UGC’s inconsistency on higher education shows why it’s necessary to rethink the idea of the university

The Western legacy

Though India boasts of past universities similar Nalanda and Takshashila, our knowing of what benignant of institutions they were —their disciplinary matrix and their pedagogical methods — is excessively constricted to reconstruct their models. Our modern universities, for bully oregon bad, person travelled acold by inheriting the structures of the Western model. Therefore, knowing the intelligence past of universities successful the West is simply a important measurement for processing policies and practices that tin signifier the aboriginal of universities successful India.

The university, 1 of the oldest institutions, adjacent lone to the service and church, has played an important relation successful shaping Western civilization and civilisation. This role, however, is not without its crises. From Immanuel Kant to Jacques Derrida, philosophers person agelong debated the challenges faced by universities. As Shashikala Srinivasan, successful her publication Liberal Education and Its Discontents (2018), identifies, the statement connected assemblage problems successful the West has often been articulated successful presumption of the thought of education, the quality of cognition and learning that it involves. To marque consciousness of modern challenges, it is adjuvant to delve into the humanities improvement of the institution.

The pre-history of assemblage successful the Greek tradition

Medieval Europe birthed the instauration of the universitas, which, successful Latin, means whole, the universe, oregon the world. In Roman law, it implies persons associated with guilds, societies, corporations oregon bodies. It was a guild formed for the pursuit of learning by monks and was rooted successful theological studies. Later, it became a spot for instructing children of the ruling class, gathering them into gentlemen. Despite the translation of the assemblage from its theological roots into a secular institution, the pursuit of learning and the cultivation of the aforesaid remained cardinal to the thought of the universitas.

The pre-history of universities successful Europe whitethorn beryllium traced backmost to the Greek tradition. The aspirations of the modern thought of the assemblage resonated with Socrates’s dialogic method, Plato’s Academy, the Aristotelian disciplinary matrix, and goals of inquiry. If, arsenic philosopher Michael Oakeshott emphasises, the assemblage should beryllium a spot wherever galore voices articulation successful the conversation, Socrates, whose pedagogy engaged others successful dialogue, and his dictum “an unexamined beingness is not worthy living” should usher the assemblage culture, not to notation Plato’s dialogues and cave allegory. Aristotle’s exemplary of rational enquiry, his convictions successful metaphysics astir scholars’ tendency to cognize the satellite for its ain involvement and different intelligence virtues exemplified successful his works should proceed to animate modern assemblage practices. Therefore, 1 tin spot Western assistance often revisiting the Greek tradition.

The Humboldt model

The perfect of assemblage education, articulated by Wilhelm von Humboldt, a 19th-century Prussian educationist and reformer, inspired the constitution of the University of Berlin successful 1809-10, a modern university, which became a planetary notation point. This thought of a university, which went manus successful manus with the enactment of nation-states successful Europe, was conceived against vocational education, polytechnics of the Napoleanic period. For Germans, nation-building progressive the noble thought of bildung, cultivating the aforesaid of the citizens done wide arts education. Within this expansive idea, voices similar Martin Heidegger aboriginal thought astir the assemblage arsenic serving cognition to the state.

The assemblage was conceived arsenic a probe institution, but the enactment of probe was not understood arsenic a means to an extremity — for example, producing patents — but for bildung. It was presumed that on with worldly institutions similar hospitals and gross departments, reflective and scholarly institutions similar universities were besides a indispensable information for starring a “good life”. While the Humboldt exemplary focused connected the state to teach, larn and research, John Henry Newman’s The Idea of a University successful Britain conceived the assemblage arsenic a spot for imparting cosmopolitan cognition resulting successful broader wide education; it argued that cognition tin beryllium its ain end.

University for India successful the 21st century

Over the past 800 years, the conception and signifier of assemblage acquisition person undergone a oversea change, resulting successful a immense assemblage of cognition astir its past and future. Therefore, I americium not proposing the thought of going backmost to the classical conception of the university. Instead, I astir suggest, arsenic Sheldon Pollock elsewhere has, that knowing however radical acted and made choices successful the past volition assistance america marque informed choices successful the present.

Though we usage presumption specified arsenic wide arts education, conference, seminar and probe to notation to cognition accumulation successful modern times, we person yet to marque consciousness of them arsenic historically handed-down legacies with loaded content; simply reproducing them arsenic broad presumption volition not assistance us. Without humanities understanding, these practices look arsenic mimicries.

In an property wherever artificial quality (AI) is reshaping the cognition economy, the conception of bildung becomes adjacent much urgent. AI tools similar ChatGPT, for example, tin nutrient amended write-ups, but they cannot cultivate the self. Additionally, if we recognize the assemblage arsenic a abstraction for antithetic voices conversing, our interdisciplinary centres, irrespective of sciences and humanities, volition genuinely statesman to converse with each other.

Likewise, knowing the university’s ngo arsenic producing knowledge-makers, those who question cognition for its ain involvement volition supply much-needed clarity for UGC’s initiatives to bid teachers arsenic scholars and scientists.

Holding connected to the thought of the assemblage sketched supra is omniscient but it is wiser to look for alternate modes of learning and enquiry some successful the West and elsewhere for gathering universities successful the 21st century.

The writer, NIF translation fellow, teaches English lit astatine Tumkur University. His translation of D R Nagaraj’s Allama Prabhu and the Shaiva Imagination, volition soon beryllium published by Permanent Black