The University Grants Commission (UGC) is clearly unfamiliar with the Euclidean maxim that parallel lines never meet, or it would not have asked the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) to “align” their courses and degrees with those it recognises. Members of the committee, led by Anil Kakodkar, which suggested improvements to IITs, now protest that they are centres of excellence beyond the ambit of the UGC, which they accuse of regulatory overreach. Actually, this is more than linear overreach. It is a category mistake, a blunder that logicians abhor.
The NDA government’s focus on jobs and skilling has highlighted the parallel streams that higher education has branched into. For the majority of students, it now means certification, vouched for by the standardisation of evaluation processes. Its objective is to create reliable workers who can enliven the job market and fuel growth. On the other hand, the most valuable outcomes of technical education are research and innovation. It is powered by creativity, which rejects standards and benefits from institutional autonomy. The Kakodkar Committee, set up in 2010, had recommended that centres of excellence be liberated from the educational bureaucracy. The board of governors of each IIT should have complete control over the teaching process, ranging from course design to expenditure management, human resource development and rules governing staff and payroll.
