A common recruitment board to select faculty members to all State-run universities is the final nail in the coffin of university autonomy and a retrograde step, founder-chairman of the AP State Council of Higher Education and former Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University K. Ramakrishna Rao has said.
Reacting to a report in these columns, he said the need of the hour was to give greater autonomy to the universities and make them more accountable for their performance.
Pointing out that selection of best faculty for the university was the prime responsibility of the university administrators, he said that giving it up due to the controversies associated with the task would mean abdicating the prime responsibility.
If the government wishes to centralise university education administered by it, they may set up a single State University System (SUS) with statutory independence and functional autonomy granted to each of the constituent units.
“Then, all the 13 State-funded universities would be different parts of the SUS. Most states in the U.S., for example, have similar systems,” Prof. Ramakrishna Rao said in a statement here.
Again, State and private universities should work in tandem and not as rivals.
“Competition is good, but the output should be complementary and not conflicting. In fact, the State should earmark a percentage of its funding for higher education to assist the private sector,” he added.
The need of the hour is to grant greater autonomy to the universities and make them more accountable for their performance.
K. Ramakrishna Rao
APSCHE founder-chairman and former AU Vice-Chancellor
