Looking beyond Universities

TNN Bureau. Updated: 1/21/2017 12:48:57 AM Edit and Opinion

With government setting in motion the formal process of activating two Cluster Universities, the legislation for which was passed in June last year, Jammu and Kashmir now has eleven Universities, including two Central Universities and three Universities funded by government regulated the religious trusts. In addition to this, there are three deemed to be Universities –the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, National Institute of Technology at Srinagar and Ranbir Sanskrit Vidyapeeth in Jammu. The list of higher learning institutions doesn’t stop here. The Indian Institute of Technology –a University level highly prestigious institution –has already started functioning in Jammu. An Indian Institute of Management stands sanctioned and is coming up fast. An Indian Institute of Mass Communication is already functioning. Two medical institutions of the level and type of All India Institute of Medical Sciences are also coming up –one each in Jammu and Kashmir Valley. This suggests that in next few years Jammu and Kashmir will have at least 20 Universities. The Universities of Kashmir and Jammu also have their off-site campuses; there are over a hundred colleges in the government and as much (functional) in private sector. The makes quite an impressive scenario of higher education infrastructure. Most of this institutional infrastructure has come up in last 15 years therefore all the governments across this period deserve compliments. Now what needs attention and discussion is the quality of higher education which is not as impressive as the infrastructure. For higher education we also have to look the feeding stream of school education. In government sector the school education department is the largest employer while in the private sector this is an industry offering profits to entrepreneurs all across the urban and rural areas. This massive access to education has been enhancing the prospects of employability and enterprise. But this not all one expects from higher education. Despite such a massive institutional infrastructure Jammu and Kashmir has not been able to make a big mark in scholarship and research. One hardly comes across a historian, a geographer, political scientist, a mathematician or scientist who is of national repute and belongs to Jammu and Kashmir. People have been able to get good jobs and make progresses in careers but any pioneering milestone in research and scholarship has yet to be achieved. Research and scholarship is perhaps something which does not come with more Universities and degrees. There has to a culture of inquiry and scientific temperament which could bear true fruits of higher education.


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