There is a lot of talk of autonomy these days of universities and other academic institutions. The concept of autonomy seems to be invoked in any issue in which government side differs from the academic side. But autonomy comes with responsibility, and this responsibility is much more for a publicly funded institution – something that is not always appreciated fully.
Broadly, autonomy of an institution is the ability to take all decisions regarding functioning of the institution (within the overall framework and laws of the country.) For a publicly funded Institution, full autonomy on finances is clearly not possible. Hence, while most will agree that in decisions relating to salary etc. government, which gives the funds, will have a say, call for autonomy almost always implies at least the ability to take all decisions related to academics.
But is even complete autonomy in academics possible for a institution which uses public funds? Let us take an hypothetical case: a publicly funded institute decides that to improve the quality of education and give individual attention to students, it will follow a gurukul type model where a class will have no more than 20 students and student to faculty ratio will be kept to 5 to 1. Please note that this is primarily an academic issue. But can an Institution run mostly on public funds be allowed to take this decision and follow this route? The answer should be evident – of course not.
Similarly, take another situation – a publicly funded institution to which most students want to go decides to take an entrance test on subjects that are not in class XII syllabus at all and announces the syllabus for its exam well in advance (an academic argument for doing this: we want to test the learnability of students, so we will give them new material to see how well they learn it). This decision will clearly undermine the school education system. Should the sought-after publicly funded institution have the freedom to do so? The answer is again clearly no.
Note that fully privately funded institutions can do this. E.g. a private college or a university can decide to have a gurukul style system with very low teacher to student ratio, and can decide to take such a test (how it will sustain itself or attract students to it is something it will have to figure out.)
The point is that if an academic institution uses mostly public funds it has some responsibilities to the larger society and the Government, even in the academic decisions it takes. It cannot take decisions which are only in the narrow interest of the institution, if the decisions conflict with some larger societal issues (e.g. decision to remain highly elite and small to maintain the stature of the Institution). In other words, there is no absolute autonomy even for academic decisions for institutions that run on public funds – they cannot take narrow institutional view and must take into account broader public interest in their decision making. (And the level of autonomy will clearly depend on the level of financial support the institution takes from public funds – many publicly funded universities in US now take as little as 20% of their budgetry support from the state – they clearly have a larger degree of autonomy than those which take most of their budgetry support from the government.)
So the autonomy of an institution in the sense of having ability to take decisions itself (rather than have the government impose them) is possible only if the institute understands and shoulders its larger responsibilities. If this is done in a proactive manner, the larger society will understand what the institution is doing, which will help preserve its autonomy. If an institution does not live up to its larger societal responsibilities and changes with time, then changes which seem desirable for the larger society will be imposed upon it in a manner in which the government (or the ministry) at the time understands and interprets them, which can easily get influenced by politics. In other words, to protect its autonomy, which is absolutely essential if the academic institution wishes to reach any heights, an institution must make the necessary changes proactively to keep up with the changing responsibilities to the society.
Gnaana Maargi
Jun 17, 2012 @ 23:41:25
Exactly! Obviously you are saying this in the context of CET/JEE, and you are right! I have argued in my few blog posts that faculty at places like the IITs should view their jobs not only as academic jobs but also in a much broader sense as positions at institutions of national importance, with concomitant responsibilities. If that view is built into the DNA of the faculty at places like IITs, AIIMS, NDA, etc., the pro-active social engagement you mention will occur automatically. I mean, all these years could not the IIT faculty see that JEE had spawned a Rs.4000/- crore (or more) coaching industry, which engendered its own law-and-order problems, apart from wreaking havoc on student all-round development? That is just one example. A proactive approach to solving not only their own JEE problem but the problem of numerous entrance exams in the country would have left them in a much better position today. However, I just hope that everyone views their current uprising against CET as social naivety of academia and brings them onboard and also benefits from their expertise and suggestions.
jalote
Jun 18, 2012 @ 06:25:50
You may want to also look at the earlier entry “Common Entrance Test” – a way forward, and in fact something that IIITD has been hoping for.
Gnaana Maargi
Jun 19, 2012 @ 11:13:30
Indeed, I have commented on that earlier post. Also, I have a post up on my blog which argues why the current CET solution is not bad, based on back-of-the-envelope calculations of marks distributions. With a bit of modification, such as changing the JEE Advanced test to the standard JEE, IIT folks can have their cake and eat it too.
shaturya
Jun 20, 2012 @ 12:43:48
I’m sorry but I think your arguments have missed the point .
Everyone understands the point that publicly funded institute has a public mandate and it has to live upto that. Obviously IIT Kanpur cannot claim to have an autonomy to start medicine classes or to start charging capitation fees from extra privileged people.
The point about autonomy is that once a mandate has been given and ground rules finalised to achieve it, no further tweaking of the rules midway should be allowed. The autonomy is not a luxury which is being claimed by the institutes, it is a fundamental requirement to fulfill the public mandate with which it has been trusted.
I think you are well aware that IITs have , relatively speaking , done a remarkable job of being a leader in technical education in the country. The process which IITs have followed starts from the selecting a good candidate, be it at UG , PG or Ph.D level, or most importantly at faculty level.
The mandate hasn’t been changed yet. selection rules are sought to be changed, or rather being imposed. And it is being claimed that autonomy is not being tempered.
Secondly, your argument presumes , it is someone other than the academic institution who is knowledgeable enough to decide what is in the public interest and therefore he/she/it has the rightful authority to decide about the rules, if required, even midway. It implicitly believes that academic institution, if allowed to decide about the its rules, will decide selfishly and which may not be in the larger public interest. I think the only way to refute this argument can be by way of past records. Take the case of state govt engg colleges which normally have state govt secretaries as chairman or board members and the promotion of faculty members depend upon on the govt wishes. The entrance examination is also conducted by the govt. We all know the worth of technical education imparted in state govt colleges and its getting worse.Just compare HBTI, kanpur of yore and of now, you’ll see the difference. I think you’ll agree that the public mandate couldn’t be to take HBTI on the course of final destruction!IITs, IIMs, IIScs are reputed to be of some standing because they had an autonomy to do so and they did it. I believe these institution serve the cause of the nation brilliantly and public in general are proud of them.
Therefore, please have a re-look on the concepts of autonomy. It is something like sports where you fix the ground rules , provide the facilities and then sit back relax and let the sportsperson do their job. It is not autonomy of the sportsperson, it is the functional requirement of the sports to be carried on smoothly to the enjoyment of larger public. If BCCI asks Tendulkar to score run faster or try a hook just because it ‘perceives’ that that is what public wants, will it be in the interest of the public? It can be argued that since BCCI pays heavily (public money, of course) to Tendulkar, it has every right to ask him play the way it wants.
I hope you see the point!
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Dr R K MOHANTY
Jan 16, 2017 @ 04:29:47
There is need of autonomous to deserving institutions for academic excellence.
Dr R K MOHANTY
Jan 16, 2017 @ 04:30:27
There is need of autonomous status to deserving institutions for academic excellence.