The challenges posed by globalisation and revolution in information technology worldwide are impacting everyone, and higher educational institutions are no exception. The very talk of challenges faced by universities, especially in India, is a positive sign as it makes academics and administrators look at ways to re-invent the scheme of things in classrooms and beyond.
In the current era of rapidly-changing knowledge, it is undoubtedly important to keep pace with the goings-on, but institutions are finding it difficult, for different reasons. ‘New knowledge’ requires research, an area that universities are not properly equipped, either by way of faculty or proper infrastructure. This is critical as fruits of research will have to be delivered to students and the masses in a timely manner.
Financing
Finance is an area that has always been a challenge and especially so for a developing country like India and educational institutions in the country face this situation more as subsidised education comes with a price. Although self-financing institutions are trying to do their best, they also ultimately depend on the government for support. There is the element of government funding that comes with checks and controls but the quantum of funding to private institutions is negligible as much of the funds are diverted to central institutions and a few hand-picked institutes. There is a limit to the deep pockets of private institutions as they have to constantly pump money into infrastructure so as to stay relevant in the market. The negligible industrial involvement or investment, as well as the fact that India does not yet have a big legacy to speak of by way of support from alumni, adds to this.
Faculty
Perhaps, the biggest challenge to universities is that of recruitment and retention of faculty as a large number of young graduates, including those with postgraduate and doctoral degrees, avoid teaching as a profession. What then happens is that the available pool of teachers is not geared to perform routine tasks with the needed finesse. In effect, a large fraction of the fraternity is teachers by chance, not by choice. Administrators of higher educational institutions are looking for ways to deal with this issue; only then, universities can thrive academically and intellectually.
Inter-disciplinary
There is no doubt that we live in a highly competitive world where investments in new developments are high and hence comes the need to focus on multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches to seek answers for local problems and requirements. New knowledge is developed more easily in overlapping legions of different disciplines as opposed to a uni-dimensional or a traditional way of looking at problems. Institutions of higher learning will have to come to terms with courses cutting across disciplines, not just from the perspective of job marketability but in the widening of intellectual horizons.
Governance
Many a times, there is a complaint that universities are not given enough autonomy to do the job they are supposed to. To be fair, autonomy or the framework for governance is adequate, only that institutional leadership has not used it effectively or purposefully. An argument can be made that there has been less adequate grooming for senior-level administrators, many of whom think that they can get to the top by relying only on academic credentials.
Ranking
One other obsession we seem to have developed in recent times is about international rankings. Every time we do not figure high in such a list, questions are raised about our standards even for top Indian institutions. It is well-known that these institutions, at least at the undergraduate level, are producing competitive graduates who are highly sought after internationally, both for jobs and higher education. Therefore, such a self-defeating approach towards ranking should be avoided, and we should focus more on enhancing quality and ratings rather than rankings.
Regulations
Regulations are required, but in many instances, they are complicated by various agencies and councils. Some of the external regulations are good, but in an overall context they seem to erode the effectiveness of a university’s culture — some councils and accrediting agencies demand several facilities such as separate land, faculty, library, infrastructure, and hostel, just to mention a few. All this fuss in the name of signing off on requirements for approvals to operate eventually end up making universities less universal.
The writer is Vice-Chancellor, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai.
