The Post-Truth Promise Of Autonomy In Higher Education
Saikat Ghosh
The struggle to defend the Public-funded System in Higher Education is being waged at many levels. Privatisation and Commercialisation are the buzzwords while referring to a range of Government policies that are directed at systematic cuts in public-spending on Higher Education, promoting the growth of Private universities and colleges by giving them a ‘level playing-field’, replacing democratic decision-making in Public-funded Higher Educational Institutions with authoritarian or corporate models, and linking Higher Education with the demands of the commodity and capital markets. These policies have been in effect since 1995 but have accelerated since the Doha-round of the WTO-GATS negotiations in 2005, when the Indian Government formally agreed to commit Higher Education as a tradable service to the trade agreements under GATS.
In the last thirteen years, the Private Sector has grown rapidly and currently accounts for 60% of the total students aged between 18-23 years, enrolled in some form of tertiary education. The scales would seem to have already tipped in favour of Privatisation. However, student bodies and teachers associations in many Public-funded universities have launched massive movements against fee-hikes, academic restructuring and modularisation of teaching-learning, against repeated official attempts to subvert the Reservation Policy, against authoritarian decision-making and attempts to silence the unions, against seat-cuts and withdrawal of fellowships in research programmes, against short-term contractual appointments of faculty and against the reduction in public-spending on Higher Education. In the recent past, many of these struggles have also been focussed on exposing the hollow claims of governments and university administrations and raising public awareness on issues related to Higher Education. These ‘Truth versus Hype’ campaigns are particularly challenging because public awareness of educational rights and the system that regulates Higher Education is extremely poor. Instrumental Reason characterises public perception and education is not a prioritised issue in the manifestos of most mainstream political parties.
It is in this context that the Niti Aayog’s blueprint for the ‘Autonomy’ of Higher Educational Institutions (both universities and colleges) is being debated. As per the Niti Aayog’s Three-Year Action Agenda released in 2017, Higher Educational Institutions must be freed from certain traditional regulatory restrictions and instead, be made to focus on an Outcomes-based model of functioning. This agenda includes the dismantling of the Grants-based funding structure of the UGC and its replacement by new criteria of funding controlled by the Government, greater functional autonomy to universities and colleges, increased use on ICT and digitalisation of resources, periodic assessment and ranking of institutions, emphasis on Skill-Development and Employability and the drive to cut input costs for infrastructure, faculty and per-unit spending on students and faculty.
At the level of appearance, the Niti Aayog’s agenda seems to be driven by the need to upgrade the quality of education imparted in Higher Educational Institutions. The NDA Government has promptly endorsed this agenda and put its implementation onto a fast gear. A surround-sound of ‘expert opinion’ has been created in the media to leverage public support for this agenda. The MHRD seems to be in a constant mode of ‘self-criticism’ due to the embarrassing exclusion of Indian universities from the creamy layer of world-class institutions, as reflected in the Corporate-sponsored QS World Universities Rankings. On closer examination, however, the sinister design of this agenda is revealed. The following sections will focus on how the newly-cast notion of Autonomy is a ruse for the systematic destruction of the Public-funded system in Higher Education as well as a recipe for the reversal of the progressive and democratic social transformations that the Public-funded system has nurtured, in the context of Constitutionally-mandated rights.
Quality
The Kothari Commission Report on Education (1966) offered the most relevant insight into the concern for Quality in Education. It observed that our postcolonial predicament does not allow us to replicate the models of Quality that prevail in the more advanced nations of the Western World. In our context, Quality is meaningful only when it is related to the ideas of Equity and Access. Greater inclusion and more systematic efforts to empower the traditionally marginalized sections of society through Education can be the only sensible approach to challenges that emerge from the asymmetries of power, knowledge and capacity, in our times. Hence, the Kothari Commission argued for increased public spending in all levels of Education, minimum standards of inputs in terms of infrastructure and faculty, affordable fees (and therefore, heavy subsidies from the Government), assured Grants for institutions and an autonomous regulatory mechanism that can legally and functionally resist political interference and yet be accountable to the public. Its recommendations included the concern for institutional autonomy, but qualified it by insisting that Autonomy is to safeguard institutional independence from vested political and commercial interests; that Autonomy does not imply the absence of Public Accountability or the freedom to follow exclusionary agenda.
