(10) There is no formula for estimating with precision how much money a university should invest in its libraries. *134 It has been

134 The total annual world book production during the years 1960- 63 was of the order of 360,000, 375,000, 385,000, and 400,000 titles respectively. In 1966 it is expected to reach 450,000. Of these about 18 per cent are in English. This would mean about 80,000 titles covering all branches of learning are produced annually. Even if we were to import 15 per cent of the total titles for use by our univer- sities and colleges, it would mean importing 12,000 titles. At an average cost of Rs. 20 per title and 250 multiple copies, the estimat- ed expenditure would come to Rs. 48 million, and providing Rs. 2 million for books in all other languages, the expenditure on imported books alone would need Rs. 50 million annually.

522 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 11.46

found that the expenditure on library in relation to total educational expenditure of the university, has gone up from 1.88 per cent in 1951-52 to 4.04 per cent in 1960-61, by which time the grants provided by the UGC bad begun to make an impact. The University Education Commission had suggested about 6.5 per cent of educa- tional budget as reasonable expenditure on libraries. But this could vary, say, from 6.5 per cent to 10 per cent depending on the stage of development of each university library. It may also be suggested that, as a norm, a university should spend each year about Rs. 25 for each student registered and Rs. 30 per teacher.

(11) The foreign exchange needed for university and college libraries should be allocated separately to the UGC.

11.46 It is most important to emphasize original thinking in the study of all subjects and to discourage memorizing. The rate of growth of knowledge is now so great that only a few of the so-called facts which one learns in the university are liable to be useful, or even true, a few years later. This is specially true of the sciences. Till comparatively recently, it was possible for a teacher to provide his students with a map, as it were, which would guide them through life. Now, the best thing he can do is to give them a compass. The function of a modern university is to give that enduring knowledge of the fundamental principles of a subject which would help them to solve new problems as they arise and to keep on learning throughout life. This should be regarded as the distinguishing mark of a 'university mind'.

11.47 There is a practice to assign the youngest, least experi- enced staff members to each undergraduate classes. Some of them have neither the stature nor the experience nor the poise to will young men and women effectively to the pursuit of knowledge. In a way, effec- tive teaching at this level demands the attention and cooperation of the best teachers available. This does not, of course, mean that there is a possibility of all or many senior and experienced teachers being given undergraduate work. But it does mean that there should be a possibility of undergraduates coming into occasional contact with such teachers, particularly when a new subject has to be introduced for the first time.

11.48 We would like to make the following suggestions for improvement of teaching:

(1) A class hour at the university stage should not be less than 60 minutes. A part of the time, say 10 minutes, should be devoted to answering questions by students and assigning them homework. The content and quality of lectures in general needs to be considerably improved. One way of characterizing the level of class

11.50 HIGHER EDUCATION: OBJECTIVES AND IMPROVEMENT 523

work is that every one hour of instruction should re- ceive about 3-4 hours of study time to digest the lec- tures.

(2) In several cases, teachers are away, for long periods, from their institutions during term time. This interferes with the smooth working of the institutions and is detrimental to good teaching. It may be laid down as a rule that no teacher should be away from his institution during 'term time' for more than seven days in a year. There should also be a convention that during 'term time' teachers should not take up assign- ments which interfere with their teaching duties.

(3) All new appointments should be made during summer time so that teachers join their new posts at the begin- ning of the academic year. Further, unless there be compelling reasons, no teacher should be permitted to leave an institution to take up another appointment during term time.

11.49 We realize that it would be impossible to bring these changes in all the institutions at the same time. They would become possible as better teachers and facilities become available. Most of them are relatively easy to introduce in the universities and their constituent colleges, but more difficult in the affiliated colleges, especially in the small colleges in the rural areas. But this is definitely the direction in which we should move.

11.50 Experimentation. We should like to draw attention pointedly to the need for experimentation, which we have stressed in other spheres of education also. There is immense scope for it in our educational system but unfortunately there is little deliberate and sustained effort in this direction. It is necessary both to create the desire and the wilt for it and to provide the financial and aca- demic means to do so. There are two important areas in which such experimentation would yield particularly rich dividends.

