Quality of Political Science Discipline’s Higher Education in India.

 

Dr. Rama Rao Bonagani

 

ABSTRACT:

The concept of Higher Education(HE) means education at universities, institutions and colleges contrast to education at schools up to XIIth class. Moreover, it includes general, technical, professional and vocational education. Like many other countries, since India’s state independence it has been tremendously expanding HE to establish its own political legitimacy. In fact, in India there is also a social demand for increase this consistently in the future as well. However, irrespective of quality, India through its political Union and States governments manages one of the largest HE systems in the world with complexity because education is in the concurrent list of the Constitution of India. Political Science(PS) is one of the Social Sciences (SSs)discipline ,its and the rest of SSs disciplines knowledges are unlimited like an unlimited Universe.The question is how to keep maintain quality in HE sector in India?. UNO’s UNESCO, India’s MHRD and UGC etc have been working for keep maintain quality in HE, which includes PS. Despite these measures, there are defects, deficiencies and no full good standards existing and overall quality in HE in India is lacking compare to many countries in the world. This paper analyses overview of quality of HE in India with comparative perspective, What is quality status of India’sPS discipline’s HE in the realms of pedagogical approaches, curriculum, course contents, readings materials etc in order to keep maintain quality consistently.

 

INTRODUCTION:

The concept of Higher Education(HE) means education at Colleges, Universities and Institutions contrast  to education at schools up toXIIth class¹. It includes mainly general, technical, professional and vocational education². It covers undergraduate, post graduate, M.Phil, Ph.D and post doctoralstudy degrees etc to the students in order to possess their higher educational qualifications. It deals mostly teaching and research.

 

Aim:

Higher Education imparts in-depth knowledge and understanding so as to advance the students to new frontiers of knowledge in different walks of life. Moreover, it develops the students ability to question, seek truth and makes students competent to critique on contemporary issues. It also broadens intellectual powers of individual within a narrow specialization, but also gives students a wider perspective of the world around³.

Higher Education helps to build peace in the minds of students as well as helps for their overall development. Moreover, HE is important for development, which influence on various dimensions of a State’s national development in the realms of social, economic, political, cultural and technological⁴.

 

Overview of Quality of Higher Education in India:

Before India’s independence 3 modern universities were established during British regime in India in 1857atCalcutta(present Kolkata), Bombay(present Mumbai) and Madras(present Chennai). After 30 years, University of Allahabad established as the 4^th university. After this, in 1916, University of Mysore and Banaras Hindu University were established. After India’s state independence on 15-8-1947, these universities obviously are became part of India. HE in independent India has been tremendously expanding like many other countries in the world to establish its own political legitimacy. In fact inIndia, there is a social demand for increase this consistently in the future as well. However, irrespective of quality, India through its political Union and States governments, which includes Puducherry and NCT Delhigovernments manages one of the largest HE systems in the world with complexity, because education is in the concurrent list of the Constitution of India⁵.

 

In the Constitution of India, part-IV of the Directive Principles of State Policy, article 41 mentioned right to education⁶. Moreover, in the constitution of India,7^th schedule of article 246 in the list-I of Union list, serial number 66 says co-ordination and determination of standards in institutions for HE or research and scientific as well as technical institutions and serial number 63 says establishment of central universities and any other institutions declared by parliament by law to be an institution of national importance. In the list-2 of state list, serial number 14 says agricultural education and research⁷.

 

However, HE in India has grown remarkably in quantitative terms. The numbers of universities have increased 34 times from 20 in 1950 to 677 in 2014. The number of colleges have also registered manifold increase of 74 times with just 500 in 1950 to 37,204 as on 31-3-2013⁸. In fact, after USA and China, India manages the largest higher education system in the world. But it is widely felt that quality and standards of HE in India are rapidly declining.

 

 

According to a sample survey of universities and colleges ,only 5 out of 18 central universities and 33 out of 121 state universities received an A grade from India’s National Assessment and Accreditation council(NAAC)⁹. Moreover, India lacks internationally compare to prestigious universities such as Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford. International league tables produced in 2006 by the London based former Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) weekly magazine confirmed that Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)’s place among the world’s top 200 universities. Likewise, THES 2006 ranked JNU’s School of Social Sciences at the 57^th position among the world top 100 institutes for social sciences.

