FEDCUTA Statement on the UGC decision on 20 March 2018 to declare 52 universities and 8 colleges autonomous
21 March 2018
As part of the misguided pursuit to make education market determined and market dependent, the UGC has entrusted 52 universities – 5 central universities, 21 state universities, 24 deemed universities, and 2 private universities – the task of doing trade in higher education under the UNIVERSITY GRANTS COMMISSION [CATEGORISATION OF UNIVERSITIES (ONLY) FOR GRANT OF GRADED AUTONOMY] REGULATIONS, 2018. It has also given the commercial rights to 8 more colleges under the Autonomous College Regulations, 2018.
The Minister of Human Resource Development, Shri Prakash Javadekar, while proudly describing these decision as “historic” and reminiscent of 1991 liberalisation of Indian economy, claimed that “the Government is striving to introduce a liberalized regime in the education sector”. The arguments implicit in this claim is that the education sector be best treated as a market for tradable services and that less regulations and freedom from government funding will allow this market to flourish. His claim over the link between autonomy and quality is based on the changed meaning of the word “autonomy” of educational institutions. As opposed to the view that academic autonomy of institutions from the funding agencies, autonomy in the current policy parlance is synonymous with non-dependence on government funding. The current government view then presumes that the consequent dependence on revenue from commercial activities the market would enforce discipline and result in quality improvement. Only a month ago, Shri Javadekar announced appointment of contract teachers on fixed pay across many engineering colleges and celebrated the end of three year contract period as regaining of freedom to choose on the part of the contract teachers!
The Three Year Action Agenda 2017-18 to 2018-19 formulated by the NITI Aaayog summarises this uncritical, fundamentalist argument that free market in education leads to quality, efficiency and expansion. It advocates commercialisation and privatisation of education at all levels from schools to universities. It decries whatever little responsibility hitherto assumed by the Government towards provision of inputs and laying down regulations over requirements of minimal inputs for recognition of educational institutions. It argues that the market is the best solution, that government funding of institutions directly is inefficient and that education be left to commercial enterprises and private players. Conversion of public funded institutions to commercial entities follows as a plicy task.
The unsubstantiated claim that market mechanism, hire and fire, and doing away with regulations can address the challenges of quality and expansion of education is supported by a deliberate omission of any reference to the woefully inadequate infrastructure and decrease in number of teachers simultaneously with increase student-intake afflicting educational institutions today. The policy makers would have us believe that the input deficit would be taken care of by the market. They choose to ignore the experience of autonomous colleges. Their experience of self-financing / mobilisation of revenue resources by such colleges has caused rapid increase in fees and student intake without proportionate increase in number of teachers, non-teaching staff and infrastructural facilities. Only those who seek to promote business interests in education would not be deterred by evidence.
The Government has for some time been putting enormous pressures on colleges to become financially autonomous. Now it has started enforcing the graded autonomy on universities to make them financially autonomous. It has initiated the switch from grants to loan based funding for infrastructural needs of institutions through the Higher Education Funding Agency (HEFA). Further, it is arm-twisting public universities to sign a tripartite agreement with UGC and the MHRD that involves drawing up a blueprint for revenue generation and commitment to progressively increase the revenue they are to earn from the market. All these will make education commercial and reduce public institutions to cost cutting revenue maximisers.
The Graded Autonomy regulations based on the NITI Aayog Agenda categorise universties on the basis of alleged quality / outcome measurement. Those instititutions which have “quality” must be free from government funding and become market reliant. Those which are not worthy of becoming commercial enterprises will face closure in the words of Niti Aaayog or face more regulation and action in Shri Javadekar’s words. The Government has already established SWAYAM, an online platform where students can pursue courses, be examined and earn grades. SWAYAM harnesses the potentials of ICT not to enrich education but to substitute formal education for those who cannot afford the high costs by online education in order to help the government reduce its responsibility to fund infrastructure and teachers. The extent to which the Government intends to push the commercialisation agenda is also evident in its rule that higher educational institutions fund at least 30% of the additional expenditure on account of pay revision of teachers and non-teaching staff from their own resources. The idea is to link teachers’ economic interests to the success of commercialisation of the institutions of which they are part!
What exactly are the provisions for Category I and II Universities classified as better ranked in terms of NAAC rating, NIRF ranking or some world ranking compared to the not commerce-worthy universities under category III under the Graded Autonomy for Universities scheme:
1. Universities may start a new course/programme/department/school/centre in disciplines that form a part of its existing academic framework without approval of the UGC, provided no demand for fund is made from the government on account of starting the new course/programme/department/school/ centre. (Self-financing)
2. Universities may start skill courses, consistent with the National Skills Qualification Framework, without approval of the UGC, provided no demand for fund is made from the government on account of starting the new courses. (Self-financing)
3. Universities may open research parks, incubation centres, university society linkage centres, in self-financing mode, either on its own or in partnership with private partners, without approval of Commission. (Self-financing and Public-Private-Partnership)
4. Universities shall build in an incentive structure, which shall not be universal, to be paid out of their own revenue resources. (Self-financing and possibly incentives for teachers who are better at revenue generation)
5. Hire Foreign Faculty upto twenty percent over above their sanctioned strength on tenure/contract basis. (Self-financing)
6. Admit foreign students upto twenty percent over and above the strength of their domestic students (Revenue generation and recourse to loans to fund, if any, infrastructure)
7. May engage in academic collaborations with foreign educational institutions(Self-financing and use of foreign brands to earn more revenue from students)
8. May offer courses in Open & Distant Learning mode (Self-financing)
9. Off-campus centres and study centres exempted from annual monitoring (Self-financing with unrestrained freedom)
10. The provisions mentioned in the clause 4 and 5 of the Regulations i.e. dimensions of autonomy for Category-I Universities and Category-II Universities respectively, shall prevail in case of any inconsistent/conflicting provisions in the other UGC Regulations. (No extant rule that undermines these self-financing clauses of this regulation can remain!)
The push towards such unbriddled commercialisation of educationto please private business will create a more unequal society while at the same time content and quality of education will suffer.
Rajib Ray Sonajharia Minz
(President FEDCUTA) (Secretary FEDCUTA)
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