CONSUMER PROTECTION IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Students are the main consumers of education. Their professional interests span over a very wide range from agriculture and archaeology to Space science and Satellite technology. Psychologically students are at different levels of mental abilities including achievement, aptitude and attitude; sociologically they belong to a number of social groups, and in terms of communities to schedule castes, scheduled tribes, backward communities and forward communities; and economically to different strata ranging from poverty stricken homes to affluent families. Thus, consumers of higher education belong to a wide spectrum of professional interests, mental abilities and socio-economic status. Moreover, the students have the power to transform the society for a good cause and the contributions of student community are vital for the growth of the country. Therefore, higher education while fulfilling its basic functions of Teaching, Research and Extension, should protect the needs of these heterogeneous groups of students and of the society to which they belong.
TEACHING is the oldest function of the universities. Universities invariably teach languages, social disciplines, and ethical, cultural and social values including beliefs, traditions and norms along with the larger social goals of democracy, social justice, independent thinking, scientific temper and creativity. In the context of the continuous attempts of man to unravel the mysteries of nature and of the imminent riddles as well as to harness the powers of nature to the service of humanity, universities also teach modern sciences and technologies. However, the application of sciences and technology to various spheres of social life and the consequent social change give additional responsibility to universities requiring them to teach new areas of social sciences ranging from Anthropology to Democracy as well as Applied sciences of varied kinds. In the contemporary India, industries, commerce and communication hold the key of national development for which skilled manpower is the major pre-requisite. Amazing developments have taken place in every field of science and technology and it is pertinent to keep pace with the advancement for the development of the nation .Therefore, universities should develop skilled manpower of the kinds needed by society. Thus, the whirlpool of teaching function has been consistently expanding from transmission of traditional knowledge and teaching of applied science and technology to training of technical manpower. Universities should fulfill their teaching function as contemplated herein and simultaneously protect consumer’s interests lest products of higher education are likely to migrate to western universities, as it is currently experienced, to learn new courses and to undergo training of varied sorts at the expense of precious foreign exchange.
In common practice, teaching is a one-way communication from the teacher terminal to student terminals, and a process of transmission of knowledge from the notes of the teacher to that of students without the content passing through the mind of either. Sarcastically it is defined that a lecturer is one who lectures, a reader is one who reads, and a professor is one who professes. As a result, in reality, students rarely digest ideas, let alone assimilation of ideas. They cram lessons to achieve a satisfaction of success in examinations. In contrast to the common practice, findings of research emphasize that for cognitive development, students should get adequate opportunities to develop their predisposition to learn, independent and rational thinking, and creative work; and for effective communication between individuals and groups, systems of telecast and satellite provide the best media. In conformity with these, and bearing the interest of the main consumers in mind, teachers should interact with students, and incorporate the methods of seminar, discussion and workshop as well as the media of mass communication in the instructional process. It may be pertinently stated that, the continued use of the method of lecture in classrooms has done more harm than good to both the consumers and the country. To illustrate in spite of the fact that, India occupying the third place among the comity of nations in the production of scientific and technical manpower, the number of Indian scientists and technologists who win international award and Nobel prize is comparatively a very few; and also India continues to spend on other countries for expertise.
The boundary of knowledge is ever enlarging on learning new facts, updating relevant facts and shedding obsolete ones. Moreover, when techno-economic and socio- cultural changes are taking place at a rapid rate globally, it is necessary to adjust to these changes. Therefore, it is prudent to start planning on various segments of education, particularly at the undergraduate and postgraduate education, with regard to General education, Technical education, Management education, Medical, Agricultural or Vocational education.
Planning for education is a complex task because education encompasses multifarious objectives ranging from the development of physical, mental and intellectual abilities of the consumers to create in them the ability to learn on their own from empirical experience, intuitive perception and speculative thought. Moreover, education is concerned with the inculcation of values in students. All these attributes eventually contribute to the development of a dynamic world that reacts with the demands of our ever-changing physical, technological and social environment. With regard to the technologies, they are changing much more rapidly and radically than before. Thus, the challenges are going to be quantitatively and qualitatively different from contemporary changes. So the education system has to train student not only for the present but prepare them to meet challenges of the future.
RESEARCH is the second basic function of higher education. It is held that, the goal of research in universities is to discover new knowledge and thus expand the frontiers of the existing disciplines, and to invent new disciplines. Perhaps this goal might have been very relevant to the past, when social activities were limited to a narrow circle. However of late, human activities have been expanding to new vistas to the extent of reaching the realm of complexities, and giving rise to multiplicity of problems affecting every individual. In this situation, university research should enable every scholar to identify problems of society- say in agriculture, industries and community life which obstruct social change, and to discover their possible solutions to facilitate development. As against this need of consumers, universities continue to involve themselves largely in basic research, and spend proportionately less finance and human energy for applied research. As a result, on the one hand students of higher education get neither adequate acquaintance with the problems of society to which they belong namely, applied problems, nor expertise to solve them; and on the other, serious problems of society continue to exist, awaiting solutions. Furthermore, irrespective of hundreds of problems investigated at the expense of public exchequer and human energy, universities hardly make a perceptible impact on society by their contribution to the world of knowledge and to the bank of solutions to problems, so much so that the society dilutes its policy to fund university research and limits its allocations. When funds are inadequate, research gets stagnated. Thus, research in universities is in a vicious circle. Inadequate attention to applied problems arrests flow of funds; and poor flow of funds stalls research. Ultimately, consumers of higher education become the victims of this appalling situation.
