Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor

Everyone knows that it exists at the public expense; but it’s difficult to ascertain what exactly the Delhi-based University Grants Commission (UGC)does, apart from doling out obviously inadequate grants to colleges and universities if their shabby, crumbling premises and labs and libraries are any indication. Therefore the golden jubilee celebrations of the commission which concluded on December 28 last year, provided a good opportunity to investigate the range and scale of operations of this shadowy organisation which plays a critically important role in the growth and development of the vitally important higher education sector.

Despite public opinion veering towards the Central and state governments according top priority to primary and elementary education during the past two decades in particular, it’s undeniable that provision of qualitative higher education is also vital if industry and agriculture is to ever become globally competitive. Therefore the achievement of UGC in presiding over, if not engineering, the growth of post-independence India’s tertiary education system which has expanded from 565 colleges and 25 universities in 1953 to 15,600 colleges and 311 universities which host a student population of 9.28 million needs to be acknowledged and commended.

However it’s also undeniable that the amazing growth of India’s higher education system which is the envy of developing nations, has been achieved at the expense of quality. Barring a few colleges and a handful of special purpose and directly subsidised (by the Central government bypassing UGC) institutions such as the IIMs, IITs, the Indian Institute of Science etc, the great majority of the nation’s colleges and universities dispense higher education of embarrassingly poor quality. It is this facet of the country’s higher education system which the leadership and top brass of UGC has resolved to correct and polish as the commission takes fresh guard and starts a new innings half a century after it was promoted to consolidate and build the newly independent nation’s tertiary education system.

But even as it begins its new mission, the leadership of the commission would be well-advised to establish a public relations department to facilitate its business. While writing this month’s cover story, I was appalled by the poor communication and response skills of this important apex institution. A rain of phone calls, faxes and e-mails to the commission’s Delhi office for elementary statistical information and facts clarification drew nil response. If this is the attitude of the commission (whose 650 employees incur an annual expenditure of Rs.18.57 crore) towards a financially disinterested party such as EducationWorld, I shudder to imagine the short shrift and rudeness funds-soliciting academics have to suffer from the commission.

On the other hand no such problems relating to provision of access and information were experienced by our tireless assistant editor Summiya Yasmeen who has focused a spotlight on the vitally important intervention of infotech major Wipro Corporation and its reclusive billionaire Azim Premji, in school education. It’s a well-defined and serious corporate social responsibility initiative from which Indian industry — which alas, is incrementally exhibiting the ugly face of capitalism — could learn a lot.

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