70% of MU colleges lack infra, run on temporary affiliation

Hemali.Chhapia@timesgroup.com

Mumbai:
As many as 515 of the 719 colleges affiliated to Mumbai University lack the mandated infrastructure and facilities, as a result of which they have been functioning with temporary affiliation, renewing it year after year, the latest report of the state’s auditor, CAG, has revealed.

The shocking state of affairs is revealed in the CAG report for the period 2010-2017, accessed under the RTI Act. “Some colleges were granted continuation/ extension of temporary affiliation year after year since 1989,” the report says. Even as local inquiry reports of 173 colleges were awaited, the colleges were allowed to operate without necessary approval for continuation/ extension. The CAG said continuation of affiliation was granted for several years despite “major shortcomings”.

“No registers or recording, the year-wise details of the number of colleges/ institutions receiving affiliation, approvals, pending approvals, if any, or granting permanent affiliations are maintained by the UoM,” observed the CAG. “Similarly, no records/ registers relating to colleges that do not apply for extension of affiliation are maintained.”

For instance, continuation of affiliation was granted to MGM College of Commerce despite it not having the stipulated student-teacher ratio or separate infrastructure like classrooms or reading room. In the case of Lokmanya Tilak College of Engineering, continuation of affiliation was granted despite labs not being in working condition and drinking water unavailable.

In its reply to the auditor, the university acknowledged the facts stated in the audit objection and added that registers/records of annual fees deposited by colleges every year was not maintained.

RTI activist Vihar Durve, who accessed the CAG report, said, “It is sad to note that a public institution has become commercialised. It is because of such practices that the standards are deteriorating.”

Asked about the issue, university registrar Dinesh Kamble said, “When a new college starts, it applies for first-time affiliation and then it must apply continuously every year for continuation. But there is a criterion for permanent affiliation; that is a privilege and as a college undergoes the process of development and upgrades itself, it can apply for permanent affiliation.”

Source : https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/#

Nurturing institutions of excellence is a slow and painstaking process

Published on July 23, 2018

Back in 2003, Phillip Griffiths, the then Director of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton University, addressed a committee appointed by the InterAcademy Council to prepare its first study report.

The Report was called “Inventing a Better Future: A Strategy for Building Worldwide Capacities in Science and Technology”. Griffiths made a plea for establishing more Centres of Excellence in developing countries. In the discussion that followed, I intervened, only half-jokingly, that what developing countries really need instead are islands of excellence whereby they can isolate themselves from their societies by metaphorical moats.

As expected, the study committee ignored my word-smithy. International organisations are loathe to say in print anything that is critical of developing countries. The expression “centres of excellence” appeared 84 times in the final report published in 2004.

Fast forward to Christmas Day in Bengaluru in 2017. I was invited to a party where NR Narayana Murthy was the main draw. The host introduced me to Murthy as one who had recently retired from the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) in Bengaluru. When we were by ourselves, Murthy mentioned that he is now serving on the Board of Trustees of Princeton’s IAS and reminded me that he had also been on the Council of Management of NIAS. “Oh, except for the similarity in names, there is no comparison”, I interjected. “True,” Murthy replied, “but why couldn’t we execute a 50-year plan after which we could become at least somewhat like them? Why can’t we get the direction right?” I mumbled something unconvincingly about differences in the certainty of assured funding. “That’s not it,” Murthy assured me, “Princeton’s IAS too has uncertainties of funding”.

Growing concern

What irks our administrators is that none of our institutions of higher learning makes it into any of the annual lists of top 300. Even if the methodologies for creating these lists are all flawed, there remains a lurking feeling that not all is well with our institutional functioning.

This article has been triggered by the recent government announcement of the selection of six institutions as Institutes of Eminence and of awards to them.

In our pronouncements we are quick to adopt new jargon: self-reliance, energy access, energy security, sustainability, inclusiveness, climate change have all become parts of the standard lexicon. We are content merely on getting the rhetoric right. Reality on the ground is a lot slower to change.

Here even the rhetoric may not be right. Eminence is a term borrowed from geography now used more to describe individual rather than institutional accomplishment. Nonetheless, one can confidently assert that these institutions chosen by the government will neither be born great nor have greatness thrust upon them. This assertion flows not out of cynicism but out of decades of observations of different institutions in the world. The only way for an institution to rise to the top is by achieving greatness. It is often said that the Indian society is more powerful than the state. This has been true throughout our history. This, however, takes us far from our present question of what ails Indian institutions of higher learning.

