Any ranking of global educational institutions will be problematic if
it does not take into account disparities in resources between rich and
poor countries
Indian academe is anguished that not a single Indian university has made
it to the top 200 universities of the world in the recent Times Higher Education rankings. However, the debate so far has missed many points.
First, any discussion of evaluation of global educational standards and
rankings cannot ignore the vast disparities in resources between the
rich and poor parts of the world. An overwhelmingly large part of global
knowledge production is concentrated in the developed world.
In 2009, Drexel University president Constantine Papadakis was the
highest paid university president in America with an annual compensation
of $49,12,127. That is around Rs.27 crore for running a university! Even the highest-paid public university president earned nearly $2 million as salary in 2011.
The endowment of Harvard University is around $31 billion — more than
1/4 th of the GDP of Tamil Nadu. Research support in developed countries
runs into hundreds of millions. As Times itself recognises, “income is crucial to the development of world-class research.”
Most in the U.S.
Is it then surprising that of the top 200 universities, 76 are in the
United States and 196, no less, in the developed countries (two from
China, and one each from South Africa and Brazil are the only ones from
the developing countries)? [76 from the U.S. and 196 in all from the
developed countries. This includes the 76 from the U.S.] The crisis
afflicting universities is thus, not an Indian phenomenon alone, but
generalised across the “Third World.”
Second, while resources are crucial, they should not become an excuse
for the abysmal standards of Indian universities. Instead the debate has
to be extended, from merely technical solutions like establishing
comprehensive universities or addressing student-teacher ratio, to the
kind of academic culture that we have nurtured.
On merit and representation
Universities, on the one hand, have to reflect social reality by
representing caste, class and gender criteria in order to overcome these
hierarchies in academia. Academic freedom and egalitarian relations in
the departments are expected not only to foster academic brilliance but
also a socially progressive culture.
On the other, given the excessively communitarian nature of society,
universities have, only in name, provided representation to
disadvantaged sections. They have not actually overcome predisposed
social hierarchies. Our academic culture is marked by patronage and
networks or by bureaucratic hierarchies of seniority and administrative
positions.
Even new political mobilisations around caste and reservations have
focused only on the issues of representation without raising those of
pedagogy and curriculum. There is a stalemate between merit and adequate
representation.
In fact, those demanding reservations should have argued that
reservation brings diversity, which develops new knowledge systems and
new modes of understanding. This would, eventually, also contribute to a
new institutional culture. Instead, inclusion of newer marginalised
groups has only created parallel networks and patronage in defence
against the existing ones of the dominant groups.
This kind of social breakdown has rarely contributed to new ideas and
energies. Experimental culture has for long been supplanted by a culture
of fear and insecurity, not merely among the new entrants, but also
among “meritorious” social groups.
Top-down syndrome
In fact, anything new is looked at sceptically, and often succumbs to
the tyranny of age. Age-related hierarchy is perhaps the worst in the
Indian university system and the least-debated sacred cow. The top-down
syndrome has resulted in universities’ resistance to introducing student
evaluation of faculty, continued cases of victimisation of students —
including sexual harassment and arbitrary evaluation, and consequently,
lack of motivation among the students, translating into ills like
rampant plagiarism.
Third, while Indian universities seek excellence, treating exercises such as the Times’
ranking as sacrosanct is also problematic. Can we compare universities
from America to Somalia? How do we arrive at an average from the vastly
different material realities and the different starting points (which
are historically and, often, violently determined) of these locations?
Faults
The Times’ claims that it accounts for these disparities by
providing a “comprehensive and balanced” comparison. But what does
“international outlook” (one of the categories in Times worth 7.5
per cent) mean for a poor university in the global South which
struggles to attract students even from the hinterlands of its own
country? Or how does it go about achieving excellence in research, worth
30 per cent, and measured in terms of volume, income and reputation
when the public spending on education is abysmally low?
The Times’ rankings of 13 performance indicators also have no
place for intangible features. In a university such as Jawaharlal Nehru
University, students from some of the most backward regions study,
thanks to its system of deprivation points. Students with very poor
primary education, linguistic and writing skills, in very little time,
gather confidence and become highly motivated, and look for an
institutional culture that can translate this into a rigorous academic
exercise. This is because of the vibrant student politics and a dominant
discourse of social justice. Under what ranking can this amazing social
feat of providing wide opportunity and social skills be judged?
While the poor quality of Indian universities is lamentable, does the
solution lie in emulating the developed countries where high academic
standards are now negated by the degenerating commercialisation of
education? Thus students pay an annual fee of $40,000 for a bachelor’s
degree in an American Ivy League institution, and the average
student-loan debt of 2011 in the U.S. was $26,500, rendering them
perpetual bonded labourers of the market.
Students are not trained to become critical thinkers, but foot soldiers
of the establishment. Therefore, they graduate without pondering over
what it means when the university gives its presidents multimillion
dollar salaries and its janitors $7 per hour. It is in this culture that
people like Papadakis are able to double student enrolments and
generate revenue surpluses rivalling multinational corporations.
Ultimately, the ranking debate is not just about Indian universities
entering “the top 200,” but also the need for a radically new academic
culture, reducing inequalities of global academia, the ends of
education, and the limitations of the ranking exercise itself.
(Ajay Gudavarthy and Nissim Mannathukkaren are with Jawaharlal Nehru
University, and Dalhousie University, Canada, respectively.)
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