IS undergraduate education important? Before seeking answers to the question, we should take note of the fact that most articles that are written concerning the state of education in India are either on various aspects of school education or on higher education, but in a macro sort of way. They seldom focus on undergraduate education. I would like to argue that undergraduate education cannot be ignored; if anything it requires focused attention. One simple reason is that undergraduate education is the most important link that binds school education and the university system. School teachers as well as faculty involved in teaching and research in any discipline have passed through the portals of an undergraduate institution. Most jobs in the organized sector too currently require the mandatory stamp of being a graduate. In this sense undergraduate education is the central pivot that connects all the spokes in the wheel constituting the educated populace of our country.

 

It seems a crime, therefore, that in discussions on higher education, there is at best only lip service paid to the state of undergraduate education. Indeed, even when people do recognize that the situation vis-à-vis undergraduate education is dire, the assessment is that since the task of reforming undergraduate education is Herculean it seems best to concentrate on more doable tasks which may bear fruit in the short run.

In Delhi University alone there are 79 undergraduate colleges affiliated to the university with more than a lakh students and almost 7000 college teachers. In comparison, the number of students in the 86 or so postgraduate departments of the university do not exceed 10,000 and the number of faculty members in these departments is less than 3000. This disparity in numbers is but natural since the ‘number pyramid’ narrows rapidly as we ascend higher in the educational scale. Nevertheless the step-motherly treatment shown in addressing issues that are vital and peculiar to undergraduate education is downright unfair.

There is a somewhat different but equally important issue concerning the percentage of graduates in our population. It has been argued that a growing economy like India’s requires a much larger trained work-force than is currently available. While there can be debate as to whether this training should be ‘vocational’, ‘professional’ or ‘academic’, or even as to what percentage of our GDP ought to be invested in each of these, there can be no doubt on the need for expansion of each of these sectors.

So we face the dual challenge of bringing in a much larger percentage of our population into the higher education system and at the same time delivering a certain ‘quality of product’ through our higher education system. The now famous statement of the corporate sector that no more than 25 out of a hundred graduates are employable is a sad reflection of the apathetic response of both our government and the participants in the process of undergraduate education.

To expand higher education substantially without taking a closer look at the current ailments that afflict the system as a whole, and undergraduate education in particular, is akin to moving from the frying pan into the fire. While the discussion here focuses on the ills that plague undergraduate education, a similar situation, if not worse, would be prevalent as far as postgraduate education is concerned.

 

Before we concentrate on the current problems of the undergraduate system we need to keep in mind that for school-leaving students, the state funded undergraduate college is a place of reasonable academic quality where there is a blending and mixing of students of varied backgrounds, both academic and otherwise. For a school-leaving student who has not had access to good school education, especially those who complete school education through the publicly funded school system, access to a state funded undergraduate college is a matter of supreme importance. Thus the university system in India has to cope with both increasing this level of access as also maintaining a reasonable quality of academic education.

Let us consider a student who has spent the requisite three years studying for a Bachelor’s degree. Ideally, irrespective of the type of employment or higher studies that the student pursues, there are certain minimum qualifications which we hope the student would have gained during this period – a certain amount of knowledge in his or her discipline of study, good communication skills both verbal and written, some familiarity with using computers and, most important, the capacity to formulate ideas, analyse them and to think creatively. We would also like the student to have read books both in his or her discipline and outside of it and equally, be aware of the world outside of academia.

 

The capacity to develop and hone the skills mentioned above depends primarily on the ability of the student to think, notwithstanding the help that a well-designed syllabus and examination system can render. The biggest damage done by our school system and perpetuated by our system of higher education is the impairing of thinking faculties. While curiosity is encouraged and even celebrated in young children, it is often ruthlessly scotched later, the process intensifying as soon as they reach middle school.

Thinking skills are ironically sacrificed at the altar of completing a prescribed syllabus. So when a student enters an undergraduate college, she has already been through several years of education where the entire emphasis has been on learning to score well in examinations. Unfortunately, with the kind of examinations that we excel in setting, both in schools and in most universities, doing well in an examination indicates that we have learnt to regurgitate memorized material well. This is also the main reason why tuition and coaching centres flourish for school students and, worse still, for undergraduates and even postgraduates in certain disciplines.

Perhaps there ought to be a reconsideration of what type of a school leaving examination there should be. If we continue with an examination which measures a minimum standard like the current senior secondary examinations, we must rethink whether the scores in that should be the main criteria for admitting a student to study a discipline of her choice at the undergraduate level.

The choice of course of study at the undergraduate level is usually influenced by many factors. It is eminently possible that a student ends up studying a subject that she is not really interested in or even has an aptitude for. Given these circumstances, what can be done to help the undergraduate student achieve her potential and to equip her with a set of skills for the future?

 

There are many improvements that one can envisage even in the current system. Some of these can be easily implemented at the college level. The first of these would be to disseminate the kind of courses of study that are part of undergraduate education to school students. Often, the student who likes mathematics at school or has scored enough to gain admission into a mathematics programme at the college level, realizes to her dismay that college level mathematics does not bear any similarity to what she did at school.

