‘Autonomy for edu institutes can be win-win for stakeholders’

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‘Autonomy for edu institutes can be win-win for stakeholders’

Monday, 18 February 2019 | PNS | BHUBANESWAR

Autonomy for educational institutions can prove to be a win-win for all stakeholders -- students, educational institutions and the country, Association of Indian Universities (AIU) president Prof Sandeep Sancheti said here on Sunday.

“To a student it gives flexibility of classes, ample time for developing skills required for the market as also getting involved in entrepreneurship and innovation, to an institution sufficient time to focus on ways to maximise excellence and get within striking distance of global rankings,” Prof Sancheti, Vice-Chancellor of SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, said.

Institutional excellence would also mean that larger numbers of young minds would opt to stay in the country, he said while addressing a three-day annual meet of the AIU being held at the SOA University.

A national seminar on ‘Autonomy for Excellence in Higher Education’ is also being held alongside the AIU annual meet.

Prof. Sancheti said the common argument in favour of autonomy for educational institutions has been that the centres of learning can function and flourish only if they have freedom to choose and act. “Freedom does not necessarily have to be absolute; but in this realisation  that this freedom will come with a review, both internal and external, including from agencies that will reflect on the relevance to societal good and development,” he observed.

“The bottom line realisation has been that autonomy means the involvement of all stakeholders in a decentralised environment in which outside forces or government agencies do not breath down the neck of educators and senior academic functionaries for day-to-day affairs,” Prof Sancheti said.

He said the government had decided in 2018 to grant autonomy to some educational institutions, including many in the private sector, setting off a debate among academics and educators in the country. It happened after Vice-Chancellors, senior administrators and educationists had made the point that ‘greater degree of autonomy is pivotal to promote and institutionalize excellence in higher education,’     

“I believe the recent new initiatives are a breath of fresh air and would make our institutions more fertile for academic and research excellence,” he said, adding, “There is also the fundamental agreement amongst educators that excellence can be achieved only if autonomy is exercised responsibly and with proper accountability.”

In the Indian context, it is also not as if there has been no autonomy at all or that autonomy has always been abused leading to a crackdown by governmental and functional agencies, he said.

“The truth of the matter is that autonomy has been there all along but not properly assumed; and in some cases, there have been gross misuse of autonomy forcing regulators to come down hard,” Prof Sancheti said.

It is a matter of concern that India, seen globally as a knowledge powerhouse and having more than 950 universities and 40,000 colleges, does not have a handful of institutions at the top 100, 200 or 300 globally; and yet small countries in the Asia Pacific like Singapore has accomplished this task, he pointed out.

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