The Governor and the Minister for Higher Education both have stressed upon opening only such courses in the academic areas of the universities as carry good employability potential. This is to keep in mind the rising number of educated unemployed in our country. From that point of view, obviously, courses that would stand the student community in good stead for finding employment, the suggestion is welcome. But going beyond the employability factor, higher education also embodies the universally accepted objective of building character and vision among the student community that is about to shoulder the responsibility of carrying forward the task of building of the nation.
Of late, educationists and policy planners in our country have begun to express concern about the dwindling quality of research in the universities and other institutions of specialization in our country. It is a shame that not a single Indian university figures among the 20 top most universities in the world. It is true that top Indian academics and educationists do easily find opportunities of performance in the US and other western countries. We don’t question their competence. But it is not only the competence of faculty that makes higher research result oriented or job oriented. A number of pre-requisites have to be provided. Universities and institutions of Higher Education in the country have seen considerable improvement in terms of infrastructure, manpower, wider reach to deprived segments, scholarships, and student participation etc. in recent decades. New subjects and new courses are introduced to respond to the broad spectrum of existing areas of knowledge. Along with this, what is more important is that the freedom of expression is fully guaranteed among the student community helping them frame democratic character and attitude to life and the world around. We are proud of these achievements and more is yet to come in this context.
But notwithstanding all this, the quality of research has dwindled and there are no two opinions about that. Even the Prime Minister in one of his recent statements did hint towards this deficit and expressed his disappointment that the situation was not hope inspiring. Educationists and policy planners are engaged in looking for the causes of this downslide and how it can be checked. Let us be candid in saying that the primary cause of falling standard of research in institutions of higher education is political interference, which, in common parlance is called politicization of education. Using student community to further political interests of sections among politicians has brought havoc to our student community and the nation as whole. Nepotism and favouritism in appointment of faculties, non-accountability at the level of teaching, training and research, bottlenecks of officialdom, lack of sense of patriotism and rural-urban divide are some of the factors that have had bad impact on the creativity of researchers either at student or at teacher level. To be precise, greatest scope of research lies in the branches of science and technology, medicine, economic studies and human psychology. Technology has the largest potential for employability. Therefore the number of institutions of advanced technology has to be increased so as to reduce the number of students who are left out of the research loop. Interaction of researching community in academic institutions with their counterparts within or out of the country is of much importance. Talent catching is something that should be among priority activities of these institutions. It is also important that wastage of input in non-productive, non relevant researches should be stopped.
The 74th meet of Jammu University Council presided over by the Governor in his capacity as the Chancellor of Jammu University has rightly laid stress on employability of new courses offered to students. The Government is looking for all possibilities and avenues that would help engage student community in gainful employment. In view of this, will it not be feasible to bring about some amendment in the University Statute to allow participation of representative of a few top corporate houses and business magnates in the country in special meetings of the University Councils as ex-officio. Perhaps the Council members would benefit from their practical suggestions aimed at introducing such courses for students as carry considerable potential for employment.
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