Public-funded universities are established through central or state-level legislations and hence, enjoy statutory autonomy from the moment of inception. The Niti Aayog’s new scheme of Graded Autonomy does not add to this. In fact, it redefines the goals of Autonomy. It maintains silence on the Government’s increasing interference in academic matters but allows institutions to make financial decisions that can adversely impact affordability and inclusion. It frees universities and colleges from the obligation to provide adequate infrastructure and faculty, maintain healthy student-teacher ratios and adhere to democratic conventions in decision-making. It allows administrators and governing councils to insulate themselves from the pressure exerted by collective bodies of students and teachers. It allows the UGC to impose a uniform curriculum and mode of teaching-learning through the Choice-based Credit System (CBCS) across universities, but it insists that new courses and programmes can only be offered as Self-Financed initiatives, minus any financial commitment or sanction for additional faculty positions from the Government. It therefore restricts Autonomy to managerial and financial decisions that can help evade standard Quality parameters and focus on cutting costs. Increasingly, the impact of Graded Autonomy on institutions is being felt in terms of a complete freeze in permanent recruitment of faculty, the gradual but steady replacement of academic subjects in the traditional Humanities and Sciences with more market-friendly applied and vocational subjects, and the replacement of traditional classroom-oriented pedagogy with Massive Online Courses (MOOCs) that require negligible physical infrastructure and can sustain heavy enrolment.
Alongside the Graded Autonomy scheme, the Government’s Finance Ministry has also revised the General Financial Rules in 2017, to include a mandate for a Tripartite MoU that needs to be signed by all autonomous institutions that are dependent on central grants above 5 crore rupees a year (GFR Rule No. 229 (xi)). This Rule makes it mandatory for central universities to sign an agreement with the MHRD and the UGC which will allow the MHRD to directly authorise funding decisions (thereby undermining the autonomy of the UGC) and set quantified performance evaluation targets for the universities. Although at variance with the idea of Autonomy, this move towards an extreme degree of centralisation fulfils a crucial aspect of the Niti Aayog’s overall agenda: it defines the scope and orientation of managerial and financial decisions within institutions. It judges learning outcomes of courses and programmes through units of employment/placement. It paves the way for a steady dilution of academic and intellectual priorities in Higher Education and forces institutions to commit to incremental fee-hikes, internal mobilisation of resources and funds through capital-market loans under the aegis of the Higher Education Funding Authority (HEFA) and Alumni donations, extra-mural research grants from corporate sources and consultancy projects.
Needless to say, this overhaul in quality-parameters excludes concerns for equity and access, and pushes the public-funded system towards the pursuit of objectives that are more in tune with the priorities of the Private sector.
Access and Equity
Access to Higher Education in Public-funded institutions and Equity within them have been hitherto maintained through affirmative reservations in appointments and admissions, remedial teaching, freeships, scholarships and fellowships, progressive movements for Social Justice by students and teachers and cultural activities. The entry of corporate and authoritarian models of decision-making has already impacted the growth of social movements within campuses. Protests, agitations and campaigns are not accorded the dignity of democratic expression. Draconian codes of conduct are made actionable against students and teachers from time to time. However, a more insidious way of undermining Access and Equity is brought in through Academic Restructuring and the emphasis on Skill-Training and Self-Financed Courses. Under the CBCS, universities and colleges are forced to offer a much wider range of courses and conduct multiple examinations and assessments throughout the academic session. This compels institutions to subject students and teachers to punishing schedules that leave little time for involvement in intellectual and cultural activities. Most university campuses have inadequate residential facilities for its students and faculty. Cuts in public spending and the lack of estate infrastructure undermine the possibilities of a shared community of ideas and opinions beyond the classroom and syllabi. Remedial teaching finds no space in the time-table that is cluttered with a whole range of Core, Applied, Interdisciplinary and Skill-based courses, most of which are taught by guest or adjunct faculty. Continuous examinations force an emphasis on syllabus-coverage over and above the concern for any other intellectual or academic exploration. The lack of permanent faculty-appointments and drastic seat-cuts in research programmes subvert the implementation of the Reservation Policy. Finally, the proliferation of Self-Financed Courses and unilaterally-determined hikes in student-fees threaten to push women and students from poorer sections out of Higher Education, altogether. Hence, the scope for managerial and financial autonomy incorporates processes that directly result in the erosion of Access and Equity in Public-funded institutions of Higher Education.
