The draft national education policy of 2019 (DNEP-2019) is acomprehensive initiative aimed at revamping the Indian higher education sector,create world class multidisciplinary institutions, and increase the grossenrolment ratio to at least 50% by 2035 to match with China and Brazil. It ispresently in public domain for views, opinion and suggestions.
In this write-up, I shall deal only with the policyinitiative of DNEP-2019 for creating autonomous colleges removing the conceptof an affiliated college from the Indian universities. Removing the burden ofaffiliation from the universities will set them free to concentrate on teachingand research for their on-campus students rather than as affiliating andexamination conducting bodies for the college sector country wide. Therefore,the concept of affiliating universities and affiliated colleges will go fromIndian higher education system. Every HEI will be either a full-fledgedresearch or academic university or an independent degree awarding autonomous college.Therefore, there will be no college to be called as affiliated college. Allpreviously affiliated colleges will function as autonomous colleges by 2032 andwill be empowered with degree awarding authorities in their own names. There isalso the provision that if any college can’t sustain itself as an autonomouscollege, then it has to merge completely with the current affiliatinguniversity and become part of it. However, this will prove quite challengingfor the universities to broaden their campus beyond boundary limitsparticularly for the colleges who lack on multiple fronts.
The policy basically plans for whole institutionalrestructuring and consolidation of existing 800 universities and 4000 collegesinto three types of higher education institutions labelled as type 1 (researchuniversities), type 2 (teaching universities), type 3 (autonomous colleges)with equitable roles in multidisciplinary teaching, research and service.However, what is more surprising is that these type 1 and type 2 universitieswill also be required to run undergraduate courses across all subjects. It willcreate confusions among the minds of student community regarding relevance oftype 3 institutes. Under this plan the centrally funded HEI’s willautomatically transform as type 1 institutions, however, this is also a majordrawback as all centrally funded universities are not having quality mandate ofexcellence in research. Some state institutions have done remarkableprogression in teaching and research, therefore, there must be lateral entryfor good and quality state institutions to type 1 category also.
In DNEP-2019, the thrust is on faculty autonomy also whichis a welcome and laudable initiative, however full of challenges for teachingcommunity. Providing autonomy to faculty will in real sense help and motivatethe teachers to use their own and innovative ideas and ways to enrich thecurriculum in tune with societal needs, improve teaching methods and pedagogy,developing a healthy and liberal relationship with student community andmotivate them towards quality learning. Overall, this initiative will provideteachers scope for continuous improvement of teaching-learning in HEI’s.
Providing academic and administrative autonomy includingfinancial autonomy to HEI’s is a remarkable initiative of DNEP-2019. This willfulfil a long pending demand of granting autonomy to academic institutions toput themselves in the path of imminence or excellence without undueinterference in administrative and academic matters from outside and will alsoprove quite healthy for the efficient work culture, faculty promotions, timelyupdating of curriculum, introduction of new courses and programmes in tune withinstitutional vision and mission. The autonomous colleges are expected to emergeas centres of excellence to contribute to the overall development of the Indianhigher education sector.
Under a UGC scheme hundreds of colleges are alreadyfunctioning as an autonomous institutions in India. Pertinently, IslamiaCollege of Science and Commerce, Srinagar also functions as the only UGCautonomous institution in the valley since 2015. Therefore, the functioning ofexisting autonomous colleges is also expected to get changed and have the everyopportunity to get converted as type 2 universities. Similarly, the existingtop ranked universities and centrally funded universities will be eligible tomove into type 1 universities. However, for that purpose they will have toapproach national research foundation (NRF) for funding under the MissionNalanda and Mission Takshashila.
State governments will have to prepare plans for creation ofnew institutional architecture and consideration for framing the differenttypes of institutions: one each of type 1, 2, and 3 for 50 lakhs, 5 lakhs, and2 lakhs of population, respectively with due consideration for geographicboundaries. At least one type of institution will be established for everydistrict the policy reads and that is a healthy initiative to eliminate theconcept of parity vis-à-vis imparting quality education with no rural citydivide. The matter of concern is however, that whole higher educational systemin the state will get revamped and consolidation of existing HEI’s into a fewernumber of type 1, 2 & 3 HEI’s will prove an uphill task for policy makersand administrators. States will be required to prepare ten year educationalplans and emphasize on using the college campuses effectively for thedevelopment of school complexes and extension centres for vocational education,however, this again seems to prove as a messy situation for the states.
The challenging aspect for the state governments is thatcolleges that fail to develop as type 3 (autonomous colleges) by 2032 will haveto be closed by the respective governments and instead will be used as adulteducation centres, public libraries, vocational educational facilities, etc. bythe concerned states. This will definitely put state governments undertremendous pressure to see them converting as autonomous colleges in absence ofquality infrastructure, deficit teaching-learning initiatives, incompetentleadership, etc. Therefore, focus of our policy makers must be on strengtheningthe existing colleges, develop research oriented infrastructure, initiatefaculty development and enrichment initiatives, create more physicalinfrastructure, establish adequate laboratory and library facilities, andenrichment of teaching faculty, adequate funding and state-of-the-arttechnologies for innovative teaching learning processes to enable them to qualifyfor type 3 category institutions (autonomous colleges) and sustain as anautonomous institutions.
To conclude, formulating and implementing a policy or a planis the core of the institutional progress and relies finally on the leadership.Therefore, colleges should get able and competent leadership to enlighten themwith the goals of autonomy and prosperity in the coming years to grow as type 3institutions.