 

In United Kingdom(UK)’s Quacquarelli Symonds world university rankings published in 2013, ranked IIT Delhi at number 222, IIT Bombay at 233, and IIT Kanpur at 295. No Indian University appear in the top 200 world wide.¹⁰ Moreover, the present UK’s leading higher education publication The Times Higher Education weekly magazine’s top 400 world universities rankings 2013-2014 mentioned USA got 109, UK got 49, Australia got 25, China got 12 and India got only its 4 universities in the top 400 global universities rankings. These rankings are the vital resources for each country for their self assessment compare to other countries in the world. The main reason for very less Indian universities placed in the world rankings was our academic syllabus is not up to the highest standards compare to many other world universities. Many colleges and universities have been employing faculties on part time, temporary, ad-hoc, guest and contract basis. Low focus on research even in top institutions¹¹. These are hampering quality of HE in India.

 

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD)’s department of HE one of its main function is to improve quality of HE.  Its vision is to realize India’s human resource potential to its fullest in HE sector with equity and inclusion¹². Because, India is a plural society and many diversities exists within India. The University Grants Commission (UGC) was established formally only in1956 as a statutory body of the Government of India through an act of Parliament for the co-ordination, determination and maintenance of standards of HE in India. One of its main objective is providing quality HE for all¹³. This is working not fully satisfactorily in order to achieve quality in Higher Education.

 

India is a member state of United Nations Organization (UNO). UNO’s UNESCO and other agencies organized a world Education Forum 2015 on Education 2030 in Incheon(Republic of Korea), where, 160 countries representatives participated. One of its target is by 2030 ensure equal access for all students to affordable, quality technical and vocational education, including university. It suggested that sufficient number of faculties needed to teach and the teaching should be context specific in order to achieve quality in Higher Education¹⁴.

 

Quality in Political Science Discipline’s Higher Education in India:

Political Science (PS) is one of the Social Science (SSs) discipline. SSs study the human aspects of the world, human made constructs and structures.¹⁵ However, although, PS must necessarily maintain close scholarly association with the disciplines of history, economics, sociology, anthropology, geography, philosophy and psychology, but PScan not be considered a part of any of these SSs disciplines. Political Science is an independent discipline and has its own area of human experience to analyze its own body of descriptive and factual data together, its own conceptual schemes to formulate and test for truth¹⁶.

 

Political Science deals with the state, its systems of government, analysis of political activity and voting behavior. Moreover, it deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, which is commonly thought of as determining of the distribution of power and resources¹⁷. However, PS is the study of Political behavior, governance, power and how these are shaped by institutional settings and by ideas, interests and resources of political actors. It is about authoritative allocation of resources as well as values and the negotiation of conflict as well as difference. Political phenomena happens at all levels such as personal, local, sub-national, national, regional and global. Politics is about who gets what, when, how and why.The discipline of PSembraces a diversity of approaches and different theoretical as well as analytical traditions. It draws on a broad range of research methods and strategies to investigate analyze and interpret political phenomena¹⁸.

 

The study of PS has ancient roots that can be traced back to the works of Aristotle, Plato and Chanakya, these were wrote nearly 2,500 years ago.¹⁹ More over, in ancient India antecedents of politics can be traced back to the Rig-veda, Samhita, Brahmanas, the Mahabharata and Buddhist Palicanon.Chanakya, who was considered the pioneer in the field of PS in India. He was a political thinker in Takshashilauniversity(Present Pakistan state) .He wrote Arthashastra, a treatise on political thought and social order. It discusses monetary, fiscal policies, welfare, international relations and war strategies in detail. The manusmriti dated to about 2 centuries after the time of chanakya is another important Indian political treatise²⁰.

 

Political Science in India has been taken a quantum jump in terms of quality since early 1960s.PS is teaching in more than 100 universities and several thousand colleges across India. But some central universities are not offering this important subject.PS confines not only political philosophy and legalistic textual institutional studies but also political processes and political behavior²¹. However, there are defects, deficiencies, no full good standards as well as excellence existing and over allno good quality in PS disciplines HE existing in India compare to many other countries in the world.

