Teachers' panel discusses ideas to enhance teaching standards.
The 27th National Statutory Conference of the All India Federation of University College Teachers Organisation (AIFUCTO) on Saturday called for a strong policy backing for initiatives in higher education during the 12th plan.
Deliberating on the theme of the statutory conference—Changing paradigms of higher education, 12th plan initiatives—experts put out hair-raising statistics about higher education in the country.
According to vice-chancellor of Mangalore University, TC Shivashankar Murthy, 83% of the 22 crore children who join schools drop out at college level and only 17% continue higher education. If the policy initiatives towards retaining students in higher education are not taken up during the 12th plan initiatives, India will lag behind by five years, even while it is the most chosen destination for producing quality human resources for the entire world, he said.
The report on higher education by Sam Pitroda spoke about India’s potential for higher education, which was quoted by Murthy, who stated that India needs not less than 1,500 more universities and 5,000 more colleges in all streams of higher education just to retain 30% of students at higher education levels.
Though the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) is one of the positive initiatives in higher education, it falls behind in the total quality concept, said higher education expert C Padmanabhan.
“The RUSA document states that there is a need to revisit the acts of various state universities to find out if there are clauses detrimental to their autonomy. It is better if the Union government, in consultation with the University Grants Commission, constitutes a committee to frame a model University Act and statues,” said Padmanabhan.
AIFUCTO president Tarun Kumar Patra rued that neo-liberal economic conditions, privatisation, commercialisation and commoditisation of higher education in the global market has emerged as a major threat to the access, equity and quality of higher education in India.
On teachers’ financial condition, Patra said: “In most states, teachers have not got 80% of their arrears from 2006 to 2010. Teachers are being deprived of MPhil and PhD increments. Except Tripura, West Bengal and Kerala, the pension scheme has been withdrawn. A large community of teachers, consisting of part time, contractual, guest lecturers, work for a meagre sum of emoluments, without any security of service and avenues of promotions,” he said.
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