THE Indian higher education system is suffering from obsolescence and stifling rigidity that are sapping its energy and inhibiting its march towards excellence, said Prof V C Kulandai Swamy, chairman of Tamil Virtual University on Tuesday .
Addressing the 152nd convocation of the University of Madras here, he said: "In terms of academic reforms, we grievously lag behind and consequently we do not have certain essential components that higher education in almost all the countries outside this subcontinent possesses. We also persist in continuing certain practices that other countries have long given up."
Saying that a fatal weakness of the Indian higher education is the affiliating system, the former vice-chancellor of Anna and Madurai Kamaraj Universities pointed out that the Education Commission in 1966 recommended the grant of autonomy for at least 50 colleges, but the number of autonomous colleges at the end of the 10th Plan stood at 281 against a target of over 2,000.
Kulandai Swamy, who was former vice-chancellor of the Indira Gandhi National Open University, said the higher education is in a large number of small institutions, most of which do not even meet the modest requirements of university level academic function. He added that majority of the faculty was not expected do any research work.
He pointed out that India has outnumbered China with 10,606 research papers against 692 in the year 1980, while China had 72,363 research papers against India's 25,227 in the year 2005.
Kulandai Swamy suggested an increase in the number of universities to "shift the centre of gravity of the student strength substantially to university campuses" as a step to meet the emerging challenges of the higher education.
He also mooted the formation of a national board for higher education, an apex coordinating body that would have powers appropriate for coordination and adequate for ensuring the implementation of the decisions taken. He signed off saying: A nation, it is said, must make minor revolutions periodically: if it fails to do, it must be prepared for a major revolution. India has to necessarily go in for a major revolution in higher education.