BA Pass, MA Pass, give talent a pass

We must remind ourselves what higher education is about. Higher education is about distinction. There is an inherent tension within the ideology in which the state places higher education. On the one hand education is a means towards creating social mobility and equality of opportunity. But to create the conditions under which the education system can effectively serve these purposes requires a vast mobilisation and commitment of resources. Since the state could effectively not do that, it interpreted equality of opportunity in almost a formalistic, even formulaic manner, where any difference or distinction was thought to be inimical to these goals. So we had the perverse consequence that the students for whom the state wanted to create more opportunities are now stuck in third-rate institutions, while those who can are effectively seceding.

The state standardised the education system by insisting that there can be no differentiation of fees, or even substantial differentiation of curriculum across two hundred and fifty odd universities. Indeed, the crisis of standards that afflicts Indian universities is in part sustained by an ideological commitment to the myth that education cannot be made into an arena of difference. This aspiration is, in principle, flawed because higher education is, amongst other things, about creating distinction and excellence. It is difficult to imagine a robust system of higher education that does not perform the function of distinguishing the qualities of its students.

The fear of excellence is now constitutive of the pedagogy and signaling devices we use. In any other education system, mass and large-scale exams, say SAT, are used to determine threshold qualifications for entrance. In India mass exams are almost constitutive of your educational qualifications. The inordinate weight on standardised examinations, which your teachers will have no control over, essentially renders the quality of institution or teaching in the class room irrelevant, because the goals have already been defined from outside the institution.

Another manifestation of our fear of excellence is the specious distinction we draw between research and teaching. The distinction itself implies that there is something formulaic about teaching that can be detached from a research orientation. But it is difficult to imagine what good undergraduate education is about if not inculcating an ability to do research, not in a strict professional sense, but as an orientation to the world. The goal of undergraduate education ought to be to encourage inquiring minds. This is a disposition to relentlessly ask difficult and new questions, to have the ability to weigh evidence, and to be an active generator of knowledge rather than a passive recipient of information. When Wall Street firms recruit philosophy graduates from Harvard, they are not looking at the information these students can reproduce in exams, they are looking at a possession of generalisable skills. It is not an accident that top universities like Harvard and Princeton will not compromise on their faculty teaching undergraduate courses.

It is also disquieting that the linchpin of any system of higher education, undergraduate education, is receiving very little attention. The UGC’s response to the crisis of undergraduate education, where 70 per cent of our students are, was simply an admission of failure. Its going to allow undergraduates to pursue vocational courses simultaneously, as if NIIT could be a substitute for a robust undergraduate education. Again, the distinction between vocational and regular education is also misplaced, as if the quality of vocational education can be improved without raising the general quality of education. It is quite extraordinary that prior to the Sixties India was able to set up some extraordinary institutions for their time, like BHU, Jamia and even Delhi University, largely by private donations. A majority of the 50 top trusts in India in the Fifties gave freely to higher education, but most importantly, to professionals and institutions not directly under their control. Of the 50 largest trusts now, few give to higher education. And that trusts that do prefer running their own institutions, rather than foster excellence. In a way, the patterns in private philanthropy are an indication of the diminishing aspirations for higher education as a public good. And the community of higher education professionals has completely abdicated their own responsibilites, by focusing their energies on securing petty benefits than on the broader mission of educational policy.

We are fundamentally unclear about the goals of higher education. We are not committing the means, private or public necessary to meet our demand. We have left policy making and regulation in this area to a motley combination of judges and education bureaucrats who come to their conclusions in a near total empirical vacuum.

Concluded

PART I