The purpose of university education is to prepare fresh graduates for a career appointment that is not yet made, as the nature of job is sweepingly getting transformed. Recent back-to-back articles, titled ‘The university lottery’ and ‘Was your degree really worth it?’ of The Economist raises fundamental questions on the value of university degree.
The UK and US, the global twin towers of university education, have seen the steepest increase in tuition fee and also worrying challenges due to falling wage premium on education. This has resulted in policies to possibly phase out certain degree programmes in both countries that yield negative returns. For countries like America—where student debt is close to $1.6 trillion—and the UK, where the ‘no-cost of doing no-university education’ makes better economic sense, the question of university education is getting more attention now than in the past. The value of a degree with peripheral relevance taught in a good school or popular relevance taught badly are both altering policies, processes and people. Is there a response mechanism?
Almost 10 years ago, in 2014, Stanford University understood these present-day dilemmas on university education and unveiled its Stanford 2025 initiative. This triggered a provocative shift towards student learning based on what the world will be in 2025 and after, by fast-forwarding present learning to align with future living. The five-dimensional axis of Stanford 2025—Open Loop University, Axis Flip, Paced Education, Purpose Leaning and Design a Future—has brightened its vision of university education of the future. Globally, universities have started reimagining, repurposing and restructuring the higher education foundation, scaffolds, reinforcements and interiors. India is no exception, except that such changes have been limited to the institutions that have the full freedom to do what they want—Institutions of National Importance (INIs). In the race for higher education relevance and supremacy, is such a diminutive shift adequate? Definitely not. Is it possible to do more? Definitely yes.
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has ushered India into a new regime of education that necessitates the idea of education to create value for not only lifelong learning, but also learning life. The minimum shelf life of NEP 2020, in my estimate, is 30 years and it is safe to dismiss the shrilling voices of some university leaders that say ‘we have implemented NEP 2020 in total’. Be that as it may, the instruments of NEP 2020 have to be sharpened at its tip and contours than to remain blunt on paper. The goal of Indian education is more complicated than the rest due to its massive size and scale.
Closing ‘less RoI’ programmes or mindlessly increasing enrolment in popular STEM courses or massifying online education will either limit opportunities to the marginalised or create over-supply of under-prepared graduates. There should be a steady adaptation to societal and labour market demands to make the degrees granted worthily good, and not unworthily bad. The prevalence of worthy over unworthy should be the goal of NEP 2020 through institutional autonomy guaranteed by systemic integration of information dissemination, smart policies and open-minded implementation. It is time that universities and other institutions of higher learning moved from rhetoric to realistic mode, failing which the drag on learning outcome of graduates, falling relevance of degrees and widening Covid-ian deficit will be a triple blow to India’s strategic geopolitical asset: its demographic dividend, which will enter a crucial phase in 2035. As India enters a phase of renewing its Vishwaguru status, the next decade in higher education is going to be crucial.
The current reforms of the Ministry of Education through AICTE, UGC and other regulatory bodies are good appetisers for an academic feast. The success of the recipe lies in academic leader’s creative abilities to satisfy the growing appetite of learners with a customised ‘a la carte’ or ‘buffet of choices’. The recent draft National Curriculum Framework is like the ICC’s rules of cricket. It’s for the captain of the cricketing teams (university leaders) to decide the game mode, playing XI, field setting, batting and bowling line-up, etc. To play the game, every institution of higher learning needs calibrated autonomy (NEP 2020’s quintessence). With rules ready, the playground needs to be prepared and captains need to get started as Indian higher education moves with a vision from nothing to something in everything. Let the game begin. The sooner, the better.
S Vaidhyasubramaniam
Vice-Chancellor, SASTRA Deemed University
vaidhya@sastra.edu