Tamil Nadu’s declining education sector has become a favourite playing field for political parties to trample upon and ride roughshod over. Deep-seated antagonisms beyond the boundaries of democratic discourse between the DMK and AIADMK parties, which supplant each other in Fort St. George every five years, has wreaked havoc on the school and higher education systems in this southern seaboard state (pop. 72 million), which until recently prided itself on its superior education institutions.
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The Chennai-based Anna University — Tamil Nadu’s premier engineering and technology university — in particular, has had to bear the brunt of Tamil Nadu’s destructively competitive politics. Established in 1978 as a unitary university by popular actor-turned politician M.G. Ramachan-dran, who founded the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam political party which later became All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), it was transformed into an affiliating varsity in 2002 by the Jayalalitha-led AIADMK government. In 2002, Anna University had 240 engineering colleges affiliated with it, which increased to 275 by 2006. In that year (2006), to relieve it from the burdensome duty of administering 275 engineering colleges and allow university faculty to concentrate on research, the DMK government, which was voted to power in May 2006, re-converted it into a unitary varsity.
Simultaneously four regional Anna Universities of Technology (AUTs) were established in Tiruchi, Coimbatore and Tirunelveli in 2007, and Madurai in 2010, investing all of them with degree awarding status. To seal the deal, the DMK government passed the Anna University, Chennai (Amendment) Act 2010, transforming Anna University into a unitary varsity with four consti-tuent colleges, and simultaneously decreed another Anna University of Technology (AUT) Chennai with 130 engineering colleges within the muni-cipal limits of Chennai, affiliated with it.
As a result, during the past four years six universities sported the appellation ‘Anna’, all independent of each other with five AUTs administering 500 engineering colleges affiliated with them. Now, once again the AIADMK government, which was voted into office on May 16 this year, has resolved to merge the five AUTs with Anna University, Chennai and restore the status of an affiliating university to it on the grounds that the creation of five AUTs has weakened Anna University, Chennai and resulted in creation of unviable institutions. Accordingly, a Bill seeking to further amend the Anna University Act, 1978 and repeal the provisions to abolish the five AUTs was introduced in the assembly and passed on September 14, and is awaiting the assent of the governor-chancellor.
This constant chopping and changing and recasting of engineering education in Tamil Nadu has dismayed the academic community in the state. There is growing apprehension that research and publications will suffer as the faculty will have to perform the additional function of monitoring affiliated colleges.
Although informed educationists acknowledge that the former DMK government had set up the five AUTs without ensuring they had adequate infrastructure and faculty, they also voice misgivings about Anna Univ-ersity reverting to its status as an affiliating varsity. “The state planning commission working group on education which is preparing the final document of the Twelfth Plan, has proposed that every university should mentor only 50 colleges or 75,000 students. However, the Tamil Nadu government is setting the clock back by having 500 engineering colleges affiliated with Anna University. This is bound to have a negative impact on the quality of engineering education. We have to ensure that education policy initiatives are stable and don’t change according to the political party in power. The affiliation system is the curse of the higher education system in our country and as a result, 90 percent of our undergraduate students study in colleges where teaching and research doesn’t happen,” says Dr. V.C. Kulandaiswamy, former vice chancellor of Anna University, IGNOU and Madurai Kamaraj University.
With total lack of long-term planning, the brand name and reputation built by Anna University over the past 32 years seems to be fast eroding. While reviewing the univer-sity’s operations in 2007-08, the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) of India had criticised it for policy violations in admissions, poor planning and financial management, corruption in the valuation system, and inadequate research.
Hardly surprising, given the games politicians play with education institutions in Tamil Nadu which is fast losing its reputation as India’s premier state for engineering and technology education.
Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)