Dr. Pabitra Kumar Jena
Now-a-days ‘Autonomy’ in higher education is used as a buzz word. General meaning of ‘Autonomy’ is self norm. In other world autonomy means providing freedom to the people who are responsible for the execution of the plans. The autonomy is expected to provide a better framework through a decentralized management culture. The delegation of authority with accountability for the academic as well as the associate management function is therefore, essential for the success. Broadly, autonomy of an institution is the ability to take all decisions regarding functioning of the institution within the overall framework and laws of the country. For a publicly funded Institution, full autonomy on finances is clearly not possible. Hence, while most of us shall agree that autonomy is not lawlessness but it is an organizational culture that ensures speedy discharge of responsibilities. Academic autonomy is the freedom to decide academic issues like curriculum, instructional material, pedagogy, techniques of students’ evaluation. Administrative autonomy is the freedom to institution to manage its own affairs with regard to administration. It is the freedom to manage the affairs in such a way that it stimulates and encourages initiative and development of individuals working in the institutions and thereby of the institution itself. Many states have come to apply more control on autonomous functioning of universities and colleges by various means and methods. Financial aid has become most powerful instruments in the hands of state government to curtail the autonomy of the University and Colleges.
To ensure effective implementation, the scheme has undergone review and revision from time to time. However, the focus so far has been on problems relating to innovations and changes under autonomy, administrative and financial matters, etc., so as to make the concept of autonomy popular in the academic circle. The gray areas still exist which call for serious dialogue for removing unfounded apprehensions in the minds of teachers, management and the government, mainly concerning the service conditions, security of job and proper implementation of the scheme, and the College/University -State Government – UGC relations. Changes in Acts and Statutes of the Universities are also needed to provide them necessary powers to confer autonomous status to the identified and selected colleges. Matters falling in the gray areas are generally open for multiplicity / duplication of efforts by more than one stakeholder and, therefore, call mutually acceptable approach. Such areas include criterion for admission of pass out graduates of the autonomous college in the post graduate programmes being run by the parent University on her campus and merit position secured in the University by the students of autonomous colleges. It has often been reported that students of autonomous colleges are treated ‘less than equals’ by their own University. Universities generally feel that due to obvious reasons, performance of the students are not evaluated by the autonomous colleges on the same set of parameters as applied to the parent University. Such suspicions / apprehensions, unless based on ground realities, bring down the reputation of the institution in the eyes of the public, which in turn demoralizes institution management and the students. Such kind of suspicions / apprehensions need to be resolved and ambiguities removed.
It seems that the most crucial missing component of the scheme of higher education has so far been subject to poor monitoring. A Regional / State level monitoring mechanism through networking may provide practical solutions to many of the problems being encountered by the colleges during the implementation of the scheme. Cross fertilization of ideas between and among the autonomous and non-autonomous colleges, at regular intervals, and also about the ‘successful’ and ‘not so successful’ innovations made by the autonomous colleges may improve quality of higher education as, such interaction and may provide much deeper insight into the problem areas and offer alternatives to the existing remedial practices. This exercise may also motivate others to seek autonomy status in due course of time in the interest of improvement of higher education.
In India, the University system has passed through major political, economic and social changes and paradigms shifts are being observed to have taken place. There have been several reviews of our education system, including the University system especially after independence. It is not surprising that one of the key recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission, behind the expansion of the system, is to change the system of regulation for higher education, claiming that “the system, as a whole, is over-regulated but under-governed” and proposing to establish an “Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education (IRAHE)” that is to operate “at an arm’s length from the Government and independent of all stakeholders”.
Autonomy of an institution is only possible if the higher education institution itself has the ability to take decisions itself rather than it has been imposed by Government or any other private body and the institution understands its larger responsibilities. If this is done in a constructive and positive manner then the larger society will understand the role of autonomy in higher education for nation building. On other hand, if institution will not work for welfare of the society and changes need with time then changes which seem desirable for welfare society will be imposed upon it. So in long run it can easily get influenced by politics. So in order to protect autonomy which is highly desirable for a higher education institution should be a dynamic one for necessary changes.
(The writer is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra, Jammu and Kashmir.
Feedback: pabitrakumarjena@gmail.com,)
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