In defence of university autonomy and academic freedom

August 2, 2012, 7:38 pm , the island

By Prof. Wiswa Warnapala

Continued from yesterday

In the last three or four decades, there was a considerable expansion in the intake which, of course, was stimulated by a great demand for higher education. The rapid increase in the number of students, which had taken place in the sixties, was not simultaneously accompanied by a concentrated attention on quality. It was in the last decade that a major effort has been invested in this direction, and the very process of transformation was accelerated in the last few years. It was the exhortation of this policy which called upon the universities to devote their energies to improving the quality of education offered to the students. This had to be done notwithstanding the increasing pressure for the expansion of the intake. The compelling reason was that the country demanded a greater measure of social and educational equality which partly, was one of the aspirations of the post-colonial state. This had a direct impact on the expansion of the universities, and it became lop-sided because the inevitable expansion was on arts and humanities. As was inevitable, the expansion created numerous problems. A numerical expansion was planned to be carried out within a period through a network of provincial universities; the objective of this policy was to make special innovations with regard to their curriculum and new specializations to be given priority. What was vital in each of them was the introduction of new disciplines; it was constantly mentioned that the quality of the University graduate must not be sacrificed to quantity. Character, temperament and wider qualities of mind are, of course, as important as intellectual attainments.

The maintenance of academic standards depended on two important factors, the quality of the undergraduate material reaching the universities from the schools and the quality of training provided by the universities themselves. The two factors are closely related. Well-educated teachers are required to train the school population and to avoid the schools from sending ill-educated entrants to the universities. The main question was the capacity of the schools to produce such freshmen of quality. In this connection, it needs to be recommended that more than ninety percent of the undergraduates are recipients of the Mahapola grants. There is no question that the universities attract suitably qualified university students, who do not need cosmetic ventures such as leadership training programs in army camps, the authors of which, perhaps, never understood the mission of a University. The existing school network is certain to increase the supply of potential undergraduates and the future increase, though not predicted with accuracy, will be substantial, and this indicates the magnitude of the investment needed for higher education. Given the number of universities, investments on an unprecedented scale will be needed, and to decide how this is to be achieved is the responsibility of the government.

Expanded access led to reduction in quality

It has been realised that the elimination of all obstacles to an expanded access led to the reduction in quality. There is no doubt that the average quality has substantially suffered. Apart from the quality of the undergraduate, the maintenance of university standards depends, to a large extent, on the quality of the life and the education which the universities are expected to provide. Most complications of the system are tied to this basic proposition. The rapid increase of student numbers, resulting from a policy to expand access, has, naturally imposed severe strains on the system, contributing to the deterioration in the standards of university education in the country. In Sri Lanka, standards depend on a number of factors-quality of the academic staff, bilingualism and monolingualism of the academic staff, the ratio of staff to students, the buildings and their adequacy to the present requirements, library facilities, residential facilities, extra-curricular facilities and canteen facilities. The sudden expansion of numbers has exceeded the levels of accommodation. In the meantime, the student body, politicized or not, began to make new demands on the universities. In this environment of shortage and inadequacies, the leisured university life with adequate opportunities for regular contact between the staff and the student became impossible, which clearly affected the intellectual life of the university.

The doubling of the numbers of the students in the last four decades could be justified on the ground that it raised the proportion of the population which has had the advantage of university education. The output of graduates from all faculties has had a major impact on the social and economic potential of the country. Advantages of university education for social and economic progress of a given society have been widely recognized. The creation of useful knowledge, as anticipated, has had a direct link with the creation of employment opportunities for the output of graduates in Sri Lanka. The perception of the public is that the University education is a means of training for a particular career. As an inevitable consequence, the failure to provide employment has created a sense of frustration and disillusionment among the unemployed graduates. One way out is to establish an active post-graduate intellectual culture, and the many forms of specialized study could be better left to the post-graduate students. The absence of such a post- graduate intellectual culture is a major deficiency in the present system, which, partially, has been rectified with outside assistance. Sri Lanka does not have benefactors who can dole out money for research. Further, the notion of research has been given a different value. Unfortunately, for many policy makers, university is essentially a place for impartation of knowledge than a place for the creation of knowledge. Therefore, the teaching, at the expense of research, has gained importance.

Principle of public welfare

To conclude, the relationship between the state and the universities, by implication, is a difficult one, as the current debate of the question illustrates. The hard task is to devise appropriate means of reconciling the planning and control of the universities with the maintenance of academic freedom. The need for some kind of central planning of university education through direct government intervention, as the system remains wholly state- funded, has been widely recognised. Universities, in the execution of their policies, needs to be based on the principle of public welfare. However, central control and planning, even through the UGC, cannot involve the curtailment of academic freedom. It needs to be reminded to those who intend in invoking Macarthian techniques of witch- hunting and interference, that such forms of interference would definitely lead to intellectual retardation. As Eric Ashby notes, "the price of autonomy is to abjure power". There are examples of arbitrary political interference in the affairs of the universities in the Commonwealth, but they rarely became issues of political contention, because most governments have shown themselves scrupulously careful to avoid even the appearance of interference with academic freedom. The relationship between the state and the universities, which evolved and conceived as a form of partnership, should not be disturbed and all conflicts between the two parties, each of which showing their own power at the expense of the other, need to be avoided in the interest of the development of the universities. The main responsibility for this kind of arrangement rests with the UGC as the accepted intermediary between the state and the universities, and the accomplishment of this important task depends on the goodwill and understanding between the university community and the UGC. The developing climate of distrust between the State and the universities is certainly not in the interest of higher education in Sri Lanka. The simple truth is that universities need to be given better resources as higher education is an investment in human capital.

Concluded