With such compromises in the examination tools, the degrees merely serve the purpose of strengthening credentials for different entitlements. Unfortunately, such degrees are no longer evidence of intellectual capability and do not offer the requisite competencies, which culminates in the critical thinking gap as well. The fast-pervading artificial intelligence tools are also responsible for limiting the usage of human cognitive skills, as the core intellectual functions get outsourced to AI.
Accolades are due for the expansion of Indian higher education as envisaged in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. As of now, the AISHE dashboard reflects a gross enrolment ratio of 28.4, a student-teacher ratio of 26, and around 4.33 crore student enrolments in higher education institutions (HEIs). New HEIs are emerging alongside capacity expansion in existing ones, as per the mandate of the NEP for the optimal use of infrastructure and resources. Also, attempts are being made to remodel educational programmes for greater flexibility and multidisciplinarity, which essentially requires acceptance by stakeholders and the availability of sufficient numbers of multidisciplinary teachers in HEIs.
But higher education is reeling through a silent crisis of the worthiness of Degrees and calls for honest introspection. With the demographic dividend being available for a limited time period, it is still not too late to revisit the purpose of higher education. Is it only to provide jobs or to create knowledgeable citizens with the capability to apply and create knowledge in the best interest of the civilisation?
Dilution in Assessment
Over a period of time, the HEIs are seen focusing on admissions and examinations while ignoring the core of teaching-learning. The shift in focus is also attributed to heavy engagement of teachers in ensuring various compliances to remodel the framework for implementing NEP 2020, preparing for ranking, accreditation, etc. Diminishing opportunities for scholarly activities and mentoring of students by the teachers are ushering them away from their role of knowledge dissemination and creation. The over-engagement of teachers in non-academic activities is vitiating the academic culture of the HEIs and leading students to find shortcuts for passing examinations accordingly.
Simultaneously, the academic performance indicator (API) framework, introduced since 2010 by the University Grants Commission for assessing teachers for recruitment and promotion, is also switching the priorities of teachers from deeper class engagement to high API scores. Teachers focus more on publications, projects, and IPRs than on the quality of deliveries in classrooms, resulting in a lessening of class rigour. There is a critical need to impart due weightage to the quality of class engagement in teacher career progression, failing which the basic purpose of education will be gradually lost. Alongside, the gaps in salaries of teachers with respect to the prescribed salary as per norms do not keep them motivated enough for achieving excellence in teaching, which ought to be fixed at the earliest.
The absence of requisite emphasis on teaching-learning processes is resulting in students appearing in examinations without ample learning in classrooms. Under these circumstances, if classes are not held properly, then there should be a good number of students failing in final exams, but the same is not happening. This points to the two possibilities, either the students learn on their own, and there is no need for classroom interactions for learning, or the examination system has a lower threshold so that the majority passes in the examinations.
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Quite likely, some of the HEIs resort to leniency by compromising the quality of examination papers and remain liberal in awarding continuous assessment marks for maintaining the pass percentage and avoiding any backlash arising from a large number of students failing in examinations. Besides, a look at the examination question papers shows that there is an apparent shift from intellectual capability assessment to assessing the memorisation abilities of students. With such compromises in the examination tools, the degrees merely serve the purpose of strengthening credentials for different entitlements. Unfortunately, such degrees are no longer evidence of intellectual capability and do not offer the requisite competencies, which culminates in the critical thinking gap as well. The fast-pervading artificial intelligence tools are also responsible for limiting the usage of human cognitive skills, as the core intellectual functions get outsourced to AI. The pointed queries and inquisitiveness get addressed by AI without due engagement with the concerned literature, textbook, e-resources, experience & knowledge of teachers, etc.
Shift from Learning to Certification
On the other hand, owing to inadequate employment opportunities, the students prioritise getting jobs and are merely interested in getting degree certificates as eligibility setters. This is happening because of the change in approach of the present employers in many instances, who prefer specific skills over the comprehensive domain knowledge associated with the qualification. The prevalent phenomenon is inculcating the tendency of earning microcredentials to secure jobs over thorough study to gain knowledge, even though the latter is for lifelong use. It is essential to restore the importance of learning along with securing microcredentials.
Institutional inequalities
The quality of education is a direct function of the respective HEI. But, the country has 1409 universities in the public and private sectors together to take care of higher education through their own campuses and 53463 colleges apart from standalone institutions. Each HEI differs from others in respect to the number and quality of the faculty members, offered programmes, infrastructure facilities, access to digital resources, student quality, alumni performance, teaching-learning-examination processes, curricula, regional aspirations & local culture, research, and extension activities. These factors make some of the HEIs elite institutions that are sought after by the meritorious students, while the rest of them do not get good students and lower their benchmarks to fill the seats.
Another important aspect is the rising cost of education, which is restricting the educational opportunities for high-merit students from poor financial backgrounds. In a welfare state like ours, the aspirations of every student with required merit should be nurtured, irrespective of their financial state. It’s time to correct the foundational unevenness in the education quality across the HEIs. And, the degrees should not be available merely by paying the fees and appearing in examinations. Let higher education be accessible to only those who are worthy of assimilating and utilising it for the good of society.
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Way forward
It is imperative to ameliorate the state of affairs in higher education by firstly ensuring the fair compliance with prescribed norms and standards for the specified programmes run in HEIs. This will automatically resurrect the deficient HEIs with the necessary infrastructure and IT facilities, teaching-learning facilities, duly paid teaching & supporting human resources, and uniform access to knowledge.
The examination system calls for an overhaul, so that assessment thresholds can be revised and its integrity ascertained to compel the students to learn well before exams. The standardisation of examination question papers and embedding originality in them is inevitable. This calls for the teachers to equip themselves with commensurate knowledge and be ready to continuously innovate the assessment process.
It is worth underlining that the poor quality of higher education eventually rolls out poor quality human resources with various degrees but limited worth. The impact of such knowledge gaps, if any, can be visualised over a period of time when these deficient human resources get into the roles as teachers and manage educational processes. Eventually, the poor quality of teachers, yielding poorer quality of education, may be visible. Therefore, it is inevitable for the academics to introspect HEIs honestly and carry out a candid audit so that the institutions initiate necessary corrections and changes at every level, failing which the higher education will continue growing quantitatively while diminishing qualitatively.
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