Cluster universities: Hope for broader, dynamic curriculum

 UNIVERSITIES NEED TO BE FREE OF OBSCURANTISM, A PLACE WHERE YOUTH ARE TAUGHT TO THINK FREELY TO MAKE THE WORLD BETTER

Reading about the start of admission to Dr Homi Bhabha University, Maharashtra’s first such ‘cluster’ educational institution made me want to turn the clock more than four decades when I was in college.

My first choice of academic stream then was engineering. But having soon realised that my aptitude in mathematics and physics was not quite as formidable as I had imagined, I was in turmoil.

Medicine was not my interest, nor chartered accountancy, catering or fine arts. I enjoyed history, politics and English, but was also very fond of biology and chemistry. But there was no way to marry these because the facility just didn’t exist. I settled for a degree in economics, then studied law, and both have been enriching experiences.

But every now and then I regret the absence of streams that would have permitted pursuit of streams that were not so strongly typecast.

University education in the 1970s was rather straitjacketed. Degree courses were restricted to arts, science and commerce, and ‘professional’ courses, largely to those mentioned earlier. For those who had wider interests, the Indian educational system was not interested. It was distressing, but the predicament had no solution, as anybody of my era or earlier, and even till very recent times will testify.

The nature and scope of college education started changing about a quarter of a century back after India became part of the globalised world and transfer of information became swifter. Globalisation impacted growth of knowledge, changes in lifestyles, opportunities for livelihood. This created a demand for more broad-based and dynamic curriculum — sometimes even in highly-specialised courses — from that which existed.

Progress in this direction, however, has been tardy. Universities are hardly nimble for logistical reasons, but more so for stifling bureaucracy or bloated sense of importance: the bigger, the more averse to change, like Mumbai University. In fact, over the past three to four decades, this once-world-renowned university has been virtually reduced to shambles, with quality of education being diminished, and engulfed in controversies galore.

In this context, setting up the Dr Homi Bhabha cluster university is a step in the right direction. And long overdue too, particularly since it involves stellar governmentrun colleges like Elphinstone and Sydenham (plus Institute Of Science and Secondary Training (Bed) colleges) that had lost their lustre.

One understands that another city-based cluster university – with HR, KC and Bombay Teachers College – is in the pipeline. While all these colleges will lose their affiliation with Mumbai University, they will not lose significance.

In fact this could be enhanced if the cluster universities live up to the promise and potential that vice chancellor Suhas Pednekar has espoused: of making mobility between elective subjects they desire easy for students.

There are inherent, built-in advantages for the Dr Bhabha University (and the other cluster too when it starts): of proximity with each other, sharing of faculty, research facilities et al.

The challenge is in recruiting faculty of the highest quality (or reskilling them) for the new direction that the university hopes to pursue, but most importantly, how knowledgefriendly (vis-à-vis ideologydriven) the curriculums designed will be.

Universities in India are coming under duress, unfortunately. Where the world is looking to conquer new frontiers, in the sciences and humanities, we seem to be stumbling against obstacles. No study or knowledge, of course, is perfect or complete. This is the fundamental premise in search of knowledge. There have and will be revisions, new findings etc. But these must adhere to robust methodology and processes to be ratified otherwise it can set us back.

For instance bigotry can become history (Nathuram Godse was a deshbhakt, said an electoral candidate) and bizarre theories circumventing scientific principles to promote superstition can be assigned undeserving truthvalue to fit a particular ideological narrative. And so on.

Universities need to be free of obscurantism, a place where young men and women are taught to think freely, come up with ideas to make their lives, the country and the world a better place.

Source | Hindustan Times | 17th May 2019