By Amitabha Sarkar
With the global higher education gross enrolment ratio having amplified from 19 per cent in 2000 to 37 per cent in 2024, 90 per cent of the countries in the world are still confronting a stark inequality in higher education participation. The access to education in higher studies is disproportionately determined by the variances of income, gender, geographic location and a range of social capital. In light of climate change and anthropogenic excessiveness, the importance of higher education in the global development processes has never been so strong. In this spirit, the agenda of equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality higher education by 2030 has been regarded as a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG target 4.7). In the aftermath of Covid pandemic, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) study on ‘universities and social inequalities’ (https://cdn.unrisd.org/assets/library/briefs/pdf-files/rpb37-universities.pdf) advocated for crucial role of higher education in reducing socio-economic disparities in the global south and emphasised on long-term social policy intervention in this arena to address the goals of sustainability.
Debate in higher education
Higher education helps not just the individual excellence in life, but drives societal benefits as well. The expanding global circulation of the knowledge economy impels the governments in many parts of the world to change their higher education policy in accordance with the evolving social and economic demands. This has made the intellectual space of higher education to form two contradictory viewpoints. Is higher education just a conditional arrangement for skill enhancement of students to meet the economic goals of the nation-states? Or, it’s an emancipatory journey to realise as well as appreciate the rich diversity of human coexistence with other world systems consisting of disciplinary exploration of the natural, applied, humanities and social sciences.
The eclectic reflection might summarise this debate as a binary narrative to perceive higher education either as an economic franchisee for developing future skilled entrepreneurs (like the IITs and IIMs), for both state and market needs, or a creative place to cultivate critical minds (per se, elite university spaces in India). Importantly, the viewpoints are analysed based on their positional postulates, but not on their relational terms with the students.
The entrepreneur’s school considers students as an economic category, in contrast to the critical school’s idea of students as philosophical beings. Labelling the higher education debate as the clash of two opposite viewpoints without acknowledging that differences exist in their qualitative definitions of students, risks ideological prejudices to run in analysis. While fiscal consideration to estimate return on investment in higher education is inevitable for any policy exercise, there are noble ways wherein higher education could nurture philosophical foundation amongst the students for navigating the path of nation’s economic signposts.
Model colleges in Assam, a case in point
The establishment of Government Model Colleges (total six in different parts of Assam) in rural Assam is a notable public policy initiative. It has strategic advantages to repurpose higher education for tackling regional and other socio-economic disparities. A visit to one of these colleges, the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Adarsha Mahavidyalaya (PDUAM), Tulungia (near Abhayapuri of Bongaigaon district), realised that students’ critical thinking is a foundational requirement for socio-economic upliftment of communities in backward regions. The model college is an example of a strategic development asset that offers undergraduate degree courses in Arts, Commerce and Science streams to some 1200 odd students in geographically remote and underdeveloped areas.
Many countries are adopting policies to build small colleges in rural locations. These are considered as social rural infrastructure for not only their spill-over benefits from campuses into local communities through traditional routes (like knowledge and economic), but also for uplifting the places’ quality of life. The PDUAM, Tulungia is a vital example of future asset infrastructure in the North East of India where students could philosophically ascribe to these values to act rationally in real life for making welfare-enhancing sustainable choices. There are four distinct ways how a rural college could become a future asset infrastructure for human, social and economic prosperity in rural India.
Social development: The PDUAM, Tulungia’s student community is demographically very diverse because of the region’s mixed cultural, religious, and ethno-linguistic hues. This embodies the model college as a place of ‘creativity in diversity’ to develop the students as agents of meaningful change for local communities. Past studies found that critical thinking develops fast if classroom teaching uses more real-world examples taken from students’ own environment. This would help the students to develop their human potency in local community development by understanding the importance of heterogeneity in social and ecological milieus and respect for equitable and sustainable utilisation of ecosystems services. This would make the civic participation more inclusive, consultative and harmonious.
Economic development: The recently introduced innovative courses in the undergraduate education, such as vocational, skill and ability enhancement, and multi-disciplinary courses, might open a plethora of opportunities before a remote college, provided the infrastructural requirements are well met. The strategic enrolment of students in these courses according to their interests and disciplinary orientation might help the college to train them as per the need of local workforce and entrepreneurial scopes. Similarly, the model collages can make available its rich academic resources, for example the Management studies, for the local businesses and other community-based income generation initiatives to explore commercial viabilities of local products, assist in utilising government-supported schemes and promote eco-friendly business ideas through periodic trainings, workshops, and small-scale incubation platforms. Further, if acknowledged by the district governance the college may partake important roles in local economic planning and area development.
Recognising local public culture: Plurality and embracement of new culture are common traits of higher academic spaces. In rural society, the model colleges could serve as social institutions for forging local public culture through its outreach activities with local communities and institutions. This would give recognition to the local public sphere and help the backward places to find their own spots in the state’s cultural topography.
Spearheading citizens science movement: Scientific consciousness of communities is a sign of progressive society. The college in remote areas may help in building citizen science movements by inspiring their students to understand their culture, local biodiversity and ecosystems through scientific reasoning. This needs innovative approaches in both teaching and learning methods to help students in fostering scientific values in community development, socio-cultural discourse and environmental decision making. These initiatives demand intersectoral planning in policy exercises and extraordinary long-term government commitments in maintaining the Model Colleges as social rural infrastructures to ward off social, cultural and economic inequalities of all forms. Enshrined in the principles of Tagore’s educational philosophy, the model colleges could be a foreground of liberty, creativity, expressivity and unity with nature for local communities to graduate into a model society
(The writer is Research Fellow, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva)