Govt should be clear on higher education policy

Purush Ratna Bajracharya, 54, has been a teacher at the Tribhuvan University for nearly 26 years. He did his postgraduate in English language from Edinburgh University, Scotland. He is currently the coordinator at the Higher Education Project of the TU which has been established to improve the academic and infrastructural situation of the University.   Although he is involved in various other activities of TU, he prefers to call himself a teacher. He points out that if the country is to proceed ahead, improvement in the education sector has to be made first and foremost. He, however, is worried about the politicisation of the University and its campuses. He says if the TU and the whole education sector is to be depoliticised, the political parties must take the first initiative. Citing an example, he says, the Peking University, the centre of politics in the 50s and 60s, has now been completely depoliticised after the government took its hands off the academic institution. Recently, he talked with The Independent about TU and other aspects of higher education. Excerpts:

Q. Tell us something about the Higher Education Project.
A. This Higher Education Project was formed to give academic and financial support to the Tribhuvan University. This is a World Bank aided project. The basic aim of the project is to develop the infrastructure and more importantly to carry out academic reforms in the University. An important part of this reform was the introduction of the three-year bachelor level and the extension of the school education from class 10 to class 12. This is a historic change in higher education.

Q. How has the project been supporting the TU in reforming the education sector apart from introduction of the three-year graduation?
A. This project had envisaged the decentralising of higher education from Kathmandu to other areas such as in the Eastern Region and the Western Region. Under that programme, it had envisaged, through a cluster concept, to give an academic leadership of the Eastern region to Mahendra Morang Campus in Biratnagar and of the Western Region to Prithvi Narayan Campus in Pokhara by developing them as lead campuses. This would have changed the whole structure of the Tribhuvan University and also would ease the burden of the Tribhuvan University to a great extent.

However, before that programme was carried out, there was the Act on Eastern Regional University. A few years later there was another Act on Western Regional University. Both these Acts affected to a great deal the cluster concepts. This concept is no more relevant now. Despite the abolition of the cluster concept, there still are programmes to develop the Prithvi Narayan Campus of Pokhara as an important constituent campus of the Tribhuvan University.

Q. The academic standard of the Tribhuvan University is widely said to be deteriorating, what could be the principal reasons for that?
A. I don’t agree that the academic standard of the Tribhuvan University has deteriorated. But I do agree that there are problems in its constituent campuses related to students and teachers. And it is a matter to be pondered over not only by this project and the university but also by the whole country, the political parties, government and the students, who are the stakeholders of this university. Despite such problems, I don’t agree that academic standard and quality of the University and its campuses have dwindled. This is not true.

Q. But in recent years the Tribhuvan University and its constituent campuses have failed to attract the best students. These students rather prefer to enroll in private campuses.
A. The TU has produced the best brains in the country. But those best brains do not get the opportunity here and they go abroad. This is unfortunate. Talking about quality, the products of TU are in no way inferior to the products of other universities.

Q. But the majority of the new entrants, who are good, are reluctant to get enrolled in the TU campuses?
A. It is up to the students in which campus they want to study. But no matter where they study, it is the TU’s curriculum they will study and their examinations and evaluations are done by the Tribhuvan University.

Q. Education imparted by the private campuses are said to be better than those in TU’s campuses?
A. It is true that classes in private campuses are run more smoothly than in the TU campuses. Education in TU’s campuses are hampered by non-academic activities. Similarly, physical facility in private campuses are better than in TU’s campuses. But students also pay more for that. TU’s campuses are public campuses, where the majority of students from all sectors of the society can get an education. Everybody has felt that the TU’s campuses are more politicised. The issue of politicisation needs to be taken seriously by everybody. But why don’t all the political parties sit down together and commit themselves so that they will no longer take the campuses as places to recruit their cadres when open politics is no longer restricted?

Q. Apart from politicisation, you also said private campuses have more facilities, and so people have little qualm about paying more. In this context, how can the situation of the campuses under TU be improved?
A. The government should have a clear policy as to what extent the government can bear the cost of higher education. The government must also think how to sustain the TU’s campuses. It should also have a clear policy on whether higher education should be privatised or not. For example, under the policy of privatising higher education, the government gave permission to schools to open higher secondary classes. But the government, which is also giving grant to the private Kathmandu University, should also remain clear whether schools, which run the higher secondary classes, should get financial support to run the higher secondary classes. The government’s policy should be clear on all these issues. In the recent general election all the political parties in their manifestoes talked about making school education free. But when one comes to the higher secondary schools, the government has given these schools a complete free hand about the tuition fees and others. This has made the problem more complex.

Q. After the government’s plan to phase out the intermediate level from TU’s campuses, most of the schools, which incorporated that level as higher secondary classes, have remained beyond the reach of the common people. How do you think this problem should be solved?
A. The TU, through this project, has a policy to give assistance to the public schools to run the higher secondary classes. Only if the public schools are able to run the higher secondary classes, the TU will be able to phase out the intermediate level. But, if you talk about the legality, it is not TU’s responsibility whether to phase out or continue with the intermediate level. According to the (Higher Secondary) Act, it is the responsibility of the schools. If the TU wants, it can phase out the intermediate level entirely from its campuses with one single stroke, but the TU is taking this as its social responsibility and is going for a gradual phase out.

Q. There is said to be a significant difference in the curriculum and the standard of education at the higher secondary level and the intermediate level of TU? How do you justify this difference?
A. The higher secondary education is run under the Higher Secondary Board and the intermediate level comes under the TU. This project helped in formulating the curriculum, text books and in teachers’ orientation of both the higher secondary and the intermediate level. Although there are differences in the curriculum, both of them are as good as the others and in their respective ways.

Q. In what specific area should TU focus to meet the challenges in the field of education in the future?
A. The TU is preparing a 20-year strategic plan. The draft about its vision, its mission, mode of implementation will be completed by June. Secondly, people have the habit of downsizing the standard and quality of education imparted by the Tribhuvan University. But it is not so. Its quality has not gone down rather it has improved. The TU has evolved into a better university in the last 26 years. For example, the Institute of Medicine of the TU is among the best in the world. Similarly, its engineering campus also ranks among the top. In management, TU’s performance can be compared with better institutes of the SAARC region. If one talks about arts and humanities, the attraction of this subject is in a decline worldwide.