(1) One such area concerns the manner of handling larger numbers of students without a proportionate increase in educational expenditure or the number of faculty members. It is by no means clear that a small- sized student body necessarily leads to an improvement in standards or that there is some magically correct student-teacher ratio. Some subjects can be taught as well in large classes as in small ones. There is evi- dence to show that classes of intermediate size, say 40 to 80, have little or no advantage over classes of several hundred students. The use of microphones and tape records of lectures by distinguished professors from all over India could be usefully tried for this purpose. Many leaders in higher education have come to the view that part of college

524 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

teaching should be done in large classes and part in small groups of 5 to 20 students, with at least half the student's time being spent on assigned reading, problem- solving, and other kinds of independent study. We should also remember that the students usually learn almost as much from each other as from the faculty.

(2) Another desirable experiment would be to have a certain amount of the teaching at the undergraduate stage done by the postgraduate students after their first year. This would have three advantages: the student-teachers would gain valuable experience in teaching, and their ability as teachers could be judged before they are appointed to college or university faculties; the number of teachers at the college level could be increased or, alternatively, part of the time of lecturers and readers could be freed for research. It would also be possible to pay postgraduate and re- search students for teaching tasks and this would help some needy and able students to continue their educa- tion.

11.51 Teaching Methods. The problem of teaching methods in higher education has been a relatively neglected subject in India so far. We recommend that it may be examined by the UGC through a spe- cial committee appointed for the purpose. We also recommend that the schools of education, *135 whose establishment we have proposed, should make a special study of the teaching methods, not only at the school stage, but also in the universities and affiliated colleges. Such studies will be of great use in organizing the orientation courses for junior lecturers which we have recommended.

11.52 Examination Reform. In the present system, when the future of the students is totally decided by one external examination at the end of the year, they pay minimum attention to the teachers, do little independent study throughout most of the academic year and cram desperately for the final examination. The crippling effect of exter- nal examinations on the quality of work in higher education is so great that examination reform has become crucial to all progress and has to go hand in hand with improvements in teaching. The UGC rightly emphasized the significance of the problem and said:' We are convinced that if we are to suggest any single reform in university education, it should be that of examinations.' One of the earliest efforts of the UGC was concerned with the study of the problem and the report of its expert committee on examination reform is a useful document. But it has not been implemented to any appreciable extent so far. This is one of those areas in education about which one can say that the problem is known, its

135 Chapter IV.

11.55 HIGHER EDUCATION: OBJECTIVES AND IMPROVEMENT 525

significance is realized, the broad lines of the solution-at least to begin with-are known; but for some reason or other, an effort to implement it on any worthwhile scale or in a meaningful manner has not yet been made. What is needed is vigorous and sustained action.

11.53 We make below a few recommendations that might make a welcome break-through in the situation. One line of attack would be to abolish set syllabuses and the external examinations based on them altogether and to replace them by a system of internal and continuous evaluation by the teachers themselves. This is already being done in some institutions like the IITs or the agricultural universities and it could be increasingly extended to others as soon as the necessary facilities and Conditions can be provided. We hope that, at no dis- tant date, it will be adopted by all teaching universities and that the major universities would given a lead in this matter.

11.54 We realize, however, that external examinations will remain with us for a long time, especially in universities which have large numbers of affiliated colleges of very unequal standards. The main strategy here would be to attack the problem on two fronts: introduction of more frequent, periodical assessment so that the undue emphasis on the final examination as the sole determinant of success is reduced; and reform of evaluation techniques. With regard to the first, a good deal can be gained if the performance of the student is assessed throughout the session in a suitable manner and if periodical tests are held in the middle and at the end of each term. A system of internal assessment should be introduced as a supplement to the exter- nal examination, based on such periodical evaluations. The results of these internal assessments should not be mechanically added to the external marks but kept separate and both should be shown side by side in the final certificate. Passes should be required separately in both and the divisions gained in them should be declared separately. Every year, a careful review should be made of the correlation between internal and external assessment separately for each institution. This should be taken as a point for classification of colleges and also related to grant-in-aid so that institutions which tend to over- assess their students persistently would stand to lose in status and finance. The regulations may also authorize the university to with- draw affiliation for persistent irresponsible assessment.

