Politicking universities
By Dr Tirth Raj Khaniya
It was hard to believe that the proposed new Nepal, mainly led by old and new generation leaders like G P Koirala, M Nepal, Prachanda, S B Deuba and Dr B Bhattarai would be forced to witness the news that appeared on Kantipur TV as Flash News alerting that the four Universities—Tribhuvan, Nepal Sanskrit, Purbanchal and Pokhara—were named after the four parties—CPN (UML), Nepali Congress, Nepali Congress(D), and CPN (Maoist) respectively for the purpose of appointing Vice-Chancellors. Though the credibility of the news may be questioned as there has not been formal decision of this sort, the news was not different from the gossips around power centres and some sycophants. It is true that the main stakeholders of these universities—teachers, students and administrative staff—have been crying for long for immediate appointment of the Vice-chancellor, because the people involved in university's day to day affairs have suffered a lot due to lack of the chief and the team. What is also true is that the delay in the appointment of the VCs is caused by the lack of political consensus among the political parties. Though the need for political consensus in education is appreciated, what came out in the name of political consensus regarding the appointment of the VC is something academia would strongly oppose.
At present, it is accepted that without political consensus there is no possibility of managing higher education. If we want to reduce political costs of educational reforms, it is essential that political parties agree on what we should do and what we should not do in higher education and how we should manage universities. In this pretext, the involvement of the parties in reaching a consensus on major issues including the appointment of the VC can be applauded. However, the agreement of the political parties on the recruitment of the VC would have been highly appreciated had they been able to reach an agreement on developing a competent process involving transparent criteria for appointing the VC rather than on tagging a party's name on a university. What is even more dangerous of distributing universities to different parties is that the campuses under these universities will be further distributed to these parties and several other parties while appointing the campus chief which will eventually lead our higher education institutions to become the party's campuses instead of becoming independent academic institutions. Now we have a choice—either to make these institutions centre for academia or centre for dirty politics. It can be argued that the VC made by a party may work for the party not for the university. S/he may not be the University's VC, rather s/he may be the Party's VC. Such a person cannot gain respect from the teachers, student, administrative staff and the people as a whole.
This is the first in the history of TU to have the Prime Minister GP Koirala as the Chancellor. Now he is the Chancellor of all the universities in Nepal. The Chancellor is the final authority to appoint the VC. This is a high time for Nepal to establish a credible procedure of appointing the VC so that the future governments happily follow it. It should be noted that we cannot and should not adopt any procedure in the name of political understanding that establishes a wrong precedence. As the leaders of the time, Koirala, Nepal, Prachnada and Deuba are expected to hand over to the next generation a better system of appointing the VC. They have no right whatsoever to initiate anti-academic and anti-democratic processes for the benefit of their parties establishing a wrong precedence in the field of higher education in Nepal.
Different universities follow different procedures for the selection of the VC. What is common in most advanced universities is that they follow competitive procedures using transparent criteria mostly academic. Generally, the Governing Board of the University/Senate first visualizes the future directions of the university through its long- and short-term plans which provide, in a way, a framework for determining what kind of person with what general and specific skills and abilities is appropriate for the position of the VC. It constitutes a "Search Committee" to look for such a person and determines the processes to be followed. The potential candidates can be asked to present to a group of competent professionals involving a wide variety of audiences their visions and commitments to demonstrate that they have the knowledge of the pertinent issues of the university, they have plans for the development of the university, and they know the strategies to implement those plans. On the basis of the overall performance, candidates are selected for the position of the VC.
For example, Oxford University, appoints the Vice-Chancellor on the basis of the election performed by Congregation (on the nomination of a committee consisting of the Chancellor and representatives of Council, Congregation and the Colleges) from among the members of Congregation. In Lancaster University, a VC search committee is formed by the University Senate. The committee invites applications from competent academicians not confining to the university. Following competitive processes of selection, the committee recommends 2-3 candidates to the Chancellor for appointing the VC. University of Edinburgh maintains a glorious history of electing the Rector, a very popular position in the university, by all the teaching and administrative staff and students. The present finance Minister of UK (Chancellor of the Exchequer) was once the Rector of the University. In some Scandinavian universities, the VC is selected on the basis of his/her presentations to competent audiences involving senior academicians.
In our case, considering the limited time, the VC search committees should be formed as suggested by the respective University Acts. In order to genuinely search for appropriate persons, the committee should invite potential candidates to make presentations to competent audiences involving high academicians, politicians, students, professors, administrators, researchers, etc. on how they visualize the future of the university, what plans they have to improve the situation of the university and their implementation strategies, how they would promote university's fiscal independence and how they would lead the university to compete with international universities, etc. to prove themselves competent for the position. The search committee should also examine the candidates' track records. Then the committee should select competent candidates irrespective of their political affiliation and recommend to the Chancellor for appointment.
