THE TIMES OF INDIA, AHMEDABADFRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 20158 TIMES NATION

Subodh.Varma@timesgroup.com

India’s gigantic higher education set-up — 712 universities, 37,204 col-leges, 30 million students, 1.3 million teachers — is

in the grip of a simmering cri-sis as the hunger for better education grows.

From UPA-2’s time and in the days of the present government too, a top-driven policy of change has seen a semester system started, a four-year undergraduate pro-gramme introduced and with-drawn, a new grading system fitfully implemented and, re-cently, a choice-based credit system partially introduced.

These are deep-striking changes affecting millions. How have they gone down among students and teach-ers? How is the system, strain-ing to accommodate a flood of students, with teachers in short supply, classrooms filled beyond capacity, and curricula being questioned for relevance, absorbing these changes? TOI found some an-swers talking to teachers and students across states.

In some varsities the se-mester system is yet to be implemented. Anil Singh, a lecturer at RML Awadh Uni-versity in Faizabad, UP, says although UGC introduced it in 2009-10, it has yet to perco-late to colleges of his univer-sity. “There are no teachers, classrooms, or facilities. We’re barely coping in the present system. How can we run a se-mester system,” he says.

Allahabad University runs a semester system at the PG level, but a teacher short-age is dragging it down. Over 500 posts of teachers are va-cant, says Vikas, who is pur-suing a political science PhD. “There are classes where 150 to 200 students sit together. Is that a desirable pupil-teacher ratio,” he asks.

In MP, semesters were in-troduced throughout. With-out adequate classrooms, laboratories and sufficient teachers, it’s a load for stu-

dents, says Kuldip, an MTech student of RG Technical Uni-versity. The state decided to scrap the system last year, but under Central pressure it had to continue with it.

In Rajasthan’s eight state universities and 40 private ones, the semester system is partially implemented in undergraduate courses, says Mahipal, a student of JNV University, Jodhpur. The ex-perience has been very bad, he claims, because of a teach-er shortage. “In many cases, a

student gets his or her degree one-and-a-half years late be-cause there are insufficient teachers and non-teaching staff to conduct exams and process results,” he explains.

Shahnawaz of CDL Uni-versity, Sirsa, Haryana, com-plains semester exams clash with the peak harvesting sea-son. “Students travel long dis-tances from far-off villages. They can’t spend the whole day in college,” he says.

Kurukshetra University has 464 regular and 400 con-tractual teachers, Shahnawaz says. “In many colleges, half the classes are not held. Some-

times guest lecturers are fixed up — at Rs 250 per lecture.”

In Haryana, Shahnawaz says, results get delayed 6-8 months because of extended exam schedules. In Punjab, the clash with agricultural work crops up among the litany of complaints against semesters. Delayed results, mechanical division of syllabus, lack of teachers, are the others.

“The fee structure changed with the semester system and most colleges added a few hundred rupees, supposedly to meet the cost of extra work in exams etc. This caused hardship to many stu-dents,” says Harinder Bajwa of Punjabi University, Patiala.

In Uttarakhand, semes-ters have resulted in delayed results, says Dehradun’s Ab-hishek Bhandari. This is be-cause of a teacher shortage in the interior areas and also difficult communication.

“Many distant colleges skip internal assessments. About 50% of internal assess-ments are delayed. All these add up. Results of the 2013-14 academic year were declared after one year,” he says.

Himachal too implement-ed the system at all levels. But teacher shortage has created

a “crisis”, Suresh Sarwal of HP University, Shimla, says. PG departments have 300 va-cancies and 120 students pack into a class, he says.

Some 60 varsities are supposed to implement the choice-based credit system this year. But in most of thofficials and teachers are unclear how it is to be done. Singh from Faizabad says it will be impossible to im-plement when the semester system is in doldrums. Delhi University, a laboratory for implementing these changes, has seen stiff opposition from both students and teachers.

