‘The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.’

Albert Einstein

KNOWLEDGE has come to occupy centre-stage in the development process with the realization that a significant new relationship has emerged between knowledge and the economy. It is increasingly being recognized that countries with the capacity to generate new knowledge and skilled human power are likely to have a comparative edge in attaining high economic growth and sustaining their growth momentum over those that do not. India is no exception to this widespread and growing global belief.

With the comprehensive economic reforms which were launched in the aftermath of the unprecedented macroeconomic crisis in 1991, India has not only arrived on the global scene, but is now being seen to be marching towards attaining the status of an economic super power. Of course, nobody believes that this transition will be seamless. On the contrary, it is widely recognized that this ride is likely to be bumpy, given several imponderables, especially in the social sector.

Indeed, India today is beset with a major contradiction – on one hand, it has emerged as the second fastest growing economy in the world (next only to China). On the other hand, paradoxically, when countries are ranked by the Human Development Index (HDI), India finds itself almost at the bottom of the world order (ranked 126 among 170 odd nations). Given the overriding importance of education in the HDI, it is clear that India would have to pull its act together in the education sector rather quickly, so as to reap the full benefit of the much-touted ‘demographic dividend’.

 

Without doubt, the spatial expansion of the network of higher education in India over the years has been quite impressive. At the time of independence in 1947, there were only 20 universities in India, around 500 colleges, and 2,40,000 students. By 2005, there were 357 universities, 17,625 colleges and as many as 75 lakh students. Traditionally, what constitutes the bulk of the Indian higher education system is the state universities. In 2005, while there were 20 central universities (and 13 institutes of national importance established through central legislation), what dominated the higher education system in India were 216 state universities (and to a much smaller extent, 102 deemed universities). Not surprisingly, therefore, much of the debate surrounding the recent recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission, has been centred on the state universities.

By most accounts, impressionistic evaluations of state universities are far from being laudatory. Way back in 1966, the Kothari Commission had observed: ‘While the fundamental values to which the universities owe their allegiance are largely unrelated to time and circumstances, their functions change from to time to time. Their tasks are no longer confined to the two traditional functions of teaching and advancement of knowledge. They are assuming new functions and the older one are increasing in range, depth and complexity.’

The general feeling seems to be that the hopes of the Kothari Commission have largely been belied. In respect of the state universities, what the Kothari Commission perceived has not actually happened, and wherever something did happen, much was left to be desired. Widespread pessimism seems to prevail about the possible reform of the state universities. Indeed, it is often said that the state universities are perhaps ‘reform proof’!

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that this well-entrenched belief is not quite valid. Many state universities have been carrying out basic structural reforms on their own. A case in point is the University of Pune – the largest of the state universities in India.

 

Pune has been the seat of education in India for several centuries and has a unique heritage of great saints and littérateurs as well as visionaries and social reformers. Not only was the first school for girls in India established in Pune in 1848, one of the earliest colleges in modern India, i.e. the Hindu College (now called the Deccan College), was also established in Pune way back in 1821. Furthermore, one of the earliest engineering colleges in India, i.e. the College of Engineering, Pune (COEP) came up as early as in 1854. Nevertheless as a full-fledged university, the University of Pune was established only much later, in 1949.¹

When the University of Pune was established, though its jurisdiction spread over 12 districts in Maharashtra, it had only 23 colleges and 8,186 students (8000 undergraduate and 186 postgraduate). The headquarters of the university was placed in a monumental building constructed in 1864, which was the residence of the Governor of Bombay during the British Raj, and with which the University of Pune has been symbolically identified in recent years.

Over the years, the jurisdiction of the university shrank to only three districts – Pune, Nashik and Ahmednagar, with the affiliated colleges in the remaining nine districts assigned to other universities in the region.² But there was a spectacular expansion in terms of number of students, colleges and recognized institutes. By the academic year 2005-06, the University of Pune had 41 university departments, 17 schools and centres, 433 affiliated colleges, 232 recognized institutes, 12,214 teachers and as many as 4,96,531 students. The number of affiliated colleges has now reached 474 while that of recognized institutes stands at 323; the total student population well in excess of half-a-million mark makes it one of the largest universities in the world.

