A bird?s eye view of the Ranchi University office. A Telegraph picture

Decades ago I had read an essay by T. S. Eliot, ?Tradition and Individual Talent?. Eliot, of course was talking about literature and literary criticism. But to my mind no other phrase describes a university more accurately. It is this individuality which invests character and enhances the existing frontiers of knowledge at any point of time .

In the past few years we seem to have conveniently forgotten and lost the honest art of putting the right man in the right place. We now quite often witness ?search committees? producing a mouse.

An example will suffice. Although among the UGC officials are a former vice chancellor, a former registrar at IGNOU and other equally formidable administrators and academics, UGC now has a secretary who is an authority on school education, being a permanent employee of NCERT.

Although Jharkhand continues to follow this tradition of appointments, it has done itself proud by establishing the Jharkhand Academic Council, which looks after education upto the intermediate standard. The syllabi worked out by the council exudes the flavour of Jharkhand and came as a pleasant surprise.

Curiosity prompted me to visit the council?s office and I was pleasantly surprised to see that a large number of staff are tribal and local people. The council chairman, Dr. Shaligram Yadav, is a soft spoken person with a smiling face and who appears to be constantly scrutinising files. Dr. Yadav pointed out that in preparing the syllabus for Class IX to XII, including intermediate colleges he had taken the help of a large number of subject experts as well as language experts.

He points out that he is satisfied with the outcome in as much as the same level of curriculum has been maintained as applicable in the schools of Delhi, while tribal and regional languages, literature and culture have also been included. Urdu, Bengali, Sanskrit, etc are also part of the syllabus.

At the level of University education, no such refreshing and necessary transformation has taken place. The model syllabus provided by the UGC for College and University education has been adapted no doubt, but without any logical or cohesive approach. For example, the UGC?s model syllabus comprises 10 papers whereas the Universities in Jharkhand have opted for 12 papers for PG examination. This has resulted in additional burden on the students and confusion among the teachers. The syllabus has the overwhelming acrid stale smell of another time and environment.

In 1947 when India gained independence, the country had about 30 universities. Today there are about 300 universities and 4000 colleges. This shows that higher education has taken giant strides in the last 50 odd years. There are also a number of institutions classified as ?Deemed to be Universities?. Their number is around 80. It is another matter that during the preceding government at the centre, the number of deemed universities doubled.

Unlike Chattisgarh, which allowed private universities to be established without a restraining clause, Jharkhand has failed to extend a helping hand to private institutions. Indeed it has not formulated any policy and as a result, it has just 3 general universities, 2 of them recognised by the UGC while Chattisgarh was saddled with 70 ?private universities?. Both extreme examples indicate a sorry state of higher education.

Laws guiding Jharkhand universities actually seem to reduce the autonomy of the university with the government usurping the right to control and direct purely academic matters as well. Officials ignorant of the background often make mistakes for which the students are forced to pay heavily. In undivided Bihar, for example, the three teacher education colleges established and maintained by minorities, the Ursuline Convent at Lohardaga, The Loyala College in Jamshedpur and The Bethseda College in Ranchi were at the top of the list among teacher?s training colleges.

But after the formation of Jharkhand, their affiliations were cancelled without assigning any reason, forcing the three colleges to go to court.

The case was not heard by the court because the university promptly withdrew its notification cancelling affiliation. The students, however, had to undergo a great deal of hardship and they also lost valuable time.

This despite the court ruling as far back as 1979 that once a student is allowed to appear at a university examination by the principal of an affiliated college, university cannot withhold the result on the ground of eligibility. But not only in the case of students of the three teachers? training colleges but, more recently, in Cambridge Institute of Technology, Tatisilwai, too results of some candidates have been withheld.

Knee-jerk reactions have marked the state government?s policy initiatives. The decision to start a large number of teachers? training colleges was taken in a hurry , without giving much thought to the recruitment of faculty or building up infrastructure. As a result, some media reports suggest that students obtaining a degree from these new colleges will find their degree to be valid only in Jharhand.

Surely the urgent need to have trained teachers could have been partially met by increasing seats in the existing, well-established training colleges referred above. One also hopes that the new teachers? training colleges come up in the remote, rural areas too , where people of Jharkhand reside, and not remain confined to colleges at urban centres.