(1) Strong inter-university links should be formed among members of the centres of advanced study, members of aspirant centres, leading university departments and outstanding affiliated colleges, in particular fields of research. For,this purpose, small two- to three-day conferences at which a few papers are presented and a critical and constructive discussion forms the main part of the agenda, should be encouraged on a fairly large scale. The funds required for the purpose should be included in the grants to the centres.
(2) Invitations may be given to promising scholars and scientists from other universities or affiliated col- leges to do research and to conduct seminars (say, for a term or a session) at one of the centres of advanced study. It would contribute to their intellectual re- freshment and give an incentive to the staff of the other universities and colleges to strive to will the distinction and the advantages of such an invitation.
11.39 Development of Other Universities. The universities, which are not major universities, should also strive to develop high standards, to begin with, at least in one or two departments, by due concentration of resources and by securing competent teachers. If they do so, the UGC should give them special grants on the basis of merit. When a university department is thus raised to a high level, its further elevation to the status of an aspirant Centre may be considered; and, if it satisfies the conditions laid down, it may be assisted financially for a period of five years in the first instance. If its progress is satisfactory, the department could be developed, in due course, into a full-fledged Centre of advanced study. We hope that once this process starts, it will be possible to raise a number of the universities to a reasonably high standard by the end of the century.
11.40 Development of Affiliated Colleges. We have to recog- nize that the standard of the first degree and other postgraduate work in the bull, of affiliated colleges cannot be, in general, the same as that of the education imparted in university departments. The latter will usually have a more balanced combination of teaching and research than in a college, better staff, better qualified students and better resources.
11.41 At the same time, there are several colleges of long standing which have done and are doing as good work as any good uni- versity and it should be an objective of educational policy to encour- age them.
11.41 HIGHER EDUCATION: OBJECTIVES AND IMPROVEMENT 517
The major universities should specially help them in every possible way. They will get many of their teachers from them and will be in- evitably drawn in a healthy competition for raising standards. To assist in this process, we make the following recommendations:
(1) Affiliated colleges should be classified in terms of the level of their performance. For instance, the criteria for this purpose may, amongst others, include:
- number and quality of staff;
- number and general quality of students;
- research output;
- library facilities;
- laboratory facilities for science students;
- quality of student discipline;
-performance of graduates of the college in national scholarships examinations;
- innovations in teaching procedures; and
- examination results.
The techniques of applying the above criteria in prac- tice must be worked out and the institutional machinery for the quinquennial reviews of colleges on this basis must also be adequately provided. This classification should be used to provide special 'merit' grants to deserving colleges. For example, colleges which rank high on the list and continue to improve their pro- grammes and teaching should be given certain advantages such as salary bonuses for their teachers, grants for libraries, laboratories and necessary amenities for staff and students, etc., or colleges which have main- tained a good and effective library system for a period of, say, five years could be given matching grants to improve their libraries further. Similarly, colleges which, while maintaining other academic standards, have avoided serious breaches of discipline, might be given outright or matching grants for improved staff and student amenities, and so on. We are aware that such a system of college classification and grant-in-aid is beset with administrative difficulties. We, therefore, recommend that the UGC, in consultation with the univer- sities and State Governments, should examine this ques- tion of classification of colleges in terms of level of achievement and make use of it in the allocation of grants to colleges under the Fourth Five Year Plan.
(2) Finally, we should like to refer to the question of 'autonomous' colleges which has been wider discussion for many years. Where there is an outstanding college (or a small cluster of very good colleges) within a large university which has shown the capacity to improve itself markedly, consideration should be given to
518 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 11.42
granting it an autonomous status. This would involve the power to frame its own rules of admissions, to prescribe its courses of study, to conduct examinations, and soon. The parent university's role will be one of general supervision and the actual conferment of the degree. The privilege cannot be conferred once and for all-it will have to be continually earned and deserved- and it should be open to the university, after careful scrutiny of the position, to revoke the autonomous status if the college at any stage begins to deteriorate in its standards. We recommend that provision for the recognition of such autonomous colleges be made in the constitution of the universities. It should be possi- ble, in our opinion, by the end of the Fourth Five Year Plan, to bring at least fifty of the best colleges under this category.
IMPROVEMENT OF TEACHING AND EVALUATION 11.42 Improvement of Teaching. One of the most important reforms needed in higher education is to improve teaching and evalua- tion. The existing conditions in this regard are extremely unhappy. Most of the teaching, till comparatively recently, has been dominated by a syllabus which is many years out-of-date. In fact, the position in many universities remains unchanged still. As the performance of students, is assessed by a single external examination based on the syllabus, an undue emphasis is placed on unintelligent and selective cramming. The situation is further aggravated by rigid rules which govern the selection of courses, by the inordinate amount of time that both students. and teachers spend in formal classroom contacts, with the resulting lack of opportunity for independent study by the stu- dents and of adequate time for lecture-preparation by the teachers. If university teaching is to be vitalized, changes are needed on the following lines: *132
- more flexibility in the courses offered and more freedom of choice by the students;
- a marked reduction in the amount of formal instruction and a corresponding increase in tutorial work, discus- sion groups, seminars and in independent study; and
- a change in the character of teaching to discourage cramming drastically and to stimulate curiosity, prob- lem-solving ability and originality.