The University of Pune is also the most preferred destination for foreign students coming to India – their total number being 7,716 up to the year 2005-06. The same year the University of Pune achieved the highest accreditation rating (i.e. five star) by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). Notably, the university was among the first in India to have been chosen by the University Grants Commission (UGC) as a University with Potential Excellence.

 

Notwithstanding the impressive expansion, the five star accreditation status and placement in the category of University with Potential for Excellence, at the beginning of the academic year 2006-07, the University of Pune was subject to some serious structural deficiencies.³

1. The curricula for most courses taught have become largely obsolete, in some cases, not revised for as many as two or more decades resulting in a distinct disconnect between the ever-changing societal needs in the region and what the university has actually been offering.

2. A discomfortingly large number of teachers are hopelessly out of sync with the recent advances in their own subjects. The Academic Staff College established at the university for training the teachers has proven grossly inadequate, given the large training requirements.

3. Research activities have, by and large, taken a back seat. There is a widespread belief that conducting research is primarily the responsibility of the university departments and not of affiliated colleges, where teaching is sufficient! Sure enough, in some isolated university departments high quality research is being undertaken. But there is very limited dissemination of the research done and awareness about the research being carried out across departments (sometimes even within the department) has been appalling. Nobody can answer simple questions such as whether the quantum of research (as published in refereed journals – national and international) at the aggregate university level is rising, falling or is stagnant.

4. Infrastructure, both at the main campus and at most affiliated colleges, remains inadequate and poorly maintained. At the main campus of the university the historic building, once the British Governor’s palace, has been slowly crumbling, following gross neglect. The main campus spread over a large area of 411 acres has not been adequately developed to meet the substantially expanded needs. Maintenance of the existing construction also leaves much to be desired. In most affiliated colleges, laboratories and libraries are rarely well-equipped.

5. Governance of the university constitutes a big challenge. In the absence of a Management Information System (MIS), regulation of the affiliated colleges is an exceedingly difficult task, besides being extraordinarily inefficient. Over the 25 years preceding 2005-06, though the total number of students rose by more than 750%, over 40% of teaching positions remained vacant and there was virtually no change in the size of the non-teaching staff. Not surprisingly, the quality of teaching and other student services took a considerable beating. The examination system too has been non-transparent and beset with serious leakages.

6. The social connectivity of the university has been virtually lost. Ideally, the education system and the society should evolve in tandem, growing with each other. This was severed long ago. Indeed, for the last several years, the university seems to have evolved in splendid isolation as if it has nothing to do with the society.

 

During the last two academic years, i.e. 2006-07 and 2007-08, major changes have taken place in the working of the University of Pune, essentially building on the acquired strengths while addressing the shortcomings identified. An unprecedented transformation is currently underway leading to what we believe, can be termed as the University of Pune Model of a state university. The salient features of this model are discussed below.

Mission of the university: Probably for the first time in the history of the university, a formal and forward-looking mission statement⁴ has been formulated: ‘The mission of the University of Pune is to be a global, socially conscious centre of excellence in the conservation, creation, advancement and dissemination of knowledge, equipped to take up challenges of the enormous change taking place all around and committed to empower its faculty and students to contribute meaningfully to economic, technological and social development and progress.’

 

In accordance with this mission, the University of Pune aims to become a vibrant knowledge centre and a centre of excellence in teaching, research and extension activities; bring about conservation, creation, advancement and dissemination of knowledge; create technologically equipped thought and action leaders in a wide range of spheres by providing value-based and high quality education, generating cutting-edge research and innovations, and enabling empowerment through social and regional inclusion; and increase global linkages by attracting international students and establishing collaborative programmes with educational institutions of repute.

Revision of curricula: Early on in 2006, it was decided that the curricula of all courses taught in the university and affiliated colleges and institutes (around 500 in number) would be comprehensively revised and that such revisions would be undertaken with the involvement of the relevant industry experts. The following time line was set up: UG (first year) and PG (first year) June 2008; UG (second year) and PG (final year) June 2009; UG (final year) June 2010.