Posted on: 2007-04-27 21:48:31 (Server Time)
Source:Kantipur
It was hard to believe that the proposed new Nepal, mainly led by old and new generation leaders like G P Koirala, M Nepal, Prachanda, S B Deuba and Dr B Bhattarai would be forced to witness the news that appeared on Kantipur TV as Flash News alerting that the four Universities—Tribhuvan, Nepal Sanskrit, Purbanchal and Pokhara—were named after the four parties—CPN (UML), Nepali Congress, Nepali Congress(D), and CPN (Maoist) respectively for the purpose of appointing Vice-Chancellors. Though the credibility of the news may be questioned as there has not been formal decision of this sort, the news was not different from the gossips around power centres and some sycophants. It is true that the main stakeholders of these universities—teachers, students and administrative staff—have been crying for long for immediate appointment of the Vice-chancellor, because the people involved in university's day to day affairs have suffered a lot due to lack of the chief and the team. What is also true is that the delay in the appointment of the VCs is caused by the lack of political consensus among the political parties. Though the need for political consensus in education is appreciated, what came out in the name of political consensus regarding the appointment of the VC is something academia would strongly oppose.
At present, it is accepted that without political consensus there is no possibility of managing higher education. If we want to reduce political costs of educational reforms, it is essential that political parties agree on what we should do and what we should not do in higher education and how we should manage universities. In this pretext, the involvement of the parties in reaching a consensus on major issues including the appointment of the VC can be applauded. However, the agreement of the political parties on the recruitment of the VC would have been highly appreciated had they been able to reach an agreement on developing a competent process involving transparent criteria for appointing the VC rather than on tagging a party's name on a university. What is even more dangerous of distributing universities to different parties is that the campuses under these universities will be further distributed to these parties and several other parties while appointing the campus chief which will eventually lead our higher education institutions to become the party's campuses instead of becoming independent academic institutions. Now we have a choice—either to make these institutions centre for academia or centre for dirty politics. It can be argued that the VC made by a party may work for the party not for the university. S/he may not be the University's VC, rather s/he may be the Party's VC. Such a person cannot gain respect from the teachers, student, administrative staff and the people as a whole.
This is the first in the history of TU to have the Prime Minister GP Koirala as the Chancellor. Now he is the Chancellor of all the universities in Nepal. The Chancellor is the final authority to appoint the VC. This is a high time for Nepal to establish a credible procedure of appointing the VC so that the future governments happily follow it. It should be noted that we cannot and should not adopt any procedure in the name of political understanding that establishes a wrong precedence. As the leaders of the time, Koirala, Nepal, Prachnada and Deuba are expected to hand over to the next generation a better system of appointing the VC. They have no right whatsoever to initiate anti-academic and anti-democratic processes for the benefit of their parties establishing a wrong precedence in the field of higher education in Nepal.
Different universities follow different procedures for the selection of the VC. What is common in most advanced universities is that they follow competitive procedures using transparent criteria mostly academic. Generally, the Governing Board of the University/Senate first visualizes the future directions of the university through its long- and short-term plans which provide, in a way, a framework for determining what kind of person with what general and specific skills and abilities is appropriate for the position of the VC. It constitutes a "Search Committee" to look for such a person and determines the processes to be followed. The potential candidates can be asked to present to a group of competent professionals involving a wide variety of audiences their visions and commitments to demonstrate that they have the knowledge of the pertinent issues of the university, they have plans for the development of the university, and they know the strategies to implement those plans. On the basis of the overall performance, candidates are selected for the position of the VC.
For example, Oxford University, appoints the Vice-Chancellor on the basis of the election performed by Congregation (on the nomination of a committee consisting of the Chancellor and representatives of Council, Congregation and the Colleges) from among the members of Congregation. In Lancaster University, a VC search committee is formed by the University Senate. The committee invites applications from competent academicians not confining to the university. Following competitive processes of selection, the committee recommends 2-3 candidates to the Chancellor for appointing the VC. University of Edinburgh maintains a glorious history of electing the Rector, a very popular position in the university, by all the teaching and administrative staff and students. The present finance Minister of UK (Chancellor of the Exchequer) was once the Rector of the University. In some Scandinavian universities, the VC is selected on the basis of his/her presentations to competent audiences involving senior academicians.
In our case, considering the limited time, the VC search committees should be formed as suggested by the respective University Acts. In order to genuinely search for appropriate persons, the committee should invite potential candidates to make presentations to competent audiences involving high academicians, politicians, students, professors, administrators, researchers, etc. on how they visualize the future of the university, what plans they have to improve the situation of the university and their implementation strategies, how they would promote university's fiscal independence and how they would lead the university to compete with international universities, etc. to prove themselves competent for the position. The search committee should also examine the candidates' track records. Then the committee should select competent candidates irrespective of their political affiliation and recommend to the Chancellor for appointment.
Posted on: 2007-04-27 21:48:31 (Server Time)
Source:Kantipur
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