|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Higher Education in Haryana: A View from Within BHIM S. DAHIYA’s Higher Education in Haryana: A View from Within is sure to create waves for its exposure of things that happen behind the scenes to control education and educationists. The policy makers in Haryana treat universities as routine government departments needing management, and the charge of running a university has been given many a time to a military general or a senior civil servant with no knowledge of what classroom activity is, how books are read and interpreted, what goes on in the process of evolving an argument, and how all this is possible in an environment of mutual tolerance, creative disagreement and objective analysis. Isn’t it a fact that in discussion, the truth prevails whether coming from a young scholar or a senior academic? Tell this to a military general, an IAS officer or even a political boss and he would be horrified.
The book is divided into twelve chapters that cover chronologically the initial years when universities were set up to the present time when the educational scene in the state has become sadly unmanageable. The last four and a half decades have been marked by nepotism, political skullduggery, crude violations of codes, use of police force or unscrupulous student groups on the campus, etc., on the part of the ruling elite. Dahiya has spared none, the Congress, Lok Dal or BJP. He has also named specific individuals who indulged in scheming and manipulating. Ironically, if some good came out of the happenings, it was a bye-product of someone’s vengefulness. With courage, Dahiya has talked of his own appointment as the Vice-Chancellor of Kurukshetra University in the context. To quote: "I told the Chief Minister (Bhajan Lal) that I could wait, there was no hurry. But he said the Vice-Chancellor (General K. Balaram) was not cooperating, so I must join as PVC to put a check on him." (82) Dahiya shows through his role as Kurukshetra University’s Vice-Chancellor that structural reforms could still be introduced in an educational institution. According to him, "The idea of the university envisages dealing with ideas, not training; with research, not skill. The idea is not to collect crowd of raw minds but to have a small community of scholars exploring new areas in the respective fields." Dahiya sees no hope in the Yashpal Committee Report released recently that aims to centralise education under one statutory body; such a step would strangle the existing multi-institutional framework. For Dahiya, remedy lies in having "more technical institutions in the public sector, locating most of them in the rural areas, making higher education affordable for the common people". The book provides an insider’s account. The best part of this highly readable book is its anecdotal nature that takes us to the root of the problem; the ‘stories’ about men and matters are amazing in many different senses, familiarising us with street-level bargains that hinder work on educational issues. The book is an eye-opener and a must read for those with higher education close to their heart.
|
||
|
|
||
Appointment of
vice-chancellors, registrars and other high officials in universities
is the major issue that Dahiya has highlighted in this book. Ever
since Haryana became a state, its chief ministers have flouted with
impunity the institutional norm and placed their own men in positions
of control, thus bringing instability, uncertainty and even chaos in
the many universities they rule as their fiefdoms.