Page 32 - Tehelka Issue 15 August 2018

Proposal to scrap UGC

invites mixed reactions

The new draft law, the Higher Education Commission of India Bill proposes to revamp the
governance of higher education in India, writes vivashwan singh

he present central govern- UGC. Out Of the total 12 members of draft should have mentioned that due
ment has a tendency to the commission, there will be three or fair representation should be given
lean towards centralising bureaucrats — the secretary of Higher to marginalised social groups, genders
power and promote com- Education, secretary of Ministry of Skill and minority communities.
T moditization. However, the Development and Entrepreneurship, According to Professor Prabhat Pat-
recent directive on scrapping UGC is an and secretary, Department of Science naik, professor emeritus of econom-
important step. The new draft law, the and Technology. ics at JNU, the HECI, in all probability,
Higher Education Commission of India It’s obvious that a commission large- will end up being a bureaucratic body,
Bill proposes to revamp the govern- ly consisting of bureaucratic academics based on the current government’s
ance of higher education in India. The will sharply reduce the academic com- leaning towards neoliberal develop-
Bill seeks to replace the UGC Act, 1956, ponent of the UGC with a bias towards ment. The academic institutions in In-
and restructure the UGC as the Higher white-collar professionalism. The com- dia have never been totally free from
Education Commission of India (HECI). munalisation of education actually government interference but with the
The body, in its new form, will focus on HRD ministry controlling university
setting, maintaining and improving funding directly, the feasibility of po-
academic standards in universities. Although giving litical interference in the running of
The government has also decided autonomy by itself is our institu-tions will increase to large
to develop norms for setting standards extent.
for opening and closure of institutions, not a bad proposal Giving ‘autonomy’ to institutions is
provide for greater flexibility and au- and universities one of the key points in the proposed
tonomy to institutions, lay standards Higher Education Commission of In-
for appointments to critical leadership need autonomy to dia (HECI). Although giving autonomy
positions at the institutional level irre- function effectively, by itself is not a bad proposal and uni-
spective of University started under any versities need autonomy to function ef-
Law (including State Law). but the government’s fectively, but the present government’s
The present government has a high- autonomy plan has come with a pack-
ly technocratic attitude, even when it plan has come with age of cost cutting and raising fees. It is
comes to the UGC. The number of aca- a package of cost a matter of fixing fees, in which large
demics in the UGC has been sharply re- numbers of students belonging to back-
duced. The communalisation of higher cutting and fee hike ward economic backgrounds wont get
education goes hand-in-hand with the access to higher education, unless
a strengthening of caste prejudices. they are willing to take student loans.
What is even more shocking is the fact meshes well with commodification. The Considering the large scale unem-
that there is no reservation for women/ self-centred individuals designed for ployment that prevails in our country,
Dalit/OBC scholars in the proposed the neo liberal market that capitalism if the students take loans, then a large
Higher Education Commission. produces, not only carry over the preju- number of them will be unable to pay
It is full of bureaucrats, academic bu- dices that they may have imbibed early, back the loan and will lead to mass sui-
reaucrats including vice-chancellors, but even strengthen these prejudices, cides, similar to the prevailing peasant
professors, who are controlled by the of people being judged by the money suicides.
state. The proposed Higher Education they have and the marginalised and In the name of autonomy the gov-
Commission of India, will have com- the oppressed, such as the minorities, ernment is moving towards the priva-
paratively lesser academics than the are looked upon with contempt.The tisation of higher education. The HECI

Tehelka / 15 august 2018 32 www.Tehelka.com