In Tamil Nadu the Governor has traditionally been the Chancellor of the state universities. This has been providing for the needed checks and balances between the state administration and the Centre’s norms.
The increasing politicisation of the administration of higher education began with the rule of the Dravidian parties. There has been progressive dilution of the standards and criteria for the appointment of vice-chancellors. A three year term became the vogue with the option for one extension of another three years not often exercised.
With passage of time there has been increasing focus on the selection of members of the search committees and in the appointment of the VCs. With the increasing dominance of the caste factor in the state’s politics, caste-based political parties like Paattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), Viduthalai Siruthaigal Katchi (VCK) and pressure groups of minority communities, hefty lobbying became the norm. The syndicate and the senate of the universities were also subjected to such pulls and pressures of caste. We also saw the unseemly spectacle of even the Raj Bhavan, the seat of the Governor, subjected to such pulls and pressures. A steep deterioration was witnessed in the successive tenures of powerful political appointees as Governors like S S Barnala and K Rosaiah.
We witnessed the arubathumoover-type procession of VCs with a minimum term of three years and with a rare exception of a second term for most. We also saw the round robin game of a VC of one university applying for the post of VC in another. When Sasikala assumed de-facto power after the death of AIADMK Supremo J Jayalalithaa, we even witnessed the spectacle of a dozen VCs calling on her to pay their obeisance, a spectacle unthinkable in the regimes of such illustrious VCs like Dr V L Mudaliar, Dr Malcolm Adiseshiah or Mr G R Damodaran.
The norm till then was for a secretary at the higher education department to call on the VC. This dramatically changed with the minister and the civil servant giving audience to the VCs.
Banwarilal Purohit as Governor brought about a change. He took bold to have an independent committee which looked for talent outside the state. Dr M K Surappa, a distinguished academic of the renowned IISc and a former Director of IIT-Ropar, was selected as the Vice Chancellor of Anna University. Of course, caste-based political parties like the PMK looked at it with horror. There were frequent attempts to make life miserable for Dr Surappa and at the end of his term, with elections around, he was charged with alleged financial and administrative irregularities and an inquiry committee was constituted.
The political leadership would do well to leave the administration of education to academics of reputation and standing. The 164-year-old Madras University has been struggling with several of its VCs not completing even the three year tenure. A few VCs of TN universities have also been facing serious charges of corruption.
There has been mushrooming of hundreds of engineering colleges run by politicians and businessmen remotely connected with education. A similar trend is spreading to medical education as well.
For decades, the pride of Tamil Nadu has been the quality of its higher education and the commitment of generations of dedicated academics. The state has the highest Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of 52 per cent which is more than double the national average. This will mean little if the average quality of its output is poor.
Former Vice Chancellor of Anna University, Dr E Balagurusamy, avers with great sense of pain on the steep deterioration in the quality of engineers in the state: “A research article of Aspiring Minds showed TN ranked last in the state-wise employability of engineers in IT services and BPO. The state focuses on numbers and not on quality. Sadly, a number of engineers seek jobs as sweepers, sanitary workers, railway linemen…”
It’s pathetic to witness TN with its good record as a highly renowned state for education pleading to exempt it from the NEET, a uniform, country-wide entrance test for medical education. Successive governments have been acknowledging their inability to update the quality of school education and compete with other states in getting a fair share of admission to medical colleges. Surely, the solution lies with the state to improve the quality of education from the primary level.
The Illam thedi kalvi, a home-based education programme and other initiatives can work wonders in imparting quality education to the rural and urban students. Nearly two decades ago Chandrababu Naidu as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh focused on such coaching and in short time students from AP formed the largest section of UG students of IIT-Madras. Bihar, one of the Bimaru states, continues to dominate in its share in the civil services exam.
With plans to get reputed foreign universities to set up educational institutions in India, stress should be on striving for quality education at all levels. This can be done best by keeping politics and political administration away from the administration of education.
