Prof. Raj Shree Dhar
The great Goswami Tulsidas in his 16th century Awadhi poem Ramacharitamanas writes, “Nothing is unattainable for those who enjoy your grace, through your might, the impossible can be made possible”.
As per the NEP, the plan is to transform all existing as well as new higher education institutes into chiefly 3 types – research universities, teaching universities and autonomous degree granting colleges. This shall be done over a period of time after taking into account many factors. Single-stream higher education institutes shall evolve into vibrant, multidisciplinary institutes and clusters. There shall be a gradual movement towards making all institutes fully autonomous, academically and administratively, to enable a robust environment for research, academics, holistic and well-rounded development of all. Private institutes with a public- spirited commitment to high quality equitable education will be encouraged and treated on par. Model public universities at par with IITs, IIMs, etc., called MERUs (multidisciplinary education and research universities) will be set up and will aim to match the quality standards set up by our home-grown universities of Takshila and Nalanda as well as the status of globally prestigious universities like the Ivy League universities of Cornell, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton etc.
Clusters consisting of constituent colleges, multi-disciplinary Health University, Technical University, Agriculture and Veterinary University will be set up. The existing colleges shall become autonomous degree granting institutions and we shall also endeavour to establish new world-class model institutions of this type to be called Model Multidisciplinary Colleges or MMCs. In a nutshell, all HEIs will move towards becoming large multidisciplinary institutions, with programmes across disciplines and fields, offered either in their Autonomous institutions or through HEI clusters- for constituent colleges and departments.
To ensure sustained quality in the newly transformed institutions, the foremost task at hand is to ascertain an unequivocal commitment and integrity in our faculty and institutional leadership positions by means of merit-appointments, selection based on high quality standards and career progression based on accomplishments in teaching, research and service. A distinguished academician is to be appointed as the head of such an institute who can provide academic leadership as well as has administrative skills, good research potential and is dedicated to the cause.
These autonomous institutions are to be governed by highly-qualified independent boards i.e. a Board of Governors having academic and administrative autonomy, a board consisting of people from Industry, Civil Society, Academicians, alumni etc. The role of BoGs shall be autonomous and they shall work towards Governance and Management, Academic Programmes, Staff Appointments, Admission and administration, Better academic programmes and evaluations and Skills for job opportunities.
Research University shall be setup to boost the research potential of our country, to support national development by generating new knowledge, questioning existing knowledge and bringing about innovative solutions to problems. Such Universities shall prove to be a stepping stone to India becoming Atma-nirbhar. Also, in the initial years, these universities shall aid their affiliated colleges to develop into multi-disciplinary institutions of high standing.
There are some challenges in implementing this but the Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela has said ‘it always seems impossible until it’s done’ and this distinguishes dreamers from doers. Rigorous monitoring needs to be done – an approach that’s LIGHT BUT TIGHT and Regulatory. Lot of groundwork has to be done so as to be able to measure and track the progress that these institutes have to achieve.
A few challenges are like recruiting staff for upcoming subjects – subjects that have not been previously taught in our UT, lack of a strong work culture and work ethics – dearth of a spirit of service, another challenge is to effectively strengthen research aptitude in the universities, enhancing infrastructural development, unrest among students and resistance to change, ensuring comprehensive implementation.
However, as is said, ‘if the challenge exists, so must the solution’, therefore the solutions to the aforementioned challenges are enumerated as like a robust, efficient and easy to access and operate Feedback/Grievance Redressal Mechanism to be developed for students – just like the JK-IGRAMS recently launched by the Lt. Governor. and similar to JK-IGRAMS, we shall have a committee assigned with the primary level tasks of receiving, disposing and monitoring grievances so that students gradually start welcoming the changes instead of resisting them. To involve students in decision-making and providing holistic education – sports, culture, music, fine arts , hiring faculty from outside J&K, visiting faculty for shorter duration like during vacation to train our faculty in newer fields and upcoming subjects, instil intellectual curiosity and innovation – through new ways of learning, and teaching, encourage and reward good work – devise merit-based career progression -identifying high-performing and under-performing staff, prioritization while implementing – it is only by prioritizing that we can overcome the humongous challenges in implementation processes. As is said ‘start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible and you’ve done the impossible’. Our actions shall express our priorities. Also this has to be done in a phased manner, because Rome wasn’t built in a day, we need to gradually re-shape and develop our model institutions.
There should be one teacher training college in each cluster to support schools and train school and college teachers apart from degrees. Full autonomy to institutes should be given for academic and administrative reforms through BoG. Robust assessment system should be there, curriculum and question papers should be available on web, In each district there should be at least one skill or vocational university having departments in Agriculture, Horticulture, Food Technology, Tourism, Handicrafts etc., Optimal use of infrastructure and resources in constituent colleges should be there. Since this process will take time, all HEIs should first & foremost plan to become multidisciplinary; and gradually increase their student strength to the desired levels. The HEIs with large land areas may be supported to substantially increase the student intake, multidisciplinary capacity and residential facilities.
All Open Distance Learning programmes (and their components) offering any diploma or degree should be of excellent standards and equivalent to the highest quality programmes run by the HEIs on their own campuses. In this regard, the remedial measures that can be undertaken to manage and control any stumbling blocks that may impede our progress in realizing the objectives of NEP are like all stakeholders like students, staff, faculty, heads of institutions, BoGs, Administration must be held accountable to implement the policy in letter & spirit, healthy measures of assessment like a continuous and comprehensive evaluation system whereby students take joy in learning and teachers find teaching cathartic, we need to strive towards imparting education in a manner that does not just advance our students’ IQ but also their EQ, an open, online, transparent information portal for all stakeholders, encourage research, enhance quality in teaching methodology, enable student learning, periodic curriculum revision, project work, field work, awards for achievers and engage, encourage and support comparatively slower learners, student counseling by experts, academic, administrative, governance, affiliation reforms, high confidentiality in examination and evaluation, autonomy of institutions, accreditation of institutes for sustained quality and excellence.
Napolean Hill in his book Think and grow Rich writes ‘Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve’.
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