The debate ignited by the J&K Higher Education Department’s order to allow college teachers work as research guides/co-guides seems settled now after the Kashmir University authorities complied with the order and allowed college teachers to apply for recognition as research supervisors. After an initial knee-jerk reaction by the KUTA representatives, good sense seems to have prevailed among the administrators.
The order had invited mixed responses from students and teacher community alike. This order, on the one hand, gave a sigh of relief to college teachers and on the other, it came as a bolt from the blue to the University teacher community. Perhaps the knee-jerk demand for the revocation of this order by the KUTA and JUTA alludes to their discountenance.
In view of the present state of higher education and its implications on our ability to increase employability and augment human resource potential, I wish to add how the research in colleges is not a bad idea. The higher education in India is aimed at meeting three objectives-Equity, Access, and Quality in three areas-Teaching, Research, and Extension. How can we ensure access in a state where Kashmir University in the valley has almost become synonymous with ‘university’ for any layperson? Every research supervisor be it Assistant Professor or Associate Professor or Professor is allowed to supervise between 4 and 8 research students at a given point in time. If all scholars complete their research programs in a period of three years then 1/3rd of the vacancies are created every year. This means that for a faculty of 10 member faculty department and 50 scholars enrolled, some 16 vacancies are created. This calculation works well only when PhD admission notices are issued every year and the BORS meetings are convened regularly, which is rarely the case in Kashmir University.
Scores of students qualify JRF and want to pursue research interests within the Valley for various reasons, particularly due to the state of insecurity outside Kashmir. It is needless to mention how Kashmiri Muslim students feel suffocated in India, especially in the cow belt, because of the anti-Kashmiri sentiments generated by the rightwing forces and fanned by mainstream media on regular basis. In many subjects, candidates are unable to avail fellowships like JRF, MANF, ICSSR and other science-specific fellowships because of their inability to get registered for a research program in Kashmir University because of limited seats in the PG departments. Opening up possibilities of research under the supervision of college teachers (whose eligibility and service condition are no different from university teachers in the UGC statutes) would create research opportunities for these candidates. Many of these candidates come from disadvantaged sections of society and constitute the potential human resource waiting to be tapped only if provided with research supervision. It will address the objectives of access and equity simultaneously. Quality control in higher education is a welcome ambition. But under this garb it should not deprive opportunities to those young and ambitious research aspirants who come from mediocre schooling (due to poverty), lack proper social exposure and purchasing power to avail higher educational benefits in private universities or fewer highly competitive universities in India.
When science students pursuing research in Kashmir university can benefit from access to best laboratories in India; when social science researchers travel outside the campus to visit archives, undertake field visits, throng libraries, and other institutions in India or outside and benefit from enormous online database provided by e-resources platforms, why can’t the benefits of this ‘flat world’ of Thomas Friedman be extended to the college teachers.
Some people share apprehensions that decentralizing research to colleges may lead to its erosion which I find implausible, in our case at least, given the way Kashmir University has failed to improve the quality of its research over the years. For example, if the Times Higher Education Rankings for the year 2017 is to be believed, the Kashmir University doesn’t figure even among best 1000 universities in the world.
I believe that if the colleges are provided with some infrastructural makeovers coupled with sufficient quality control procedures, coordination among various higher educational institutions, and effective supervision at different levels, the research in colleges will enhance incentives for pursuing higher education, attract high-end human resource potential and consequently increase employability in one of the educationally backward states in India. Since there are already UGC regulations with regard to the minimum requirements for the award of research degree like – appearing in the entrance test, attending coursework, publishing two research papers by the concerned scholar during Ph.D., among others,- it is to be ensured that colleges meet these requirements before the award of a research degree. The current Education Minister Mr Altaf Bukhari and the Principal Secretary Higher Education, Dr Asghar Hassan Samoon, have done some laudable work prioritizing higher education in the state and to augment quality and employability of the students. They should address the concerns of the maintaining quality to address the genuine concerns of academia in the state.
There are hundreds of students registered with universities outside the state in India who desperately need supervisors and co-supervisors to kick-start their research. Since the Kashmir University teachers are increasingly overburdened with their own assignments it would be prudent for eligible college teachers to guide these students. Those aspiring students deserve the right to the equal opportunity which shouldn’t be denied to them.
At the ethical level, teachers union at the university level should not try to deprive thousands of research aspirants the opportunities of education because of their monopoly over low-quality research is challenged. I say ‘low-quality’ with a sense of responsibility since I don’t see global research ranking agencies convinced with the quality of research in Kashmir University the way some self-complacent KUTA representatives are.
The author is a Doctoral Fellow at Centre of Advanced Study in History at Aligarh Muslim University.