11.43 The problem of introducing greater flexibility in the courses will be discussed in the next chapter. With regard to the formal lectures, we suggest that, in the universities and the col- leges, the number of
132 The need to orientate university teachers to new and better methods of teaching has already been dealt with in Chapter IV.
11.45 HIGHER EDUCATION : OBJECTIVES AND IMPROVEMENT 519
formal classroom and laboratory hours should be somewhat reduced. The time thus saved should be devoted to independent study, under the guidance of instructors to assigned reading, writing of essays, solv- ing of scientific and mathematical problems, and small research projects in which the student seeks out and learns to use independent- ly the books and documents he needs. Every effort should be made to challenge and stretch the minds of the students by assigning them more exacting reading assignments, asking them to solve more difficult problems and providing opportunities for independent study of subjects in which they become especially interested. In addition, the students should be encouraged to do much more general reading than they do at present, both during the academic year and in vacation periods. This highlights the importance of building up good libraries, both in universities and in colleges.
11.44 Development of Libraries. With ever-increasing enrol- ment in universities and colleges, the demand for library service has been constantly growing. Unlike in the past, the library staff have now to cater to the diverse needs of undergraduates, postgraduates and research scholars. It should be realized that modern university libraries are also required to serve a larger number of academic departments and to perform new functions like indexing and abstract- ing. Moreover, the present position of expenditure on books and periodicals is not satisfactory. It is only in four universities that expenditure on books and periodicals is more than 5 per cent of the total expenditure as shown below:
TABLE 11.1 PERCENTAGE EXPENDITURE ON BOOKS AND PERIODICALS IN UNIVER-
SITIES
Percentage of total No. of
expenditure universities *133
Less than 1 per cent 5
1 to 5 " " 34
5 per cent and above 4
11.45 In this connection, we make the following recommenda- tions:
(1) The Heads of Departments and library staff should cooperate fully in drawing up an integrated plan of library development, from a long-range point of view. Such a plan should take into consideration a number of factors such as the anticipated increase in enrolment, the faculty-wise distribution of students, new subjects and fields of specialization, special research projects, and so on.
133 Information available for 43 universities.
520 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 11.45
(2) No new university, college or department should be set up without taking into account its library needs in terms of staff books, journals, space, etc. Nothing could be more damaging to a growing department than to neglect its library or to give it a low priority. On the contrary, the library should be an important Centre of attraction on the college or university campus.
(3) The utilization of library grants should be suit- ably phased over a plan period. In other words, there shoud be a regular programme of strengthening of academ- ic departments and the library, instead of haphazardly overfeeding them in one year and starving them in the next.
(4) An essential thing about the development plan of a university library is to lay down physical rather than financial targets. Even more important is a proper use of books by students and teachers. Lectures should be supplemented by tutorial instruction, and thereafter the students should turn to the library to find for them- selves, with the help of reference librarians, the relevant material and knowledge needed. More working hours and working days, easy accessibility to books, adequate provision in terms of staff, multiple copies of textbooks which may be loaned to needy students, better display of new reading material, organization of book- clubs, separate rooms for periodicals, reference books and research works, are some of the measures that would help raise the standard of library service. The reading habit, which is appallingly low, must be toned up in every possible way.
(5) in addition to having 'departmental' and 'seminar' libraries stocked with a 'working collection of books and journals' the central library should facilitate interdisciplinary communication as also the work of research scholars in borderline disciplines. This will also be economical in the long run.
(6) With the emergence of active research in our universities, there is a need for conservation of re- search potential through documentation work and service. It is, therefore, necessary to appoint a team of docu- mentalists in university libraries who can speak the language of research workers and undertake the work of documentation-search, indexing and abstracting. For this purpose, it will be advisable to set up a few regional centres with equipment for photographic repro- duction of documents such as microfilming and photostat- ing.
(7) We should completely break away from the tradi- tional view that a library is a conventional but more or less useless accessory.
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No definite set of standards can be used in developing a university library programme but the essentials relate to competent staff, an adequate collection of carefully selected and well-organized books, well-planned physical facilities and professors teachers who teach with books.
(8) A collection of books, even a collection of good books, does not constitute a 'library'. Given enthusi- astic teachers 'who teach with books', and librarians who can cooperate with them in converting the library into an intellectual workshop, even a comparatively small collection of sensitively chosen books may work wonders in the life of students. Without such a staff, the most luxurious building or extensive book collec- tion, may have no effect at all. The object of library planning is not to build a collection of books unrelated to class-work, laboratory research and conference room. The object is rather to relate book selection, organiza- tion of the books, conditions of access and all library activities to the daily needs and activities of the academic community, both professors and students. The book selection should be oriented toward supporting instruction and research. The teaching and library staff should determine the titles and copies of books to be purchased and periodically work together to discard obsolete books. Many of these can be replaced with microfilms and micro-cards.
(9) The library should
- provide resources necessary for research in fields of special interest to the university;
- aid the university teacher in keeping abreast of development in his field;
- provide library facilities and services necessary for the success of all formal programmes of instruction;
- open the door to the wide world of books that lie beyond the borders of one's own field of specialization; and
- to bring books, students and scholars together under conditions which encourage reading for pleasure, self- discovery, personal growth and the sharpening of intel- lectual curiosity.