11.55 Regarding improvement in examination techniques, we have little to add to the learned literature already available on the subject. As we said earlier, what is lacking is not knowledge, but will, courage and perseverance to work out its implementation. We suggest the following measures:

(1) There is need for a central source to guide and activate a movement of examination reform, without which no early and effec-

526 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 11.56

tive progress is possible. For instance, the activity that one now sees in this matter in the State Boards for Secondary Education is due largely to the Central Exami- nation Reform Unit in the National Council of Education- al Research and Training. We recommend that the UGC should set up immediately a similar examination reform unit for higher education at a sufficiently high level which would work in collaboration with the universities. This could become the starting point of an effective programme of reform.

(2) The next step should be to persuade some universi- ties to launch upon the programme in a big way. In addition to major universities which will have to give a lead by abolishing the external examinations altogether, the other universities should set up special units for examination reform and should prepare and implement a programme of reform in consultation with the central unit.

(3) Another important point of emphasis would be the reorientation of university teachers to adopt new and improved techniques of evaluation. A programme of seminars, discussions or workshops should be organized to serve as the spearhead of the reform. This will have to be continued from year to year to evaluate results, to try out experiments and to make further plans. This would be the responsibility of the central and local examination reform units.

We trust that, if a few universities can make a determined attack on the problem and achieve a break-through, the whole programme of examination reform will be greatly accelerated.

11.56 We recommend that the grading or classification of examination. results is almost invariably done on an absolute rather than on a relative basis. In our present system of examinations, an 80 per cent mark, say, in mathematics, does not convey the same mean- ing as, say, 80 per cent mark in history or English. Again, an 80 per cent mark in one year does not mean the same thing as 80 per cent mark in another year because examiners may be different, and there may be many other variations from year to year. A system of grading must be such as to bring out whether a student belongs, say, to the top 20 per cent of his class or to the bottom 20 per cent. It is strongly recom- mended that even if the present system of examinations and classify- ing the results is continued, it should be supplemented by giving, in the same certificate, the relative grading of the student, say on a five point scale. Grade 'A' would mean that the student is in the top 20 per cent of those who have been successful at the examination.

11.58 HIGHER EDUCATION: OBJECTIVES AND IMPROVEMENT 527

11.57 We recommend that early measures should be taken to abolish payment of remuneration to examiners. Evaluation is a part of teaching and teachers should be willing to undertake it as part of their duties. This is one of the reasons why we have recommended an increase in the salary scales of teachers. However, we recognize that the load of this work should not be too heavy on any teacher and would, therefore, suggest that the maximum number of scripts to be examined by a teacher in a year should not exceed 500.

11.58 The Medium of Education. The problem of teaching and evaluation in higher education is inextricably linked with the medium of education and examination. It was pointed out earlier *136 that, as a part of the development of education in our country, we have to move energetically in the direction of adopting the regional languages as media of education at the university stage, that careful prepara- tion should be made for the purpose, that both the manner and the time of transition would have to be left for decision to the university system. We shall now deal with some other aspects of the problem from the point of view of practical implementation:

(1) We would like to emphasize that the medium of classroom communication and examination should generally be the same. The present arrangement under which a large proportion of students, at the first degree stage and even later, use the regional language for purposes of examinations although the classroom instruction is given through the medium of English, is educationally unsatisfactory. If the student can be expected to express himself in the regional language in his examina- tion, it should not normally be difficult for a teacher to do the same in the classroom. In fact, the student's understanding of the fundamental problems and issues would be better and his performance in the examination would improve if, in all cases where the universities have taken a decision to adopt the regional languages as media of examinations, they also decide to adopt them as normal media of classroom communication. However, it must be remembered that the hold of English as a medium in the universities is linked with the use of the re- gional languages as the languages of administration in the States. So long as the prize posts in administra- tion go to students who have good command over English, it will not be surprising if a substantial proportion of students continue to prefer education given through it.

(2) While the goal is to adopt the regional languages as media of

136 Chapter I.

528 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 11.58