The recent decision of the HRD Ministry to terminate the services of retired teachers as guides is flawed. It will have a serious impact over scholars pursuing research degrees across the country who need expert guidance
Ancient India divided the knowledge acquisition process in a four-phased manner. The quarter part one gets, the lore says, from the teacher; second from the disciple’s own effort; third from fellow students and the last phase — from experience attained in course of time. This Indian apothegm on education has all-time universal value. That education and knowledge become ripe and mature only through many years of experience, is an undisputed fact borne out by the lives of great educationists and experts. Many years of experience make a good teacher just as many years of research and study shape a good scholar and result in breakthrough inventions, innovations or discoveries.
It is the experience of the matured that helps the young generation in its onward march in many walks of life. If the gap in this case between the young and elder generations is desirably wide, it would help the former benefit more than from less experienced ones. If the inexperienced guides the beginners, it would be like what Sri Aurobindo asked almost more than a century ago: “If the blind leads the blind, will they not both fall into the ditchIJ”
Definitely, it is this lesson the University Grants Commission callously ignored when it recently ordered to terminate the service of retired university and college teachers as guides or supervising teachers for researchers doing PhD, MPhil and post-doctoral studies. More foolish has been the frantic speed at which some of the universities have been implementing this order though many of the UGC regulations are flouted by the very same universities in matters of academic excellence and disciplines. That such standards and academic etiquette are not maintained even in a diluted manner, is what one could understand from the observations of the High Court of Kerala, which of late heavily came down on our universities and colleges. It said that except for a few, the rest of the principals and Vice-Chancellors of Kerala are disqualified to occupy positions they hold. In such a case, the full implementation of the UGC norms is far off. When an apparently unwise decision came from the UGC, our universities got to implement that order. Where fair is foul, foul is fair!
The order has ditched a large number of research scholars who have so far been doing research under guides with research experience of more than two-and-a-half-decades. As one knows, their guidance would be of more avail to research scholars than novices with little experience can give. After all, getting a guide-ship for PhD is not at all an uphill academic task since it calls for a PhD with two years standing and merely two published articles, no matter whether the articles and the journals carrying them have any standard. An International Standard Serial Number or International Standard Book Number wouldn’t suffice to determine the standard of the publication — they being just serial numbers already booked by the publishers for their books and periodicals. But as long as the criteria universities fix to give guide-ship remain just this much, the number of research guides will mushroom, with the qualifications being within anybody’s reach.
This being the state, quality of research has plummeted. Divesting the scene of the well-experienced and aged supervising teachers would lead to further fall. looking any way, the UGC’s decision in this regard is unwise.
News makes the rounds that retired teachers resort to get their palms greased against readymade PhD theses. This may be true, but just exceptional and cannot be generalised. Innumerable checks and counter-checks of the theses and a highly crossing interview by the experts and an open defence viva voce by an intelligent academic forum could do away the problem. But the termination of highly experienced research guides cannot help additionally. In fact, such a move can result only in the dearth of eminent academics, adversely affecting the field of research. It is just burning the barn to kill the mice! After all, the nation’s academic sector avails their service free of cost.
Researchers are rather confused, so too are the universities. It is desirable that the UGC rethinks on the issue so as to avail the guidance of these experienced research teachers, whose age and experience have only honed their talent. If not, it would be depriving the nation’s education of the service of the matured and experienced.
The Government should also think of repealing the restriction on guides in supervising researchers in any university, along with those of the college or university where they work. Freedom is the precondition to all academic pursuits and it should not be put in chains if the aim of all academic exercises is progress and promotion. Therefore, it is high time the UGC repealed the flawed order and helped our young students to avail the service of matured and the experienced guides. The Ministry of Human Resource Development should reconsider its decision. One hopes wise counsel will prevail.
(The writer is associate professor of history, Sanatana Dharma College, Alappuzha)