All the Deans of Faculty (13) and all Board of Studies (67 regular and 56 ad hoc) were entrusted this challenging task. Subject-wise theme papers were prepared and the draft revised curricula were placed on the university website soliciting expert comments/corrections. Peer review was conducted with the help of 182 identified experts, through a series of workshops, thus finalizing 222 curricula which have been disseminated through the university website.

Having completed the first phase on time, the university feels confident of delivering the rest as well as per the agreed time line. An attempt is also being made to put in place a mechanism for regular revision of curricula every three years.

 

Research initiatives: A major initiative was taken so as to give a fillip to research, especially outside the university campus, thus harnessing the research potential at the college level. For this purpose as much as eight crore rupees were provided in the budget for 2007-08 and the same amount again in 2008-09. Individual research projects were solicited, offering from the university funds amounts ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 3,00,000 per project.

It is heartening to note that 469 research proposals were received in 2006-07 and 624 more in 2007-08. Interestingly, more than three-fourths of these proposals were received from the affiliated colleges. Special workshops and conferences were conducted so as to guide these potential researchers regarding appropriate research methodology and the like. These efforts have significantly contributed towards creation of a research culture outside the main campus.

Furthermore, a compendium is under preparation which will provide an annotated listing of research by the University of Pune faculty in the form of research articles/papers in the refereed national and international journals published in the last 10 years. From the next year onward, major research publications of the faculty will also be summarized in the university’s annual report.

Triple connectivity and University of Pune network: The university is currently formulating an ambitious plan of establishing triple connectivity (i.e. audio, visual and data) linking the main campus with all affiliated colleges, recognized institutes and international locations, in this process creating a network of the university of its own.

 

This quantum leap in the IT infrastructure would enable several path-breaking initiatives as illustrated below:

(a) Teachers’ training programme: Leading authorities in each subject would be invited to give seminars on recent advances in their subjects which through the virtual classrooms would benefit all teachers of that subject across the spread of the university in an interactive manner. This would give tremendous boost to updating the knowledge of teachers.

(b) Learning management system: The university can enter the world of web-based learning in a big way by converting all distance learning programmes into the e-learning mode and by introducing a range of new courses in consonance with evolving industry needs.

(c) Workflow management: The governance of the university set-up could be improved a great deal (possibly by a factor of five!) through better workflow management across the main campus, affiliated colleges and recognized institutes.

(d) Knowledge bank and centralized database: A centralized database would be built for better efficiency along with a knowledge bank – a repository with search engine.

(e) Student facilitation centre: Student services could be streamlined through improved communication between student, staff and teachers over an integrated e-mail solution. On-line admissions, examinations and announcement of results could be facilitated.

 

The university has been aggressively marketing itself across the world. Several new MoUs have been signed with leading educational institutions around the world. As a result, the total number of foreign students entering the University of Pune has taken a quantum jump in the last two years, reaching a total of over 13,000 students. In fact, the number of foreign students entering the University of Pune in 2007-08 was more than 20 times the combined total of new entrants in all the remaining state universities in Maharashtra, including Mumbai University.

The university is currently in the process of establishing its branch campus at Dubai, likely to become operational with effect from September 2008, making Pune the first state university in India to establish a branch campus abroad.

The magnificent main building, currently in a dilapidated stage after experiencing years of neglect, is being structurally restored to its past glory with the help of heritage experts. Besides the main building, a campus make-over plan is being implemented.⁵ This includes a large number of new buildings and facilities. Furthermore, an ambitious plan of repairs of the existing buildings and facilities has been launched.

This extraordinarily ambitious plan has inevitably led to an exceptionally large budget deficit this year (i.e. amounting to as much as Rs 130 crore), mostly on account of new construction and repairs (i.e. Rs 107 crore). Through this bold decision, liquid assets in the form of reserves were converted into much needed ‘real’ assets, thus eliminating the backlog from years of inaction.

