Common course contents - its desirability in higher education

This article was published in the August 7, 2015 issue of the Millennium post  http://www.millenniumpost.in/NewsContent.aspx?NID=144348 )
Uniformity and diversity are not synonyms to black and white. Talking of uniformity can't be always considered as wrong in any absolute sense. Whereas a desirability to enforce uniforms for school-students is well accepted, similar enforcement in colleges is also considered as avoidable. Recently a move of UGC to enforce a common syllabus in the entire country has generated intense discussions in academics. Traditionally, higher education in India has been following a trend of denouncing any such proposals. One of the prime argument offered in its favour is that nowhere in the world, where institutions are known for their excellence, such uniformity has been imposed. Ironically, while carrying out these comparisons, these arguments conveniently choose to ignore the glaring inequalities between the performances of those institutions with ours. It is no secret that our education sector currently needs to expand its age-old narrow and pure-academic outlook to include many other important and extremely useful aspects of modern education. In addition to this it is also advisable to never overlook the enormity of the exercise that we need to carry out in India in terms of numbers. One also must not forget that nowhere else, countries have been working with these many number of potential students and relatively fewer institutions. In my view, in the context of India, the absence of a common structure and syllabus has been encouraging anarchy and chaos in the mass education sector instead of providing any glimpse of excellence.

                In the name of autonomy, inexplicable and most often undesirable sense of diversity has been encouraged in the higher education. Identical degrees issued by two universities of this country can't ensure anyone that there syllabus would also have some level of commonality. It is strange also because the 'eligibility' to become a teacher in an institution gets decided not by the course contents covered by the applicants but only by the nomenclature of their degrees. I fail to understand that why can't we ensure that if the name of the degrees are identical then at least sixty-seventy percent of the course contents will also be same. On the other hand, if two course-contents do not have sixty-seventy percent common then why shouldn't they be identified by two different names. Further, it is also an undeniable fact that in the name of autonomy and diversity, some institutions are known to have taken its advantage in introducing some anti-national and anti-society studies in some typically designed courses. Is it not a fact that a common test called NET has successfully worked to an acceptable extent in ensuring a minimum standard of the quality of teachers.

                When one has a task of regulating the academic standards of more than many institutions, common structure always helps in fixing a hard lower bound on the academic standards of the educational institutions. In the absence of such a common structure it often becomes impossible to stop the falling standards of a deteriorating institution. Enforcing a common structure and course helps in carrying all the institutions along and also helps in putting brakes on their downslide. An autonomous institution, showing signs of failure, is undeniably designed for a free fall in such a scenario. Autonomy is undoubtedly beneficial but only for those who are showing signs of improvement since a uniform structure would ultimately limit their rise. In a typical Delhi University scenario, we all would agree that if all the colleges of this prestigious University are made autonomous, more than many would fail to survive beyond a decade. We argue therefore in favour of having a common course, a common degree, a common structure for all the colleges of Delhi University to stop those institutions from getting exposed. I also believe that some of the very good performing colleges of Delhi University is well poised to give an incredible show if they are allowed to become autonomous. But it must not be favoured only because the autonomy of these few would force more than many other institutions of the University to follow a downslide. Since we are aiming at mass education, we must not think of doing that too. IITs and IIMs have better performing institutions and therefore any move to implement a common syllabus over there would limit their rise. On a deeper analysis, since the tags of 'IIT' and 'IIM' have recently been extended to additional institutions, this fact may add a new dimension into this discussion as even these entities are now being dragged into mass education. Let us not ignore the glaring fact that a common syllabus of CBSE has helped in maintaining a nationwide minimum standard in the school education sector.

                So the strategy of the regulatory authorities is crucial in these circumstances. They should be able to assess the timing when to provide greater autonomy to an institution. But all those central and state universities who are serving for mass education must be asked to adhere to some level of commonality in the course structure and contents to ensure a minimum standard in education.