A few days from now, the Planning Commission is expected to select an agency to carry out a nation-wide survey on a topic that has engaged the minds of many academics in the country: “The changing academic profession.”
The survey will be more or less the Indian leg of an initiative completed in some 25 countries. At its heart will be an attempt to understand the “drivers” of changes in the teaching profession — the changes themselves and the whys and the wherefores of them will be mapped.
Planning Commission sources say this initiative will be in the form of a sample survey. The selected agency will shortlist the institutions whose academics will participate in the programme.
“The choice of institutions and academics selected to participate in this sample survey will ideally straddle academically, social and financially non-contiguous regions, varying types of institutions and differing types of academic programmes,” a commission source associated with organising the survey told The Hindu-EducationPlus .
A Planning Commission circular dated June 15 says the objective of the national-level survey will be to “map the work profiles of academics across sectors and regions, examine the nature and extent of the changes experienced by the academic profession in recent years and explore both the reasons for, and consequences of, these changes, examine the implications of these changes in relation to the attractiveness of the academic profession as a career and make comparisons on the above variables between different national higher education systems, institutional types and disciplines.”
Terms of reference
The circular says the survey is expected to answer the following questions:
What is the perception of the faculty about their role?
To what extent is the nature of academic work changing?
What are the internal and external drivers of these changes?
To what extent do these changes differ between regions, disciplines and ownership structures of the higher education sector?
How do academic professionals respond to changes in their external and internal environment?
What are the consequences of the above factors for the attractiveness of the academic career?
What are the regional and social differences in the academic environment across the country?
What are the expectations from this profession and where are the gaps?
Kerala scene
Such a survey assumes importance for Kerala at a time when the State government, through the Kerala State Higher Education Council, is engaged in revisiting the reform areas identified by the previous council. While the B. Hridayakumari committee report on reforms to the choice-based credit-and-semester system for degree courses has been submitted, the committees set up to review the university Acts and to prepare a framework for institution-industry linkages are understood to be finalising their recommendations.
More importantly, the council has set up a committee to suggest modalities for the setting up of a State Assessment and Accreditation Council modelled on the National Assessment and Accreditation Council of the University Grants Commission. The findings of the national survey can serve as invaluable inputs for this committee as it goes about suggesting ways to evaluate institutions and teachers.
But perhaps the most interesting, in the current context, findings of the survey will be from the professional colleges in Kerala, particularly from those in the private sector. However, it remains to be seen if Kerala will take a cue from the Centre and plan its own, more detailed survey of the shifting shape of the teaching profession or if the findings of the survey and the consequent recommendations and remedial actions thought up by New Delhi will come as a fiat to Thiruvananthapuram.
Overdue survey
Academics who spoke to The Hindu-EducationPlus on this initiative said such a survey was long overdue. Some of them are of the view that Kerala should, on its own, have conducted such a survey years ago. “At least now, against the backdrop of the ongoing debate on the quality of many self-financing engineering colleges, of reforms in degree education and against the backdrop of attempts to redefine the way universities function, a Kerala-specific study will not be out of place at all,” a senior academic at the University of Kerala, preferring anonymity, said.
Oommen V. Oommen, Chairman of the State Biodiversity Board and Professor Emeritus, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, told The Hindu-EducationPlus that such a survey should have been conducted 10 years ago in Kerala. “Now there is no shortage of funds for research or for any other academic activity. The profession of teaching has become more challenging. But there is a general decline in quality of raw material entering this profession over the past 10 to 15 years. There is also deterioration in the general approach to education, to teaching … Of course not all teachers are like this but in the case of a good number of them, their quality and performance is inversely proportionate to their salary. Such a study will definitely help the country and the State finalise a plan to action to revitalise the teaching profession,” he said. The Planning Commission circular says the agency will be given 40 weeks to carry out the sample survey. At the end of this period, a final report should be submitted to the commission.