 

All state universities are governed by relevant state acts. The Maharashtra Universities Act, 1994, governs all state universities in Maharashtra, which specifies the range of ‘authorities’ and ‘officials’ for governance. As per the act, several initiatives have been taken in the last two years for improving the governance. This includes the following:

(a) Frequency of meetings of several bodies, especially the management council has been consciously raised from the stipulated minimum four meetings a year to ten or more. Greater frequency of such meetings has helped expedite the decision-making processes.

(b) A massive recruitment drive for teaching and non-teaching staff has been launched so as to fill all the vacant positions while creating new ones from the university funds for more efficient administration.

(c) A training centre is being established for the non-teaching staff, which would be the first of its kind in universities.

(d) The examination process has been made transparent and is being reviewed for bringing in greater efficiency.

Establishing social connectivity is perhaps the most novel part of the emerging University of Pune model of state universities. This includes four exceptional initiatives:

1. Education guarantee scheme. The university has greatly strengthened its ‘earn while you learn’ scheme, raising its budget to an unparalleled amount of five crore rupees per year.⁶ This provision has enabled the university to introduce a work-on-demand scheme for needy students, making sure that no student would need to leave his/her studies for the want of funding.

2. Personality development and soft skill programme. The University of Pune has recently launched an ambitious soft-skills programme for personality development of the students. Under this programme, students coming from rural areas, socially disadvantaged groups and economically poor strata of the society are chosen for an intensive 15 day training programme. Outside experts impart training in conversational English, techniques for interview and group discussion and overall personality development for these students.

 

Eleven such programmes were conducted, three in Pune, four in Ahmednagar and four in Nashik district. A batch of 50 students from the final year of undergraduate course was chosen in each of these colleges of which more than 50% were girls. The response to these programmes was overwhelming. These programmes marked the establishment of personality development centres at the colleges with the investment almost entirely by the university. During the academic year 2007-08, personality development centres were established in 189 colleges and in the next academic year, i.e. in 2008-09, more such centres will be established with investment from the university in all the affiliated colleges under the University of Pune. These programmes are being hailed as trendsetters in improving employability of the underprivileged strata of the society.

3. Samarth Bharat Abhiyan. The University of Pune has launched an innovative programme called Samarth Bharat Abhiyan with a view to canalize youth power towards constructive engagement in the villages. Under this scheme, every college affiliated to the university has adopted one village in its vicinity. Similarly, every large university department too has adopted one village each. A 15 point programme which includes education for all, sanitation and hygiene, water management, environment management including plantation of trees, energy management, women empowerment, social harmony, eradication of addiction, leadership development, GIS mapping, water and soil testing and writing local history is being implemented in each of the 500 villages adopted. Though the abhiyan, the University of Pune has launched a unique socially relevant movement, which has far-reaching implications. The movement is catching on in other universities, as well.

4. Senior citizen centre. In May 2008, the University of Pune launched yet another socially relevant unique programme, Senior Citizen Centre, to cater to the felt needs of the large and growing body of senior citizens. The centre would engage senior citizens in five different activities: One day workshop on health; three months certificate programmes of their choice (e.g. Indian history, culture, philosophy, religion and the like); a special PhD programme; teaching under the adult and continuing education programme; and working as volunteers in the Samarth Bharat Abhiyan.

 

In sum, contrary to popular perception, the state universities have been changing. Indeed, in the Indian set-up, they are leading the change. It is time we changed our misconceived and outdated perceptions.

 

Footnotes:

1. When the first three universities were established in India, i.e., at Bombay, Madras and Calcutta in 1857, all colleges in Pune were affiliated to Bombay University.

2. Mumbai University, Shivaji University and North Maharashtra University.

3. These problems were and are common to most state universities. In the case of the University of Pune they appeared more glaring.

4. The Mission Statement was drafted with the help of leading thinkers outside the domain of the university.

5. An open competition was held among the architectural colleges in Pune for this purpose and the selected plan was taken as the first draft which was finalized with the involvement of all stakeholders.

6. This scheme is mainly operational in Maharashtra. No university in Maharashtra spends more than Rs 25 lakh annually on the scheme.