Private Stakeholders
Private universities are not the only ones to join the Government and the Niti Aayog in the chorus for Autonomy. The CII, FICCI and ASSOCHAM have also welcomed the Autonomy schemes and associated measures that aid in the dismantling of the Public-funded system. With an eye on the educational resources and infrastructure developed through the tax-payer’s money and currently under public-ownership, the heterogenous Private sector entities have coalesced to stake a claim on the Public-funded system. This design can be realised through a combination of the following measures:
- Public-Private Partnership (PPP Model) in Research and Consultancy projects
- Powerful business establishments owned by Alumni of Public-funded institutions sponsoring/funding courses and infrastructural initiatives in their alma mater
- Entry of the Financial sector through HEFA
Institutions that wish to enjoy current levels of funding from the Government as well as Autonomy are required to commit themselves to all these three measures, through the Tripartite MoU. The clubbing of Autonomy and Public-funding with HEFA is going to have the most far-reaching adverse consequences. HEFA disburses loans for infrastructure against ‘collaterals’ pledged as security in the same capital markets through which the funds for the loans are raised. These collaterals are the land, buildings and other resources owned by the Public-funded institutions i.e. under public-ownership. In the event that an institution is unable to pay back the principal amount of the loan it has been forced to take, these pledged ‘collaterals’ can be disposed off in the market to pay off the creditors. Since the universities that sign the MoU have no choice but to fund their infrastructure needs through HEFA loans, their assets will be perpetually mortgaged. Premier universities like JNU have already signed this MoU and applied for substantial loans, to the tune of 600-700 crore rupees. In the final analysis, the inclusion of the financial sector as a stakeholder paves the way for the hand-over of public resources and assets to private-ownership, in the long-run.
Challenges for Students’ and Teachers’ Unions
Despite the combative response to forced Autonomy and other, related policy-measures that coerce institutions into accepting Privatisation as a fait accompli, students and teachers have not yet managed to successfully call the Niti Aayog’s and MHRD’s post-truth bluff. This is partly because of the hostility towards Public-funded institutions shown consistently by the Corporate Media which either misrepresents or ignores the collective and democratic concerns of students and teachers. But the more difficult challenge lies in the need to create genuine public-campaigns on Higher Education so that the social worth of defending the Public-funded system becomes clearly evident in public perception. Rare and intermittent examples of unions spreading out beyond the boundaries of university campuses and campaigning in public places, residential localities, public transport and even joint political forums do exist. The public campaign against the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) launched by the DUTA and students and teachers’ organisations under the umbrella of the Save DU Campaign had a significant impact on public consciousness before the 2014 General Elections. Delhi State units of the Aam Aadmi Party and the BJP were forced to include the popular demand to scrap the FYUP in their election manifestos and join the campaign against it. Eventually, with the change in Government, the FYUP had to be withdrawn, despite being a part of the original blueprint of bringing the Undergraduate system in synch with four-year credits-based system followed in most universities in USA, Singapore, UAE and Australia.
Traditional modes of agitation will not suffice in a situation that requires more widespread public support of the struggles to resist Privatisation. Post-truth rhetoric must be countered by campaigns that engage with people’s perception and educate the public about the prevailing anomalies in the system. Unions will continue to organise and agitate, but they must also play educational roles. This will only happen if the urgency of the situation comes through to those who are committed to resist Privatisation and Commercialisation. The Government and big businesses are a few steps ahead of us in this battle and we are required to carry on our resistance with ever-shrinking resources and time.
Saikat Ghosh, a former member of the SFI at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, is currently an elected Teachers’ Representative in the Delhi University’s Academic Council.
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