Mukhtar Ahmad Farooqi
Higher education is the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology. Even though so much is said and discussed about the improvement in quality of education in totality through various reforms and policies at different levels but there are still some issues that need to be redressed to make the students employable. The higher education in India has shown rise both in terms of expansion as well as the students opting to go for higher education due to saturation and non-employability at secondary levels but the recent rankings of institutions of higher learning published in Times Higher Education World University Rankings have shown decline from the previously assigned rankings which is indeed worrisome and the intellectual class, academicians and policy makers need to do serious deliberations keeping in view some of the reforms to improve the standard of institutions and quality of education to reduce the gap between demand from job market and educated unemployment.Various crisis that our education system at tertiary level is facing are:
Inbreeding: Inbreeding means Ph.D candidates appointed by the university have graduated or done PG or research from the same university and remain there throughout their career on the basis of favouritism and nepotism. Inbreeding is very much prevalent in this part of the country and one can find several examples if one analyses in their respective societies.
Hourglass Structure of human resource:The structure of our human resources is in the form of an hourglass. There arenot enough number of professionally trained, semi-skilled people such as electricians, plumbers and mechanics to fulfill the society’s requirements and yet there are professionals such as doctors, engineers and lawyers of an indifferent quality that the society cannot accommodate or put to productive use commonly known as saturation. So-called professional institutions are producing graduates who haven’t the kind of skills that can make them employable and wealth creators, resulting in a situation that can be termed as educated unemployment.
Defective and Archaic Examination System: One size fits for all kind of an examination system does not leave any room for either continuous appraisal during the term of the course or for testing the student’s creativity, application of knowledge and problem solving skills. Our examination system focuses on rote learning and students are more concerned with percentage rather than broadening their horizon of knowledge in their respective disciplines. This is more disgraceful when a postgraduate in humanities refuses to teach EVS of primary level citing the reason that I have not studied the subject at postgraduate level .In the current higher education setup except for elite institutions such as IITs and IIMs, the teacher doesn’t have any role in evaluating the student’s performance in real sense rather evaluation is done as per prescribed norms and as such are not allowed think out of box.
Unplanned and de-facto privatization: The governments at different levels opened the gates for private provision of higher educationwithout any serious debate or preparation which not only are money minting institutions but middle class and poor are kept away because of increase in fees and donations (in the name of capitation fees).In the absence of lack of political pressure and constant monitoring they literally sell degrees to earn as much as they can. I am not against the privatization of education at tertiary level but if we go by several surveys and the analysis of experts, barring few private institutions they lack both infrastructure as well as the faculty and are given recognition based on political influences rather than actual merit. In addition to this all family members holding plum positions accommodate their kith and kin regardless of their genuineness.
Poor quality higher education is producing many graduates who often lack conceptual clarity and the capacity to apply knowledge for finding creative solutions. Youngsters are graduating from schools without the basic knowledge and understanding of subjects which are necessary to benefit from college education. The few good teachers are in great demand in coaching institutions preparing students for entrance tests for professional courses.
Considering the nature of crisis afflicting higher education in India, several critical structural reforms is the need of the hour to make our education employable and creative. Ever since the nation recognized the value of higher education for promoting economic growth and social development, the pressure for reforms has been escalating. These are formally embodied in two eminent reports brought out in recent years, one by the National Knowledge Commission headed by Sam Pitroda and the other by the Committee on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education headed by Prof.Yashpal.
Creative Examination System, Continuous Evaluation: Almost all examinations conducted for entry in to any profession or university course in India are usually the same barring few courses in which around 60% questions are of similar nature thereby denying level playing field. Instead of that evaluation procedure the tests conducted should test the:
* depth of student’s knowledge, not breadth.
* analytical skills, application of knowledge and problem solving capacity.
* challenge the student’s ability to be creative and innovative.
* Faculty Recruitment and Appraisal: Faculty recruitment at the University level is mostly on the basis of favoritism and nepotism. The research conducted within and outside state has proved that teachers in the colleges perform better and are more competent than their counterparts in the universities, the main reason being the mode of recruitment because the college teachers are appointed by a recruiting agency where chances of favoritism are less compared to universities where most of the panel members are of the same university and give preference to their own students and scholars. Several such studies on different parameters have been done in the valley which proved the same. So the need of hour is that an agency be formed that will recruit teachers in all the universities whether in state or central level rather than by different universities on their own choice and efforts should be made to recruit innovative thinkers and promote new ideas
* Encourage Humanities: No doubt the need for science and technology, and vocational and other specialized forms of skill-based education is well-recognized and appreciated, especially in a developing economy, the importance of broad, liberal education is much less appreciated. Any society needs a mix of specialists and generalists to fulfill its unique requirements. Highly industrialized and developed nations such as the US is a testimony to developing societies like ours where the bulk of its university graduates major in liberal arts and humanities because true liberal education will go a long way in producing the kind of leaders and enlightened citizens that are badly needed by the developing world.
Encourage intellectual discourse: Institutional structure to ensure mandatory accreditation needs a legal basis for it to have the force of law because presently accreditation is not mandatory and there is no law to govern the process of accreditation. There are two Central bodies involved in accreditation of institutions; the National Accreditation Assessment Council (NAAC) and the National Board of Accreditation Board (NBA), which is not possible if made mandatory.
Despite good enough budget allocation and resource availaibility in our institutions of higher learning , the rankings at International level are not satisfactory and we are not able to make our educated lot employable which demotivates the younger generation to opt for higher education the reason being the crisis in the system.The fact of the matter is that until these issues are rectified at the gross root level and proper implementation of different policies we should not expect educated unemployment showing any signs of decline.
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