The government’s myopic approach to higher education shows in its IoE list, which totally disregards social sciences

Highlights

• The government’s list of ‘Institutes of Eminence’ (IoEs) was awaited for the simple reason that finding a place in it would help an educational institution avoid the clutches of a dreaded regulator.
• The University Grants Commission (UGC) has, over more than half a century, micromanaged this space, leading to a large number of publicly funded universities, producing low-level ‘knowledge’, which have shattered the aspirations of our youth.
• Aware of the public anger at the functioning of the UGC, two governments in the past decade have tried to revamp the regulatory environment for higher education. The latest offering is in the form of a proposed Higher Education Commission of India (HECI).
• The intention is to leave the HECI to focus on quality while leaving funding of public institutions to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).

Criticism on non inclusion of JNU and ignoring of social sciences in considering ‘Institutes of Eminence’ (IoEs)

• Even before the HECI is a reality, we can get an overview of what to expect when such a limited approach to education guides the hand of the state.
• While there may be no political partisanship involved in the matter of finding eminence only in engineering schools, the choices do reflect short-sightedness when the social sciences and the humanities are completely ignored.

Source: The Hindu