A one-liner ready reckoner for 2025 and beyond
Many wondered how I ended 2023 with a one-line article not realising that 2024 is no different as I undertake a similar exercise to capture the landscape of higher education that evolved during 2024 offering hope for 2025 manifesting in different forms beginning with the most essential requirement of autonomy to higher education institutions (HEIs)—administrative, academic and financial, the three pillars of university excellence which world over have created institutions of excellence and not exorbitance (no intentional reference to IoEs) and has the potential to create such institutions in India through transformational policy catalysts instead of transactional policy bursts to make Bharat a Vishwaguru, the second coming of its first leadership position, which it lost to North American and European Universities that were characterised by various positively disrupting dimensions of university education suiting diverse learner needs and institutional objectives resulting in specialised research universities, focused teaching universities, community colleges, vocational institutions and many different models, each of them sticking to their core competence and not trying to do everything just like many of our premier Indian HEIs are doing through mindless massification in the name of boosting gross enrolment ration (GER) when what is needed is a calibrated positioning to boost enlightenment that is learner centric cognizant of the fact that different learners have different learning requirements which one breed of institution alone cannot provide despite their misplaced aspirations forcing them to deviate from their foundational purpose creating irreversible damage for graduates with employability challenges making the need to unlearn and re-skill a perennial problem that requires solutions with multi-stakeholder engagement involving industry, civil society, sector skill councils, etc. to create a multiplier effect at unimaginable speed and scale that shall not only catapult skilling in HEIs but also transform HEIs into delivery vehicles of high order learning outcomes through which they progress from a teaching institution to a teaching cum research institution before they reach their aspirational Multidisciplinary Education and Research University (MERU) position as envisaged by the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) which has been the catalysing agent for many changes through reforms triggering new thoughts (though some of which predates NEP 2020) with newer actionable agenda for a newer Viksit Bharat @ 2047 in which the role of higher education institutions is significantly large and the visionary schemes driven by mission based initiatives like PM-Vidyalaxmi, Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF)—Partnership for Accelerated Innovation and Research (PAIR), Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) and Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR), Integrated Teacher Education Program (ITEP), Indian Knowledge System (IKS), Bharatiya Bhasha, neo Scheme for Promotion of Academic Research and Collaboration (SPARC 2.0), etc. all of which are delivered through various policy reforms which currently is a mixed bag of carefully planned and hurriedly dropped regulations/guidelines that push forward and backward HEIs whose collectivised hope is a quantum push forward through a hyper-quantum pull of backward and antiquated rules and regulations to minimise strangulation and maximise oxygenation of HEIs who eagerly await the assured autonomy and ease of doing research, education, training and other learning derivatives through face to face engagement than the overly-hyped bit-byte online education which is only a good substitute for a bad teacher and can never replace a brick-mortar institutions which worldwide have endured the toughest of trials and tribulations as seen from the Oxbridge (Oxford-Cambridge), Scottish, Humboldtian, American models, a blueprint for policy makers to unfold a barrage of regulations/guidelines that enthuse HEIs to gravitate into action mode with less of the 2024 phantasmagorical regulations some of which are far from ground realities and more of different types in a country where role of private higher education in delivering a critical social public good is close to 80 per cent and cannot be seen with a coloured lens but seen with a six/six clear vision to propel deserving public and private HEIs into an orbit of excellence as there are good and bad in both public and private ecosystem leaving market forces to choose the good performers which shall sprout in abundance, if future policies are fertilised with more autonomy than now, more creative funding than now, more collaborative competition than now, more indigenous strengthening than now and more importantly with more spirited action and less scripted regulation as the future of the world is influenced by the future of India which needs to be influenced by nation building action by all higher education institutions and not notion building education policies that are currently restricted to a few. This long 2024 one-liner is a ready reckoner for 2025 and beyond. Happy New Year!
S Vaidhyasubramaniam
Vice-Chancellor, SASTRA Deemed University