Instead of increasing funds for the teetering higher education system so that infra-structure can be improved and more teachers appointed, the government has like the UPA, cut funding. According to a Parliament statement, in 2014-15, the allocation for higher education was Rs 27,656 crore, actual spending was squeezed to Rs 24,518 crore. This year, al-location was slashed by over Rs 800 crore and reports talk of further curbs on fund re-lease. It doesn’t look as if the government has any plans of rescuing the shaky system, headed for chaos.

Failed Experiments Add To Existing Problems, Students Suffer

Amid staff crunch & fund cuts, new tweaks hobble higher edu

TESTING TIMES

HIGHER EDUCATION - EXPLOSIVE GROWTHIN STUDENTS

SOME CHANGESINTRODUCED IN 2009-11

SEMESTER SYSTEM | Eachannual academic year broken into two semesters with exams at the end of each semester and continuous internal tests

FOUR YEAR UNDERGRAD. PROGRAM (FYUP) | 3-year course to be converted to 4 years with curricula changes. Scrapped after protests

CHOICE BASED CREDITSYSTEM | Students get ‘credits’for attending classes and they can shift to other courses or universities with their credits

GRADING SYSTEM | Instead of marks, students to get grades

2000-01

2005-06

2012-13 29.6

14.3

8.6 Figures in million

Source: MHRD

A LOW FOR HIGHER EDU

CUTS IN HIGHEREDUCATION (Rs Cr)Year Budget Expenditure

2012-13 25275 204452013-14 26762 245182014-15 27656 231522015-16 26855 NASource: Lok Sabha, Aug 5, 2015

Despite these disadvantag-es, women clearly spoke

against unilateral, oral tripletalaq and polygamy. While91.7% women opposed a sec-ond marriage by their hus-bands, 92.1% sought a ban onoral triple talaq. “In 2014, of the235 cases that came to womenSharia adalats that we run,80% were of oral talaq,’’ authorof the study, Zakia Soman, said,adding that women bore bruntof the practice.

Most women (93%) were infavour of an arbitration proc-ess before divorce and 83.3%believed that codification ofMuslim family law would helpget justice. Codification of Mus-lim personal law has been re-

sisted by the community citingreligious interference.

Responding to this, Somansaid, “Government has molly-coddled and appeased thosegroups which have taken uponthemselves to speak for thecommunity. It is our constitu-tional right. For groups thatcite religious freedom as an ar-gument, it is at the expense ofwomen’s rights.’’

Co-author Noorjehan SafiaNiaz said, “An overwhelmingnumber of women demandsreforms in Muslim personallaw. They want an elaboratecodified law based on the Qu-ranic justice framework to cov-er matters such as age of mar-riage, divorce procedures,polygamy, maintenance andcustody of the children.’’

Women for reform inMuslim Personal Law�Continued from P1

Mumbai: While students ofFilm and Tele-vision Insti-tute of India(FTII) contin-ue their pro-test againstthe appoint-

ment of Gajendra Chauhanas its chairman, Nationalaward-winning filmmakerSudhir Mishra has suggest-ed the names of eminent di-rectors like Sanjay LeelaBhansali, Rajkumar Hiraniand David Dhawan, who hethinks deserves the positionmore than Chauhan.

Mishra took to micro-blogging site Twitter onThursday to express his con-

cern for the FTII students,who have been protesting forover two months now.

“To all those who matter.Please find a way out of theFTII mess. Make Bansali, Hi-rani or David or Prakash(Jha) or Vinod (Vidhu VinodChopra) or Resul (Pookutty)or Mani (Ratnam) the chair-man,” Mishra tweeted.

In another post, Mishra,who has directed films like“Hazaaron Khwaishein Ai-si”, “Yeh Saali Zindagi” and“Main Zinda Hoon”, con-demned the government’s de-cision to arrest five studentson charges of rioting andmore in a post-midnightswoop on Tuesday. PTI

Mishra suggests Hirani,Bhansali as FTII chairman

Miami: The world broke new heat records in July,marking the hottest month in history and the warmestfirst seven months of the year since modern record-keeping began in 1880, US au-thorities said on Thursday.