While at school the student mainly learnt methods and formulae to solve numerical questions, at the undergraduate level mathematics is all about why these methods and formulae work. The subject is abstract, theoretical and delves deep into structures. Counselling by faculty at colleges, open days for school students, well-produced literature emphasizing such facts and informative departmental websites, can prevent students from making wrong choices. These days there are so many options available to a student completing an undergraduate degree in terms of future study and employment that there is no compulsion for a student to choose one course over the other, purely in terms of the ‘employability factor’.

 

Once a student is admitted to an undergraduate programme, the teacher can and should lay emphasis on teaching styles and practices that will help the student to think rather than reproduce material. One can start by encouraging the student to read widely and to ask questions. Once the class is interactive it automatically cuts out passive reception. Class assignments and tests should have a major component of ‘unseen’ questions that require thinking. Assigning group projects that require students to work together, making students present short lectures or seminars and write essays and book or chapter reviews, are all means that will take us closer to our goals. All this of course requires enthusiasm, commitment and zeal from the teachers. But should this not be considered the absolute minimum that a teacher can contribute from within?

This brings us to another crucial issue. Obviously the average teacher at the undergraduate level is not doing these things, otherwise we would not be in the morass we are in. The working conditions of an undergraduate teacher are not designed to attract and retain the best of our academically inclined students. Should a teacher of such calibre stray into the system, she soon realizes that the current system neither rewards a good teacher nor, at the same time, punish a bad one. It simply treats everyone in the same way. There are few incentives for a teacher to improve academically and there are no disincentives to prevent teachers from becoming ‘non-academic teachers’. It is only a teacher’s self motivation and conscience that stands in the way of a fall in standards, assuming of course that these were high to start with.

 

The minimum qualification required for a lecturer at an undergraduate college is just a master’s degree and the clearing of a national eligibility examination. Once one gains ‘permanent’ employment as a lecturer it is next to impossible to be removed, even if one has not been doing the basic task of ‘attending classes’ as a ‘teacher’. One is almost certainly ensured the two promotions possible in ones career in a time-bound way, euphemistically called ‘merit promotions’. The minimum requirement for these promotions is to have audited a certain number of three week long ‘orientation’ and ‘refresher courses’.

If we have impaired our students’ thinking abilities by wrong emphasis on rote learning and marks, then we have certainly killed any chance of attracting and retaining our academic talent in academia with the current set-up. Add to this the fact that pay scales and the perquisites in academia are in no competition whatsoever with other sectors of employment.

Many teachers do not have a wider interest in the discipline that they teach. One is not talking of research interests but rather a basic curiosity that any individual participating in the discipline is expected to have. Most teachers would answer in the negative to the following questions, even in the best of the colleges that we have today:

1. What new books or material have you consulted for delivering your lectures?

2. Have you during the academic year learnt something new from classroom discussions in the paper you are teaching?

3. Have you read any articles in academic journals during the year?

4. Have you been able to think of any new questions (at various levels) to discuss/ set in assignments or tests for your students?

5. Have you made sure that at least a certain percentage of questions asked in your test are those not seen by your student but are of the sort that a bright student can think and solve to a large extent?

 

Again, one can perhaps think of some small measures that might help. Make it mandatory for the students to give their feedback through a well-designed response form: starting with the percentage of classes that the teacher has taken to the actual quality of teaching, reference materials provided, types of assignments, projects and tests given, etc. These should be made public. The teachers should also be required to publicly post a self-assessment of what they have achieved academically, say in the past two years. This will certainly prevent them from resting on laurels like a gold-medal gathering dust for 25 years! Overall there should be strong academic accountability measures in place for teachers with promotions tied to real academic output rather than (in-) convenient audits.

Alongside, we must address the needs of an undergraduate who is perhaps ill-prepared for the course that she has taken. There is a requirement for bridge courses that can help the student. This need could be addressed via e-learning platforms and by involving research scholars and graduate students in teaching these courses. We should design, as part of the syllabi, short mandatory courses in writing as also modules that build up basic computer skills for students who need them. Most crucially, the examination system needs to stop awarding students high marks for reproducing rote answers to known questions. All this would certainly ameliorate the situation in undergraduate education and possibly act a s an incentive for the teacher to ransack the library!

 

Maybe much of what we have discussed is not new or unknown to people who are part of academia. So why have these measures not been put in place? Actually a better question to ask would be, ‘who will bell the cat’? Any mandatory measure which requires a teacher to put in more effort is likely to be strenuously opposed by the teaching community. Leaving such measures to the personal choice of the teacher too will not be able to overcome the inertia that the ‘teacher at rest’ possesses in the current system. It requires strong political and administrative will to carry out such reform. Add to this bubbling cauldron the fact that even if rules and regulations are in place, in practice, our administrators at the university and college level are masters at sweeping disliked rules under the carpet and at throwing the university (rule) red book out of the window.

Yet, one can only hope that some day we will be able to build academic institutions that celebrate academia, that we will have institutional frameworks that last beyond the individual, and that professionalism will dominate personal animosities. This is because the times that we live in will force us to evolve, for to continue on our current path can only lead to the extinction of academic institutions.