The short and quick answer is “India”. The second answer, still unsatisfactory, is “Indian society”. The third and slightly more precise answer is “intrusion of Indian society into the governance of these institutions, mainly for the worse”. We have only ourselves to blame.

The truth is that we are unwilling to sustain conditions that promote work of superior quality. We cannot learn from the ashrams of the past because the scale is very different. We may have little to learn from Taxila or Nalanda because we cannot recreate those conditions (they had almost no competition). We can learn only from the successful models in the west where some of the best universities in the world are located.

For starters, consider the list of factors identified by the InterAcademy Council Report. “A Centre of Excellence should have: institutional autonomy, sustainable financial support, knowledgeable and capable leadership, international inputs, focused research agendas that include interdisciplinary themes, applied research as well as basic research, technology transfer, peer review as a systemic element, merit-based hiring and promotion policies, and mechanisms for nurturing new generation of S&T talent.”

Because this list is specific to Centres, for larger institutions we may have to also include knowing when to decentralise or democratise decision-making.

A gestalt

While each by itself is necessary, it is not sufficient. The list comes as a gestalt, a package deal. One cannot pick and choose amongst these factors. Getting 90 per cent right is not good enough. Throwing resources at an institution does not work. If it did, Middle Eastern universities would be flourishing. People will just build swankier buildings. Just giving autonomy to institutions is also insufficient. There are already too many one-man dictatorships in India, at all levels.

At least three characteristics of our society keep our institutions down. The first is deference for age and hierarchy. We pay more attention to who says something than to what is said. There is too much gap in authority between the Number 1 and everyone else who are all also-rans. “The number 1 provides us with shade but does not let us grow”. The second is the context-specificity of Indian life. The leaderships do not believe in creating rules-based functioning. “You show me a face, and I will show you the rule”. The third is our clannishness that prevents us from distinguishing personal predilections from professional judgments.

Finally nurturing excellence in institutions is a painstakingly slow process with the time scale of a human generation (30-35 years). On the contrary, destroying a fledgling institution can be done on the time scale of a few years. Such is the asymmetry of life.

The writer is an independent researcher based in Bengaluru.

Source : https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/what-ails-our-educational-institutions/article24496617.ece

MHRD supported digital platforms helping students gain quality education

By Palak Arora

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July 23, 2018

MHRD (Ministry of human resource development) works through two departments in our country i.e. Department of school education and literacy and Department of higher education. MHRD aims to regulate the educational status of our country by framing policies and introducing new ways to ensure their implementation. It aims to ensure that education as a fundamental right is given to every one be it of any socio-economic background, caste or religion.

For this MHRD has introduced these some of the best online courses, to impart quality education to large quantity of students at the same time. And the best thing is that, these courses are made by India’s most prestigious university’s teachers and professors. So here we go with the list of best online courses by MHRD:

NPTEL

This is an online learning platform which provides course content for engineering, humanities and science streams. Basically, this NPTEL (National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning) is an initiative by seven Indian Institutes of Technology namely IIT Bombay, Madras, Guwahati, Kharagpur, Roorkee, Delhi and Indian Institute of Science (IIS). This course majorly focuses on providing world-class education on engineering and sciences. They had courses form Aerospace engineering to textile, agricultural, automobile and so on and so forth.

There are by far 351 free online courses and MOOCs which aims to impart free and quality knowledge to students all over the country. They even had a motto that “Knowledge is free”.

Virtual Labs

This initiative focusses on provide labs to engineering students and scholars be it of UG or PG level. The idea is to impart world class equipment to students who have the capability but lacks the geographical mobility or financial constraints. Here students can avail animated demonstrations, video lectures, web resources. This enables a student to learn from the experts of their fields along with practical knowledge.

E- Shodh Sindhu

The principal target of the e-Shodh Sindu: Consortia for Higher Education E-Resources is to give access to subjective electronic assets including full-content, bibliographic and authentic databases to scholarly foundations at lower rates of membership. The real points and goals of the e-Shodh Sindhu are as per the following:

Setting-up e-Shodh Sindu: Consortia for Higher Education E-Resources by expanding and fortifying exercises and administrations offered by three MHRD-supported Consortia;

• Build up an impressive accumulation of e-journals and e-books on easy access basis;
• Screen and advance utilization of e-assets in part colleges, universities and specialized foundations in India through mindfulness and preparing programs;
• Give access to membership based academic data (e-books and e-diaries) to every educational institution;
• Give access to academic substance accessible in open access through subject entries and subject entryways.