The findings by the Nation-al Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration showed atroubling trend, as the planetcontinues to warm due to theburning of fossil fuels, and sci-entists expect the scorchingtemperatures to get worse.“The world is warming. It iscontinuing to warm. That isbeing shown time and timeagain in our data,” said JakeCrouch, physical scientist atNOAA’s National Centers forEnvironmental Information.

July’s average temper-ature across land and sea sur-faces worldwide was 16.61 de-grees Celsius, marking the

hottest July ever. The previousrecord for July was set in 1998.

“This was also the all-timehighest monthly temperaturein the 1880-2015 record,” saidNOAA in its monthly report.“The first seven months of the

year were also all-time recordwarm for the globe.”

When scientists looked attemperatures for the year-to-date, they found land and oceansurfaces were 0.85 degrees Cel-sius above the 20th century av-

erage. Africa also saw its sec-ond hottest July on record.However, parts of western Rus-sia, eastern and southern Asiaand scattered areas in centraland northern North Americawere cooler than average. AFP

This July was the world’shottest month in history

1st 7 MonthsWarmest Ever,Says US Body

IN THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT

Reuters

New Delhi: The NDA govern-ment’s rewrite of the land bill,though slammed for being “an-ti-farmer”, attempts to correctmore than 50 drafting and typo-graphical errors, omissionsand contradictions that actual-ly defeat the law’s “pro-poor”intent by denying farmers andtribals benefits of fair and en-hanced compensation.

Apart from political battlesover consent and social impactclauses, the 2013 land acquisi-tion and rehabilitation Act isriddled with missing or misap-plied articles, poor punctua-tion and omissions that under-mine compensation, eligibilityand acquisition norms andrender them vulnerable to le-gal challenges.

Careless draftsmanship

like failure to distinguishchange of ownership of landacquired under the Act beingsubject to permission of thegovernment from any acquisi-tion in general can lead to legalbattles that can stall compensa-tion and acquisition.

The mistake makes Sec-tion 100 “over-inclusive, pre-venting transfer of propertyunder any provision whatsoev-er and needs to be redrafted”,the government has said in ob-servations made available tothe joint committee of Parlia-ment examining the 2013 Act.

More problematically, the2013 law omits specific men-tion of “tribal areas” with re-gard to a bar on acquisition inviolation of any law relating toland transfer in important Sec-tion 2(2) that deals with exemp-tions, restricting clause’s ap-plication to “scheduled areas”.

Rajeev.Deshpande@timesgroup.com

Drafting errors, typoscorrected in land law

New Delhi: The Cabinet onThursday approved the signingand ratification of the agree-ment between India and Sey-chelles for exchange of infor-mation on taxes, a crucial factorin the government’s crusadeagainst black money.

Besides curbing tax evasionand avoidance, it will enable thecompetent authorities of Indiaand Seychelles to provide assist-ance through exchange of infor-mation that is relevant to the ad-ministration and enforcementof the laws of two countries con-cerning taxes.

Information received underthe agreement shall be treated asconfidential and may be disclosedonly to persons or authorities (in-cluding courts or administrativebodies) concerned with assess-ment, collection, enforcement,

prosecution or determination ofappeals, in relation to taxes cov-ered under the agreement, ac-cording to a government state-ment. The agreement, whosenegotiations were made in June,makes it clear that informationmay be disclosed to any other per-son or entity or authority or juris-diction with the prior writtenconsent of the country sendingthe information. It also providesfor a mutual agreement proce-dure for resolving any differenceor for agreeing on procedures.The agreement will enter intoforce on the date of notification ofcompletion of procedures re-quired by the respective laws ofthe two countries.

The Centre is authorized un-der Section 90 of the IT Act, 1961to enter into an agreement withacountry for exchange of infor-mation for the prevention ofevasion or avoidance of tax.

Seychelles tax pactgets Cabinet nod

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