so, when a desired shift from rural to urban India is also a part of their aspirational longings. While thus far the demands of these farming communities and castes are couched in the language of access through quotas within existing universities, it is a matter of time before this will escalate into an even more aggressive demand for quality and meaningful education.
Given that the current Narendra Modiled NDA government has shown no inclination to discontinue the previous UPA practice of granting vice-chancellorships as political practice, the top down slide of university education might helplessly continue. The Modi government must also be faulted for adding an ideological thrust to some of its appointments. A case in point is that of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), which has earned the NDA government’s wrath for having a critical and immensely respected Left scholarly legacy. The current vice-chancellor, it must be noted, is an electrical engineer by training and an academic lightweight especially when contrasted to the heftier academic accomplishments of many within the JNU faculty. Put differently, the government has thought it fit to have JNU headed by a person not from the scholarly rigours of fundamental sciences or the social sciences but instead with a mere technical background. Sadly, the consequences are for everyone to see. JNU students and faculty remain in protest mode. Clearly, it begs the important question of whether this is how India wishes to handle its higher education challenge?
If the office of the vice-chancellor is genuinely going to be turned around to be part of the education solution, the government should set about attempting major structural changes. First, evolve a credible metric for assessing the VC’s performance in terms of enabling his/her university to generate quality academic output. Secondly, the selection of a VC should also be dependent, at least in part, on an electoral college comprising only academics that is his or her peers.
The education stakes in India are very high, needs urgent solutions and failure is not an option.