Source : https://www.theindianwire.com/education/mhrd-supported-digital-platforms-65326/

Ragging plaints have doubled in 3 yrs: Javadekar

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:

The number of complaints of ragging in universities and higher educational institutions doubled in the last three years, human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar told the Rajya Sabha on Monday, citing data from the University Grants Commission (UGC).

The number of complaints of ragging received in 2015 were 423, most of them from West Bengal. The number rose to 901 in 2017. Last year, maximum complaints were received from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. “Out of a total of 1,839 complaints of ragging received by the UGC during the last three years, students have been punished in 812 cases,” Javadekar said.

No complaints were received from Nagaland, Andaman and Nicobar, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Lakshadweep.

HECI won't impinge rights of states, won't affect reservation policy. In order to dissuade the growing concern by members over Higher Education Commission of India replacing UGC, the government asserted that HECI would be an “independent” body and that rights of states would not be affected.

Source : https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/#

MAKING THE MOST OF COLLEGE TIME

To be nervous about starting college is normal. Apprehension means you are excited about starting the new phase of life. All you need is to give a little time to adjust, writes Arindam Sen

It’s that time of the year when lakhs of students from around the country apply and enrol at various universities and colleges. This is a tough time for both parents and their wards, who leave no stone unturned to secure admission in their favourite college. The nerve-racking exercise of admission is filled with uncertainty, stress and often comes with a few shades of disappointment.

In India, the pressure of higher education, kicks in from class XI, when the student is expected to choose a stream. There is a maddening rush to get enrolled in a prestigious coaching institute in the hope to crack the entrance exams. We are familiar with the most famous ‘Kota phenomenon’ — a city that boasts of maximum number of coaching centres preparing students from all over India to crack Engineering entrance exams. Surviving peer pressure to compete the school level as well as cracking the entrance exam can be a challenging task. All this culminates with the board exams where anything less than an average 94-97% means that top colleges in the country, including Delhi University, are out of reckoning. Students are brainwashed into believing that their future is over if they don’t get into one of the traditional degree courses at top institutions across the country.

INITIAL FEARS

Most students look forward to moving outside their home towns to study. Living alone in a new city can be daunting and students face various issues as they move out of their comfort zone. For many, spoken English is a big barrier, as students struggle to converse fluently with their peers and teachers. This can lead to loss of confidence, low self-esteem and people being labelled or made to feel inadequate. Many students have issues interacting with the opposite gender as they have never been exposed to this mixed environment in the past. Economic status plays a big role and gets reflected in the clothes one wears, phones one carries and general spending ability to be a part of a ‘cool’ group. However, by the time one semester is over and Valentine’s Day is nearby, admission stress is long forgotten, and relationship rock and roll are on in full flow.

ADJUSTMENT

The psycho social adjustments at the initial college level are as intense as the stress of admissions. It is this phase that generates the maximum pressure and manifests in a very high suicide rate amongst students in India. Surveys confirm that every 55 minutes, a student in India, loses life due to education-related stress. And the number is increasing in epidemic proportions. Students should be introduced to counselling early in life.

(The author is the founder of zyego.in, an emotional wellness service)

> For the complete story, click on ‘College Life’ at www.educationtimes.com

Source : https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/#

Soon, MU students may see answer sheets online

Yogita.Rao@timesgroup.com

Mumbai:

In a move to make the assessment process transparent and studentfriendly, the University of Mumbai may soon provide copies of answersheets to all students online free of cost after their results are announced. The university also plans to allow teachers to remotely assess papers online at any time, even when they are vacationing.

Currently, photocopies of answersheets are given only to students who seek them if they are not satisfied with their marks, at a cost of Rs 50 per paper. Students can then go for revaluation of their paper based on the photocopies. Students can also seek photocopies and revaluation at the same time.

“Now, we are planning to give copies of answersheets on individual student login on an experimental basis,” vice-chancellor Suhas Pednekar said. “The answersheets are anyway scanned and available online for the assessment. It may not be difficult to make the assessed papers available online. The university is taking efforts to minimise inconvenience for students and to bring in more transparency.”

The move will streamline the assessment process and dispel uncertainties, if any, that students have over the quality of assessment, said a principal. He said it will increase accountability of teachers too.

To allow assessment of papers online anywhere and at any time, the university is likely to add security features. Doing this, though, may take time.

Among other reforms, the varsity will start giving online provisional marksheets to students. A mobile application to help students with exam schedules, answersheets, circulars, results is also in the pipeline in the current academic session. Pre-enrolment online registration, which is a compulsory step for undergraduate courses, will be made mandatory for postgraduate students, too, from the next year.

Source : https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/#