 

The qualitative methodologies practiced in PS discipline includes textual analysis, process tracing, historical as well as discourse analysis, structured and semi-structured interviews, focus groups, ethonographic techniques, action research and case study strategies. Moreover, the quantitative methodologies employed included surveys, opinion polls, statistical analysis and various forms of modeling²².

 

The pedagogical approaches skills for teaching PS in order to achieve quality are: motivation of the students, use necessary critical thinking, follow argumentation, follow originality, follow respect, follow synergy, good preparation, good delivery of the classes and use technology²³. As far as the curriculum, course contents and reading materials in PS are concerned, it differs from institution to institution. There is no problem regarding this. But in order to keep maintain quality institutions must follow latest updates themes in curriculum. For example, Western political thought paper is very important, but at the same time other countries important political thinkers should be incorporated in the curriculum. As far as the contents of the papers are concerned, to achieve quality, say for example, modern Indian Political Thought paper, in this only important modern Indian political thinkers should be included. Finally, reading materials should be keep update in order to include not only different books but also latest books and journals, new journals as well as their articlesetc in each paper to achieve quality. Universities faculties should provide consistently good research guidance to their students etc.

 

CONCLUSION:

It is observed that Indian PS discipline’s HE quality is average. It needs to be improve a lot. In fact, some central universities and some central government colleges are following both English and Hindi medium to teach PS. This should be stopped, and only English medium shall be follow to keep maintain quality forever in the subject. Permanent regular faculties shall be appoint and in this process of appointments those who have MA, M.Phil, Ph.Dand UGCs NET in the Political science discipline only shall be appoint.

 

REFERENCE:

1.        Google, Internet, dated 7-8-2016 and India.gov.in, dated on 7-8-2016.

2.        GOI, MHRD, Internet, dated on 7-8-2016.

3.        Dr.Sanjaya Mishra(2006), Quality Assurance in Higher Education: An Introduction, Published by NAAC, Bangalore, Internet.

4.        Jandhyala B.G.Tilak(edited)(2013), Higher Education in India: In Search of Equality, quality and quantity, orient Blackswan private limited publication, Hyderabad, Internet.

5.        Ibid.

6.        Constitution of India, India.gov.in, National Portal of India, dated on 7-8-2016.

7.        Constitution of India, India.gov.in, National Portal of India, dated on 8-8-2016.

8.        Ibid, number 2.

9.        Ibid, number 4.

10.     Higher Education in India, Google, Internet, dated on 8-8-2016.

11.     FICCI(2013),Higher Education in India: Vision 2030, Higher Education summit, Internet.

12.     Ibid, number 2.

13.     GOI, UGC, Internet, dated on 7-8-2016.

14.     UNO, Internet, dated on 7-8-2016.

15.     Introduction to Political Science, google, internet, dated on 9-8-2016.

16.     Political Science as a Discipline, The American Political Science Review, volume 56, Number 2, June 1962,pp 417-421, published by American Political Science Association, Internet.

17.     Google, Internet, dated on 9-8-2016.

18.     Political Science Discipline Standards Statement, Australian Political Studies Association, Google, Internet, dated on 9-8-2016.

19.     Google, Internet, dated on 9-8-2016.

20.     History of Political Science, Google, Internet, dated on 9-8-2016.

21.     Ghanshyam Shah(2001), Political Science in India: A Discipline and Intellectual pursuit, The Indian Journal of Political Science, Volume 62, number 1, March, PP 11-23,published by Indian Journal of Political Science Association,Internet.

22.     Ibid, number 18.

23.     Gabriela Gregusova(edited)(2005), How to teach Political Science: The Experience of first time University teachers, Published by Epsnet,Paris, Internet.

 

 

 

Received on 04.12.2016

Modified on 22.12.2016

Accepted on 15.03.2017

© A&V Publications all right reserved

Research J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 8(2): April- June, 2017, 193-196.

DOI:  10.5958/2321-5828.2017.00028.6