Opinion Building Institutions of Eminence: It requires more than infrastructure

Protests by worried parents got drowned in a lively atmosphere created by charismatic teachers, who motivated the enthusiastic students. Two years passed, and the college took six out of the 10 top tanks in the state, and the students went on to occupy the highest positions in tech, management and administration fields. The college had a minimal infrastructure, but what differentiated this from others was the high level of motivation in the teachers, and enthusiasm in the students.

Every year, there is one college that is ranked best in the country — Miranda House of Delhi University — while the more “reputed” institutions rank much lower. Since admission and recruitment norms are common to all Delhi University colleges, the reason Miranda stands apart is the ability of the faculty to produce good quality research publications year after year.

It is often stated that “a nation is made by the quality of its people, not by the quality of its infrastructure”. The same holds true for institutions. If infrastructure can determine the quality, many engineering colleges that were constructed lavishly, should have been top-notch institutions, not the IITs, many of which still have only basic facilities. Great institutions are made by great individuals driven by passion, and not by great buildings.

Most of the higher education institutions in India have remained teaching institutions, imparting knowledge — not creating new knowledge. As long as this continues, they can, at best, be followers, not leaders at the global level. The NEP 2020 has correctly identified this and proposed to establish the National Research Foundation to channel more resources for funding research in educational institutions.

What makes a great institution, or how does one make an institution great, has been a question that eluded answers. The approach has always been to invest in building more classrooms, buying more furniture, and making bigger campuses. Though some schemes for promoting research output have been floated, the funding for research has always been meagre. The regulations for ranking and rating, have yielded some results in focusing on academic outcomes. Despite these efforts, we are yet to reach anywhere near the goal of making India a global destination for quality higher education.

The UGC (Institutions of Eminence Deemed to be Universities) Regulation 2017 has been crafted with the express intent to create (or develop) world-class universities. This was further amended in 2021 to primarily permit the setting up of off-shore and off-campus centres by these institutions.

The UGC (Government Institutions declared as Institutions of Eminence) Guidelines 2017 were issued to provide funding support to the selected government institutions. The idea behind the regulation is to develop both public and private institutions equally.

This complexity between the public and private institutions is not, however, recognised by the global education ranking system. Most of the ranking systems give close to 50 per cent weightage to the research productivity. The IoE scheme, for being successful, should have been combined with the other crucial initiative (yet to be born) of the National Research Foundation. Despite the budget announcement, the NRF is still to see the light of day. With the investments in research being so poor, there is hardly any chance that the IoE scheme could help institutions radically increase their global ranking status.

The IITs are still the only bet for the country to produce global-best institutions. With a considerable focus on the quality of research and academic publications, high-quality faculty and students, a concerted focus on these institutions combined with greater autonomy to these institutions would have helped them to break to the top 100 ranks in the world. The proposal for providing greater autonomy to these premier institutions is still under examination.

There are private universities which came up with the principle of providing liberal arts and wholesome education. These have the chance of providing the best education globally and becoming widely known.

There is a strong view that three factors — size, age and funding — would determine the global best universities. The top global universities are more than a century old, have more than 10,000 students and are funded liberally by the state or other endowments. Some institutions have argued that regulatory processes are impeding institutional autonomy, and with a more liberal regulatory regime, they can flourish. The NEP 2020 has emphasised light but tight regulation and investments in research.

Whereas there is truth in each of these, the real solution lies in having inspired faculty and students. Inspiration doesn’t come merely from better facilities or better terms of appointment or even better training. Inspiration has to come from academic leadership — trusting, supporting, and guiding the younger faculty working in a free environment. The creation of new knowledge needs critical thinking, problem-solving, innovative outlook of the faculty and their teams doing collaborative research. Of course, funding for research matters. But these don’t cost much.

Are we ready?

The writer is former secretary (higher education and social justice), Government of India