In the latest Hollywood sci-fi thriller Tenet, the protagonist manipulates the flow of time in an effort to prevent a future attack from annihilating the present. While the movie is about destruction, the Ministry of Education’s University Grants Commission’s (UGC) ‘Tenet moment’ comes from a progressive-constructive view. The UGC’s thoughtful policy on quality and online education is a double-barrelled response that predicts the future of global higher education ecosystem and proactively prepares Indian higher education providers. The dual power of the UGC’s March 2020 Quality Mandate and September 2020 Online Regulations has in them the disruptive potential to propel the accelerated growth of India’s higher education system with positively disruptive outcomes. As the highway gets ready, the UGC needs to be mindful of speed-breakers and toll booths to achieve the desired outcome.
The UGC’s Quality Mandate has its own navaratnas student centricity, faculty capacity building, institutional building, creative pedagogy, ICT integration, research and innovation, vocational education and Indian knowledge systems (temporal pincer movement). In the coordinated effort to stitch these nine together, the UGC has started to roll out various interventions in its effort to construct the HEI highway. The Gurudakshta, Deeksharambh, Jeevan Kaushal, etc, are good beginnings that aim to develop faculty and student skills in a digitally blended learning environment.
Initiatives such as UGC Swayam Regulations, Open and Distance Learning (ODL) Regulations, Vocational Programmes Regulations, etc, are also positive in intent and need to be nurtured progressively in implementation. The UGC’s policy fruition should put stereotypes to rest and kickstart autogenous launches for its policy missiles to fire in the right direction. Here are some autogenous launch vehicles for the higher education highway:
Improvise approval mechanisms: All universities shall be empowered to award any degree programme including innovative and integrated programmes as per the nomenclature of the UGC degrees under Section 22 of the UGC Act. There is no need to obtain approval from the UGC as long as there is no violation. The process of approval despite degree programmes being in the approved schedule—is superfluous and creates avoidable delay.
Harmonise concurrent education: The Constitutional Amendment of 1976 rightly including education in the Concurrent List has policy impacts—financially, administratively and academically. While the norms and standards of degree programmes are laid down by the UGC, the need to obtain equivalence from states for degree programmes on a periodic basis is again a superfluous requirement. In the spirit of co-operative federalism, there needs be a harmonious equivalence of degrees to be granted by all states as long as the university’s degrees are as per Section 22 of the UGC Act.
Universalise teacher and vocational education: The teacher education and vocational education degree programmes are nation-building programmes that are designed to produce teachers and skilled workforce who shall enlighten and embolden India. Necessary statutory amendments in the existing provisions or immediate deregulation in the proposed NEP 2020 regulatory framework is a compelling must to ensure that all universities are empowered by statute to offer teacher education and vocational education degree programmes without prior approval.
Catalyse Online Education: The global online education market is posed to touch USD 320 billion by 2025 from the pre-pandemic levels of USD 190 billion. Such a huge potential opens a world of opportunities for Indian universities which have certain exclusive programmes focussed on Indian knowledge systems, Arts, Culture, etc, besides conventional programmes. The UGC ODL Regulations should encourage all eligible universities to offer all degree programmes in online mode as long as it meets the pre-fixed criteria. The role of UGC in online education shall be in monitoring and not approving or recommending.
In the world of infinite uncertainties in global higher education landscape that is further complicated by Covid, the UGC’s Quality Mandate and various regulatory reforms have a finite certainty. The need to improvise, harmonise, universalise and catalyse various trigger pulses cannot come at a time more appropriate than this.
This perfect policy ignition of the UGC is all set in action mode to ensure that a ‘certain future’ is not handicapped by an ‘uncertain present’. The UGC through its visionary and progressive reforms is fully policy suited to navigate the present as it sees with clarity the future. In short, the UGC’s ‘Tenet moment’ has come.
S Vaidhyasubramaniam
vaidhya@sastra.edu
Vice-Chancellor, SASTRA Deemed University