UGC Granting Autonomy to Universities a Surrender to Corporates?

This is a turbulent time for as far as the liberal and progressive higher education in the country is concerned.

The UGC has decided to grant autonomy to 60 educational institutions, including 52 universities and eight colleges.

(Photo: The Quint)

The central government, in an abstruse move, with its characteristic opaqueness and without any discussion whatsoever, granted so-called ‘autonomy’ to 60 academic institutions and universities.

On 12 February 2018, a gazette notification with a title “University Grant Commission (Categorisation of Universities (only) for grant of Graded Autonomy) Regulations, 2018” was issued. The regulation under discussion was  pushed in to circumvent the Section 28 of the UGC Act, 1956, which  mandates that every rule and regulation under this act shall be debated in the Parliament since most of the premier institutions  had come into existence through various legislations of the Parliament.

The present government had earlier proposed a ‘National Education Policy’ but had to face stiff opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

This led to bringing out the chicanery of the above regulation, which is essentially a subordinate legislation. The universities, their governance, finance and reservation policies are governed by the various laws of the land like the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act 2006 and draw their strength from constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights to equality and non-discrimination. A subordinate legislation hitting these provisions of the Constitution is bad in law and ultra vires nonetheless.

A Slow End to the Right to Education

One shocking provision of this regulation granting autonomy is the suggestion of 20 percent reservation for foreign nationals, both as students and as faculties. If this suggestion is implemented, then the pool of reserved category job positions would further shrink, as jobseekers would then be competing with this new pool of Indian-educated foreign nationals.

The gazette notification allows the institutions to commence new programmes, off-campus centres, skill courses, etc through ‘self-financing’. This is pure commercialisation of public education with differential fee structures that severely compromises the right of equality and education. The potential drawbacks of such measures are exponential fee hikes.

The universities will begin ‘cutting corners’ to bring costs down, which would vastly reduce the standard of learning.

The social impact of privatisation infiltrated through the so-called autonomy regulation is basically meant to mulct the marginalised and undermine social justice in higher education. The denouement of such a measure is a slow end to the right to education both as an entitlement and as empowerment.

There is a need to understand that in an era of corporate elites wielding power, there is a kind of hatred for liberals that often morphs into a hatred for all democratic institutions, from universities and government agencies to cultural institutions to media.

Writing for Daily O, Professor Avijit Pathak of Jawaharlal Nehru University explains:

...as neoliberal global capitalism produces its ‘knowledge economy’ and asserts the need for a new ‘knowledgeable’ man – ‘technically skilled’ and capable of selling oneself as a ‘resource’ in the market, ‘utility’, ‘efficiency’ and ‘profitability’ become the foundations of the master narrative of the nation’s educational philosophy. No wonder, liberal education with its emphasis on critical social sciences, hermeneutic arts and aesthetics, non-utilitarian philosophical discourses and even foundational theoretical sciences are seen as hindrances to the fulfilment of the demand for ‘skilled’ workforce for corporate capitalism. This narrow meaning of education has gained tremendous legitimacy in an era in which the ruling forces seek to promote social conservatism with the rationale of technical efficiency.

More Private Universities Created to Meet Corporate Demands

By 2020, India will have 48 million students.  Projecting from population trends and Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) data found in All India Surveys on Higher Education from the HRD Ministry, by 2030, we will have 88.7 million students seeking higher education.  In the past many years, there has not been any big university of quality launched by either the state or the central government. It is expected that by 2020, India will have more private universities than those owned by the government. Even amongst the public universities, close to 79 percent would be private colleges affiliated to a public university.  In simpler words, 85 percent to 90 percent students would be studying in a private college or a private university.

The government thus has abdicated its responsibility towards its youth with regards to enhancing the seats of higher education and, on the contrary, seems to be supporting the creation of private universities, palpably to meetcorporate demands.

This is a turbulent time as far as the liberal and progressive higher education in the country is concerned. The government does not recognise education as a public good and public investment in education as their essential obligation. All over the country, youths are on the street demanding education and jobs.  However, the government can’t give jobs as it has sold its resources to corporates. Now, the investments will be made by corporates and they would be hiring and firing workers without ensuring them secure jobs.

Corporate India needs herds of people as a commodity, and not a pool of liberal academics. The recent government’s regulation is only a step forward in this direction to meet the corporate agenda.

This betrays the truth that the process of the political coming-of-age of corporate power and the political demobilisation of the citizenry has begun in India.

(The author is a member of AAP's think tank 'India Dialogue' and associate member of Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA). He also works as a freelance writer and speaks on international, political and strategic affairs. He can be reached @rakeshsinha65. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author's own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)