The role of education is a facilitator for social and cultural changes as well as a means for acquiring the knowledge and skill for pursuing various vocations and professions. In this context, the future of the society is also seen from the standpoint of its requirements for its sustenance and development. The society requires increasing number of educated people in knowledge-based industries for the production and distribution of goods and services. Although this dream has been partially realized, there is a long way to go. Hence, personnel have to be trained in sufficient numbers. Moreover, applied research should be maximized in collaboration with industry which will also help to generate income and productivity.
Extension is the third basic function of higher education. University should extend the sphere of their activities beyond their cortex of the community where they are located. It is often stated ad nauseam that universities are social institutions; created by society, for society. Therefore, they should not only take deep roots in society, but also play a dynamic role in its development. No doubt, universities are fulfilling their academic functions of teaching and research. Notwithstanding, they should also take leadership on matters of social development both in villages and cities.
Villages constitute eighty percent of modern India, and about the same percentage of its population lives in villages. Thus, villages are the blood streams of the nation, and national development practically means rural development. In this context, universities can hardly isolate themselves from the programmes of rural development. In other words, they should involve students directly in programmes like liquidation of illiteracy among the people irrespective of age, integrated rural development extending to nutrition, health care and supply of protected water, agricultural development, and environmental protection. It is a matter of gratification that a number of universities have already made a beginning through programmes like Social service, Community work and N.S.S. Unfortunately, in many universities such programmes are treated as a fad or a frill to academic work. Therefore, programmes of rural development should be made an integral part of the curriculum, and they should be progressively intensified and expanded.
Small scale industries and heavy industries are normally located in towns and cities; and this creates a number of serious problems significantly migration of people from villages, and the allied problems of inadequate accommodation and growth of slums, and air and water pollution. Universities should embark upon programmes in which they should involve students directly in tasks geared for ameliorating the poor living conditions of people consequent upon industrialization and migration.
In the contemporary society industries govern the life of the people; and hence, universities should establish linkage with industries, universities should integrate academic work with industrial practices through job oriented courses and programmes of apprenticeship training. Effective handling of these would not only make the wards aware of the problems and prospects of their future place of work, but also help them to find a job of their liking, and thus, solve the problems of educated unemployment. Secondly, universities should establish Technology Parks, and thus bring students and entrepreneurs of industries together narrowing down the hiatus between them. Thirdly, Universities should inter-change their staff with that of industries for a short period, and thus make it possible for the students, the staff and the executives of industries to meet in a common platform to hold discussions, enabling the students to learn practical problems and realities in the industrial field, the staff to design courses in new areas like High-Tech, Super conductivity, Computer education, Laser technology, and Non-conventional sources of energy, of late, artificial intelligence and finally, the industries to innovate their programmes on the findings of research.
Consumer protection in higher education as conceived above would certainly make a number of demands on organizational matters of institutions- of universities and colleges; and of them, autonomy, and participative management need special mention.
Autonomy means the academic freedom for the institution, staff and students. The institution should have autonomy to launch new programmes and to experiment innovations without the constraints of finance, and bureaucratic control from both the governments and universities. It may be pertinently stated that when the UGC volunteered to award autonomous status to colleges, only a limited number of them opted for it; and even those, which opted have not yet succeeded to utilize the opportunity to the maximum. In fact, several factors are responsible for this malady: It is held that colleges suffer from paucity of funds and lack of expertise and guidance to experiment new curricular programmes in respect of courses, methods of teaching and evaluation, and organization of work. It is alleged that in the absence of financial incentives, the staff lack motivation to undertake any additional workload ensuing autonomy and “Work Culture”, – the willingness to shoulder social responsibilities. Finally, for want of proper guidance, students seek short cuts to earn a degree and shirk responsibilities to serve society. As in the case of institutions, the staff should have the freedom to select courses, methods and techniques of their choice for teaching and evaluation, and for organizing the work according to its nature and needs of students. They should also have the freedom to select problems for their research and to publish their findings without the fetters of fear and favor. Similarly, students should have the freedom to select courses and institutions of their liking for the purpose of specialization and training.
Bureaucracy should accept the principle of participative management in administration. As the consumers of higher education, students should have the opportunity to voice their opinion on what, how, when and where they should learn. When pertinent discussions are held by the management, students should have opportunities to contribute towards decision making. In order to facilitate this, universities and colleges should include student representatives in the decision making bodies like the Syndicate, Senate, academic Council, college Councils and a score of related Committees. Are we prepared to face these challenges? Let us not forget the fact that the Consumer Protection Act is not far away from the boundaries of university administration.