By Dr. Marian Pinheiro
Goa’s Higher education scenario has never been up to the desired levels. Higher education in Goa had always remained the back stage of the backstage of governmental priority with little or no encouragement and support but with more and more controls and interference by the political bosses, than anyone would desire. The two regulatory bodies namely the Directorate of higher education and the Goa University did precisely little to improve quality of Higher education, but were always enthusiastic about their regulatory functions and exercised control over higher education in whatever way possible.
The recent media reports of Goa University permitting students to reappear in the subjects of their choice to improve their final percentage and permitting some more colleges to open post graduate education are indications of new openness to improve higher education in Goa.
Now it is the turn of the Directorate of higher education of the Government of Goa to remove the bottlenecks it has created, to throttle progress in higher education in Goa. The first and the biggest hurdle is the huge and unfathomable chasm created between government aided courses and self financing courses .
The ideal situation would have been to model the grant in aid scheme purely based on student intake per institutions rather than discriminate students and levy differential fees for aided and self financing courses. But may be , the present government may not have the necessary courage and capability to adopt such a system, those bureaucrats who are ingrained in the present faulty system of grant in aid will continue to object, obstruct and find fault with any other system , because they are so used to the present system wherein they exercise control over the whole higher education in Goa, and the political powers would agree with them willingly, as the present system gives them maximum opportunity to discriminate and favour certain Institutions or persons.
The least the government could do is to at least remove such existing restrictions, so that senior and well experienced faculty members though employed under the grant in aid program could render their expertise for the self financing programs as well, so that the students will be benefitted by their expertise and experience in research etc. This is all the more relevant when almost all the colleges with more than ten years of standing are now opting to take up one or more post graduate courses . In fact at first meeting of the fee fixation committee, back in the year 1997 for self financing courses, the idea of use of existing senior faculty members for the self financing courses were accepted but subsequent fee fixation committees were bureaucratic in nature and clerical in outlook and did bring in unnecessary restrictions on colleges in the conduct of self financing courses. A Government’s ability and capabilities lies not in imposing maximum restriction but in ensuring optimum use of available human resources for the benefit of the students, by providing best quality education and research experience.
There was also an almost idiotic directive of the Government of Goa , preventing colleges from using the services of retired faculty in any capacity, One can understand such restrictions being imposed on government aided posts, but where the college has self financing courses or when the management themselves are willing to bear the cost of such reemployment full time or part time, should the government come in the way to restrict and obstruct beneficial use of such human resources?. In the world, India may be the only nation and Goa may be the only state, where such human resources with experience and expertise are allowed to rot, may be because some jealous bureaucrats thought it wise to do so.
The problem with our system of governance is that, main purpose is often not the focus, often the focus of the administration is to use their powers to achieve some hidden agenda. If in Higher education, Access and Quality are the two basic requirements then all efforts should be directed towards achieving such goals. The Government has a duty and responsibility to provide such facility and remove the bottlenecks towards achieving these minimum requirements. Why Goa has very little research at post graduate level?, it is precisely because of this reason that those experienced and well versed with research are not allowed to teach or guide post graduate students.
Goa University has to not only upgrade its research component but help and support colleges in finding funding and guidance for research in their chosen fields. It is naïve to think that research is required only in areas of pure science, students of Goa are more attuned to areas of social science, culture, art , music, drama, history etc and these students should be given facility to undertake path breaking research in various areas of social science as well. What is required, may not be equipments but human resources to guide and even stimulate research thinking , how could a fresh post graduate who is asked to teach at post graduate level provide that kind of expertise and guidance . Goa University has a pivotal role in enabling social science research at colleges especially at the post graduate levels.
The long delay in approval of appointments, restricting the number of faculties (Departments) at Goa University, in an era of knowledge expansion and explosion are steps degenerative in nature .Goa University should expand and grow in keeping with the advances in knowledge. Academic and Research collaboration with affiliated colleges as well as other Universities should be the main USP of the University, rather than assigning affiliation inspection work to the University Faculty which are more or less clerical in nature, which could now a day’s be carried out remotely and digitalized to save time and energy, and of course the harassment and inconvenience to colleges.
Time is ripe to declare more autonomous colleges in Goa and support research collaborations. Higher education in Goa needs to lead, rather than be an underdog and a governmental instrument for personal favoritism. Goa as a part of the Indian Union and being a former Portuguese colony with certain systems and laws of the colonial era continuing in Goa, has a unique role to play in modern India, not just in tourism, but also in culture, social reformation, women’s, equality and in the overall sense of peace and tranquility, that Goans are known to enjoy.
(The writer is a Professor of Law & Former Dean, Faculty of Law, Goa University)
