Kerala | LDF’s politicisation puts higher education on a lower pedestal

Kerala needs policies to modernise courses, develop faculty programmes, and build infrastructure to propel growth.(Representative Image)

Kerala’s education quality index is among the best in India. But its higher education sector keeps finding a place in the news for all the wrong reasons.

The Pinarayi Vijayan government’s reforms in the sector have enraged Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, who shares a ‘volcanic’ relationship — one that alters between eruption and dormancy — with the government.

The selection of the wife of the private secretary to the Chief Minister, as Associate Professor at the Kannur University, has irked the Governor to allege nepotism in the process. This, coupled with his calling the Vice Chancellor a criminal for conspiring an attack on him reveals, although drearily, the state of the higher education sector in Kerala.

Why has the standard of Kerala’s higher education sector been low?

Politicisation Of Governing Structure

In 1937, Maharaja Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, the Chancellor of University of Travancore — Kerala’s first university — wanted Albert Einstein to be his Vice Chancellor. But Einstein wished to continue his association with Princeton Institute of Advanced Study. Those who were considered as Pro Vice Chancellor include CV Raman, Julian Huxley, and Meghnad Saha.

Today, as the Chancellor constituted a search committee to find a replacement for the outgoing Vice Chancellor of that university — now known as University of Kerala — the state government is attempting to usurp the control of the committee by way of a Bill to insert additional members attached to the government and the higher education council, to influence the outcome of the selection. On other fronts, the Left Front government is trying its best to limit the powers of the Chancellor in all universities.

A high-level panel appointed last year commented on the politicisation in universities. Yet strangely, it recommended to having separate chancellors for each university. What vitiates the true autonomy of universities is the politicisation of its governing bodies. Academicians and experts should be nominated to such bodies, instead of having political appointees. Only they can follow up on the ambitious budgetary announcements of research centres, start-ups, mini-industrial units, and science parks, or else these would just cajole us briefly, and then die a natural death.

Incapacity Of Faculty Members

In Kannur University, the incumbent Vice Chancellor is given a second term, and the Opposition’s allegation is that the Associate Professor selection is a quid-pro-quo. This can’t be seen in isolation as several other leaders from the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) too face similar charges, thanks to the appointment of their wives by virtue of ‘better interview performance’, although they languished at the bottom in other phases of the selection process.

There are instances of subject experts alleging that rank lists were ‘inverted’ to favour political selection. Often, the same people being accused of favouritism are seen on the interview panels in multiple universities. An indignant Governor even announced he would commission an inquiry into the appointments in universities in the last three years. While it is not the purpose of a university to create average students, how can one expect faculty members who sneaked in through the backdoor to mentor students to excel in their disciplines?

Old-School Learning Methods

Many higher education centres in Kerala follow the decades-old system of dictating notes to students rather than engaging them through interactive sessions, and research. This may not help those who think beyond borderline pass results. In turn, those who perform exceedingly well in Board exams would distance themselves from local institutions and pursue higher studies outside the state, much to the distress of other universities, attributed to the oft-criticised ‘liberal’ valuation system in Kerala.

Part of this migration is driven by better vocational prospects, but the uninspiring standard of higher education in Kerala is indeed a concern. Therefore, besides not attracting talent from other states, Kerala’s universities forfeit local talent to them.

Absence Of Policy-Making

The CPI(M) bears the burden of leading violent protests against private investment in higher education, before wimping out recently, and promoting such investment. This conflict impedes the making of suitable policies to govern the sector. Kerala must move on from the ‘100% literacy’ milestone as its best achievement in the education sector. What has been built on top of this achievement remains largely obscure. Kerala needs policies to modernise courses, develop faculty programmes, and build infrastructure to propel growth.

To revitalise the sector, there’s no better guiding light than the state’s foremost social reformer Sree Narayana Guru, who urged to create a better society through education, and warned not to wrangle over religion or caste. Unfortunately, it was a leader from the same community to which Guru belonged, who, two years ago, alleged that the state’s then higher education minister — a Muslim — had forced the government to appoint someone from his own religion as the Vice Chancellor of a newly-founded university named after Guru. Therein lies the policy-makers’ lack of vision.