Higher education at risk

Source: (http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=85803)

By DR GHANSHYAM BHATT

Tribhuvan University (TU) the only source of education and higher learning center for most of the Nepali students is without officials -- Vice　Chancellor, Registrar and Dean --- for a long time and doesn't seem to　have one anytime soon. This shows that the higher education in the country doesn't get priority and attention as it is in India, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh in the region. The reason is every successive prime minister or the king has　taken the university as his private property. Prime Minister Koirala is no exception.

An institution without an official is always incomplete and imperfect. And an imperfect institution's performance and result is always imperfect and　poor if not disastrous. We have several problems in our higher education because of the absence of a coherent long-term policy
and priorities　without which the problems will be difficult to overcome. Our policymakers, especially parliamentarians, do not seem like having any clue on the　consequences of not having a system to govern the higher education centers. Before it causes more damage to the future of the students and the　nation as well, it must be urgently felt that the problem be addressed without any delay.

The education system should help enhance the economic and social development of this country. It should address the scientific gap between the　home institutions and the institutions around the globe; provide quality education; produce the manpower that the country needs to lead it into the challenging world; and encourage connection to socio-economic sector of society. Has Prime Minister Koirala and his coterie ever realized or ever　made some effort to understand the
importance of higher education? A man who has not joined university will not understand how a higher learning　center functions and helps a country's political stability and economic growth.
Academic institution must be autonomous, independent and must have an efficient and effective management to achieve their goals. The government as a supervisor needs to make sure that the education system provides academic honesty, encourage autonomy through check and balance, encourage competition, and establish connection to socio-economic sectors. We need policies to overcome these problems without delay in　our context by setting the missions and roles of the existing universities if the semi baked politicians dream of a new Nepal.

With the increasing demand for higher education and government's lack of fund for it, we can't do much without relying on the private sector. At the　same time, we can't rely totally on private institutions for several reasons like the government's lack of vision and mechanism on how to address the　issue of privatization that can lead to the chaos in higher education.　For example: Kathmandu University (KU), a private university, for higher education has achieved some progress within a short span of time but there　are some disagreements on how it is functioning (source: KU staffs, a letter to the editor TKP, dated May 28). We can see that in India, there are some very good private (self-financing) institutions of higher education, but only a few of them offer quality education and many have been started　with the sole goal of making quick profits. We can't rule out this possibility in our context too.

The government also needs to have a basic rule that applies to all higher education institutions in the nation so that they don't define their rules the　way they want. The question is: Can we have ways to regulate them so that they offer academic honesty, provide quality education, maintain　financially transparency and, not business-oriented, add something to the economy and that the fee they charge their students is reasonable?

These are the questions that remain unanswered in our case. It should be a matter of concern if a private university gets grants from the university　grants commission (UGC) and doesn't maintain transparent accounts. The UGC needs to be more aggressive in this regard.

As such there is an urgent need for a very strong government institution which can provide the model for the private institution to follow. There is an　urgent need for a long lasting plan; that can lead the country into the future; can provide the quality education; can produce the manpower that　the country needs to move ahead; that educates individuals who can contribute to the national development; that provides environment for basic　science research; that can make it an autonomous and independent institution where the hired officials remain in office no matter who is in the　government; that hires officials who have vision, experience, commitment and qualifications to achieve the already set missions and goals.

Since TU has resources and experts in all the areas, re-organizing TU would be much cheaper than setting up a new institution. All political parties and civil society must agree on making it a strong government institution which can set examples for others and can serve as a model for the higher education in Nepal. The cost of ignoring the higher education in this century is beyond our imagination; no one will be willing to pay that much.

Posted on: 2006-09-11 20:19:55 (Server Time)