College Affiliation An Outdated System

One of the significant recommendations of the National Education Policy 2020 is to discontinue the college affiliation system (affiliation with the state universities). This overdue suggestion aligns with global practices, although some conservative academics do not support it because they firmly believe in the affiliation system. But they forget that this system makes colleges dependent on the affiliating universities. Colleges don’t try to establish their independent identity. Substandard colleges survive in this system because the universities’ brand name protects them. Therefore, if we want our colleges to prove their worth without any protection, we should do away with the affiliation system as early as possible.

UGC and the Government of India talk much about the NEP and its implementation. However, they are moving in the reverse direction regarding this critical suggestion of disaffiliation. NEP has set a fifteen-year timeline to phase out the affiliation system. Therefore, the UGC should have taken immediate action to stop new affiliations. But that did not happen, and all the universities continue giving affiliations, in large numbers, to the new colleges and programmes. Although the UGC started giving autonomy to the colleges long back, it did not stop new affiliations. This approach will take much longer than the NEP recommended to phase out the affiliation system completely.

Moving towards the NEP implementation, the UGC follows a two-step process to make the colleges independent. As a first step, the colleges become autonomous based on their accreditation status. On fulfilling a few more requirements, they get the degree-granting status. However, by giving full autonomy to the colleges selectively, we cannot achieve the target set by the NEP. NEP suggests that those who don’t qualify for the degree-granting status will become a part of ‘Clusters or Cluster Universities’. But this is a highly confusing concept and an indirect way of continuing with the affiliation system.

Following the global practices, if we genuinely want to discontinue the affiliation system, we must think radically and plan unconventionally.

To begin with, the universities must immediately stop giving affiliations to the new HEIs and programmes. Otherwise, the disaffiliation of colleges will be a never-ending process.

Secondly, we should develop a regulatory mechanism to regulate the autonomous degree-granting HEIs. I have discussed the regulation in detail in my previous articles. Therefore, I will not repeat it.

We have given an out-of-proportion importance to the word ‘autonomy’ and have created immense hurdles for the institutions to become autonomous. Autonomy should not come to the colleges as an outcome of a rigorous process and fulfilment of specific compliances. Instead, becoming independent should be a choice of the HEIs. It would be fallacious to assume that if HEIs have the choice, every institution would like to be independent. The following steps would restrict the ambition of the institutions to become independent, and only those HEIs which are confident of their brand value and governance practices would vie for the autonomous status:

1.? Autonomous HEIs should grant their degrees. Not many can dare to think about it. Currently, students don’t take admissions to many colleges even though they get degrees from affiliating universities. Why would students go to such substandard HEIs if they get degrees from those colleges? Nobody would value those degrees. Therefore, any and every institution would not aim to become an independent degree-granting college without achieving certain quality standards.

2.? Every autonomous college must be a part of the fully regulated student admission process until it attains a certain accreditation status. (At present, a few seats are at the disposal of the colleges, and they admit students on those seats). We know an unfortunate fact that the student admission process is a grey area, and colleges resort to manipulating it.

3.? NEP has recommended that the governing boards run the autonomous colleges. As I suggested in my previous article, the regulator should nominate two members to the governing board who will keep a close watch on the functioning of the college.

4.? The regulator should have the power to conduct the financial audit of the HEIs, although it can use that power selectively and randomly.

5.? A new or existing college yet to get accreditation should have an accreditation advisor who will work closely with the college.

With the above steps in place, the colleges with the right intent, visionary management, adequate resources, and sufficient intellectual competencies will look to become independent. Others will have to wait until they prove themselves on these criteria. Thus, even if colleges get the option to become independent, we will not see a mad rush of applications to become autonomous.

All the affiliated colleges should be given a maximum of five to seven years to become independent. Those who cannot attain that status can continue to be affiliated with the local universities. Although this process will not make the affiliation system extinct, the number of affiliated colleges will remain negligible. The market will see the colleges unable to become independent as substandard institutions. They will die in the due course of time.

The abovementioned approach of phasing out the affiliation system will achieve better and faster results without putting undue pressure on the regulator and HEIs. However, the government should enact the necessary legislation immediately to set up the new regulatory system to implement the NEP recommendations. Unfortunately, we have not seen progress in this area even three years after adopting the NEP.

The discontinuation of the affiliation system should attain one more objective. At present, we have too many categories of HEIs in our country. In the future, we should have only two categories – Universities and independent HEIs. The universities should be essentially multidisciplinary institutions. An independent college can be a single-stream or multidisciplinary institution.

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This article can also be viewed on the author’s blog: https://comm-man-wish.blogspot.com.