Education is a right, not a privilege reserved for the select elite
Even though Jawaharlal Nehru University, where I teach, is in turmoil because of an incompetent administration incapable of communicating with the students and teachers, the larger crisis confronting the idea of a public university needs to be understood. From Jamia Millia Islamia to Jadavpur University, from Visva-Bharati University to Aligarh Muslim University, and from the University of Hyderabad to Delhi University, we are witnessing an organised attack on the fundamentals of a creative centre of learning: critical pedagogy with deep politico-ethical sensibilities; epistemological pluralism; and a minimalist and enabling administration nurturing a transparent and democratic milieu for students, researchers and teachers to flourish as active participants in the cultivation and dissemination of foundational knowledge traditions. With politically appointed vice chancellors, philosophically impoverished techno-managers, new technologies of surveillance, and the militaristic notion of discipline and punishment, it seems some of our finest universities are dying.
The purpose of education
To begin with, it is important to realise that if public universities with good quality, affordable education begin to crumble, the spirit of egalitarian democracy will be in danger. In times characterised by the market-driven principle, where there is commodification of education and reduction of higher education into market-friendly technical skills; where there are fancy private universities and all sorts of institutes of technology and management; and where teachers are seen as mere ‘service providers’ and students as ‘consumers’, education becomes a mere utilitarian/instrumental transaction. And this sort of education can by no means be emancipatory; it is inherently non-democratic, conservative and status quoist.
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