Research Based Teacher Promotion
Key For India’s Knowledge Capital
By Suhail Masoodi
28 January, 2010
Countercurrents.org
On the first day of the 2010, I started off with a normal routine; grabbed a newspaper and started reading it. But this time I adopted a more optimistic approach, perhaps as part of a New Year resolution, that 2010 will be better than the previous year in terms of peace and development. I also hoped that the role of policy makers, politicians, and writers will be pragmatic for the well being of a common man.
Turning the pages of the leading English daily of India “Times of India”, I came across an article written by Swaminathan Iyer, one of the most respectable writers of India. The article entitled “India will overtake China in 2020” seemed to me far from reality. Being in China for over a year and looking at the development of China which accelerates at the fastest pace, I wondered whether the author is trying to befool people by his tall claims.“China is set to be 2nd largest economy in the world,” I said to myself, and recalled what my professor would often say “China will catch-up USA by 2020.” Even though both my professor and Mr. Iyer made assumptions, the difference was the former’s claims were based on facts and figures while the latter’s was sheer rhetoric; for which he got answer by more than three hundred “pessimistic” yet realistic Indians who commented on his article and termed it as ridicule .
Exactly 17 days later on January 17, a news story in Greater Kashmir ‘UGC links faculty promotion to output’ caught my eye. This news put me back in a thought- that something concrete is also happening. The University Grants commission (UGC) initiative (promotion on the bases of research output) led by Sibal is practical and need of the hour. Aiyer through his article wanted people to believe that India can overtake China because it has more young population, more English speaking population. While, Sibal knows, saying “all is well” phrase that has attracted thousands of people after it was used in a recently released Bollywood movie “3 Idiots,” is not going to work.
If India wants to compete with China it has to change its basics first. And, Sibal has touched the right nerve: research. It would have been better for the development of India and specifically for its educational development had they brought this regulation a decade ago, but, better late than never. Under this regulation, the promotion of a university/college teacher would be based on his/her research output, and satisfaction in teaching rather than experience. Apart from this, another regulation was passed some months ago by the HRD Ministry in which CBSC exams system of evaluation would change into the grading system of evaluation. Both the systems-- grading pattern of examination system and promotion on the basis of research output and quality of teaching—have been part of the Chinese education for years.
Fair enough. Countries adopt policies from other countries, which can fit to their context, and leave the ones which are not applicable. But the problem here is not with the policy but with the perception of people, especially teachers, professors in this case. Indian college/university teachers have launched hunger strike against this regulation saying the regulation will affect the teaching quality.
Usually in many other developing countries teachers complain that bureaucrats come in their way, when they want to focus on research, but here it is opposite. They say, a scholar’s desire is to produce more and more research, but it seems that is not true in India. Either the teachers don’t want to do the research and enjoy 60 years of life-long employment, without any accountability. Or they don’t know the importance of research. But blame does not lie squarely on teachers only. There is also institutional fault which the HRD is now trying to rectify by creating new policies which make research output pre requisite for promotion. But only this is not going to bring any drastic change unless the mindset is changed and skills for research are incorporated. The basic need is to change the pattern of evaluation system in the colleges and universities. It should be based on research paper submission, presentations, group discussions among others by the students in the class pretty much like most of the developed countries as well as developing countries like China, and Singapore etc do, instead of present examination system which in one hand creates fear psychosis on the students and on the other hand fails to bring critical thinking among them.
Lifelong employment without any threat of getting fired has proved ineffective everywhere except in few countries like Japan where unlike India people are “government jobs-oriented”. Many countries have replaced the lifelong employment system with the contract system of employments, which has proved effective.
Secondly whether research is important for a country? The answer to this question lies in industrial revolution which changed the power politics of world. Finally policy change in the education system would improve the Indian research system. Most of the Indian students lag behind in research and writing skills because of the faulty education system. Contrary to India, where a student has to memorize the answers in order to write them in exams, in China an under graduate student write a thesis paper in order to graduate besides other course requirement papers and exams. A master’s degree student publishes at least one paper in addition to his/her thesis. But in India, except few topnotch universities like Delhi University, JNU, IIM, or IIT’s students get even PhD degrees without any academic publication.
To borrow from Jaffrey D. Sachs argument, “it is the technology not the exploitation of poor, which became force behind the increase in income in rich world”. (Sachs; The End of Poverty). A small piece of steal (chip set) on which they add knowledge became much more expensive than our gold. Developed countries are developed because of innovation, not because they have natural resources, or they exploited the poor countries. I do not say natural resources do not play role in countries development, or the mighty America, western, and new rising East Asian economic powers did not exploit poor countries, which helped in economic growth in these countries. But, it was innovations and technology, which made them superior than the rest of the world. History is testimony to the fact that many countries have developed in spite of less or nonexistent natural recourses; and at the same time sizable number of countries in Africa, Middle east, Central Asia, Asia pacific and South Asia are under developed despite huge natural recourses. Countries like Saudi Arabia. Qatar, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and even China have huge natural resources than a small country like South Korea which has no natural recourse at all, but none of these countries can match the economy of South Korea; which has mostly knowledge-based economy. Instead of benefiting a country’s development, the natural resources in many developing countries or least developed countries have become what Richard Auty calls “Resource Curse”. This “resource curse” could be seen in many African, Middle Eastern, Central Asia and many other developing countries.
So, where is the India’s knowledge capital? India’s HRD Minister Mr. Kapil Sibal answering a question in a debate on 12 March, 2008 in the Raj Sabah said India lags behind China in Research and Development (R&D) output and R&D spending. India has 157 researchers per million population compared to China’s 633, Germany 3222, USA’s 4,526, Japan 5085, Sweden 5171 and Finland 7431.The gap between India and China in research output is very wide. In 1996, China was ranked 9th on research output with 26, 853 documents and India grabbed 13th spot with 20,106. This gap widened until 2006, China got onto the second position in research output after the USA with 166,205 documents, and India secured 10th position with 38,140 documents. (Subbiah Arunachalam 2008). This gap may widen further as China is investing huge money on R&D sector compared to India. China already invests around 1.80% of its GDP on R&D compared to USA’s 2.5%, and India’s 0.8%. China is planning to spend 2.5% of GDP on R&D in 2020 to don innovation in the world. So for India, the challenge is not only to invest in R&D and make India advanced in technology and foster development. But to effect the institutional change by changing the mindset of teachers and students, and by enforcing legislation that would encourage research. Or else, it is not going to happen. As Margeret Lavi says, “People seldom want to change the habits and norms that have protected them and promoted their individual ends, unless they are not convinced that the circumstances have truly changed.”
It is hard to have development without innovation, and impossible to have innovation without research. So research is the key.
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