{"id":158964,"date":"2022-01-06T19:22:25","date_gmt":"2022-01-06T13:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=158964"},"modified":"2022-01-06T19:22:25","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T13:52:25","slug":"on-ugcs-letter-to-central-universities-wrong-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/on-ugcs-letter-to-central-universities-wrong-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"On UGC’s letter to Central Universities: Wrong answer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

News<\/span><\/b>: <\/span>University Grants Commission (UGC)’s letter has asked central universities to offer\/teach courses <\/span>based on student demand<\/span><\/b> that is on the <\/span>basis of number of enrolled students<\/span><\/b>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why it can be a problematic move?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

Students often enrol for a course depending upon whether the course boosts their chances of employment or not.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For a University, this <\/span>should not be the sole criterion<\/span><\/b> in determining the span of its academic ambition<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Universities should not only provide a gateway to the job market but also focus on producing <\/span>knowledge,<\/span><\/b> training students in <\/span>critical thinking<\/span><\/b> and <\/span>pushing ideas towards new frontiers<\/span><\/b>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What will be the implications of the move?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

This can have grim consequences <\/span>for social science and language<\/span><\/b> departments as they are given less value in the society as compared to science field.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It can also <\/span>lead to job losses<\/span><\/b> for those who teach in them<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What are the challenges that Indian higher education system faces?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

Although universities need to ensure the employability metric, but there are some other <\/span>challenges also that Indian higher education needs to overcome.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Degree of autonomy: <\/span><\/b>There is a need to give universities the <\/span>freedom to design courses, and draw up syllabi<\/span><\/b>. This is a basic demand, but only few public universities have this autonomy.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lack of funds and inequality between institutes: <\/span><\/b>There is huge gap in terms of funding requirement for research, availability of resources in different institutes, etc.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

National Education Policy<\/a><\/span> (NEP)’s<\/span><\/b> emphasises for greater autonomy to higher<\/span>, interdisciplinary learning, will be affected by the reduction in the number of courses.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the way forward?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

Each university is <\/span>unique<\/span><\/b> and should find the answer for its <\/span>requirements on its own terms<\/span><\/b>. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

UGC must <\/span>not impose a top-down criterion<\/span><\/b> that can further shrink the space for experimentation and innovation in higher education.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Higher education needs a <\/span>comprehensive<\/span><\/b> reform, not a lopsided one.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Source: <\/span><\/b>This post is based on the article \u201c<\/span>Wrong answer\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/b>published in\u00a0The Indian express\u00a0on<\/span> 6<\/span><\/b>th<\/span><\/b> Jan 2022<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News: University Grants Commission (UGC)’s letter has asked central universities to offer\/teach courses based on student demand that is on the basis of number of enrolled students.\u00a0 Why it can be a problematic move?\u00a0 Students often enrol for a course depending upon whether the course boosts their chances of employment or not.\u00a0 For a University,… Continue reading On UGC’s letter to Central Universities: Wrong answer<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10500],"class_list":["post-158964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}