Understanding the pressures students face in higher education needs attention
Will less stress on minimum attendance at colleges and universities help more students access higher education? The University Grants Commission (UGC), the coordinating body for higher education in India, recently said that it might look into relaxing its guidelines that mandate 75 per cent attendance for students in higher education institutions. UGC secretary Manish Joshi reportedly said in Pune that the commission could look into the suggestion for relaxing this fiat. Whatever the decision, it could hold important implications for Goa.
Some three or so decades ago, the compulsory attendance rule was enforced more stringently. The intention stated then was to improve the quality of education. What happened was something quite the opposite. Higher education became inaccessible to a wider number of students across Goa.
Unlike earlier, students who were already employed—like teachers and journalists—could no longer continue with education to the master’s level. Goa has long depended on a single university. Today, we have a generation of people who have been deprived of higher education. Their prospects for growth and promotion are thus limited. Young men, who faced greater pressures to start earning, were especially hard hit. This is visible from the gender imbalance in higher education institutions. Night or early morning classes haven’t been explored fully.
This, together with the limited number of seats in some streams of higher education, a lack of visibility for some streams, and the shortage of guides at the PhD level, has restricted access to higher education for Goa. It might also be time to consider taking on superannuated staff as emeritus professors to minimise bottlenecks. While Goa has encouraged the entry of private universities, it is to be seen whether those entering the state will be affordable to many.
In fact, given Goa’s changing demography, with a growing senior population, lifelong learning can help people stay engaged and healthy. The recent initiative by St Xavier’s College at Mapusa to open its college library to senior citizens for a few hours each week is a step in the right direction. Institutions of higher learning need to have a connection with society. The university could push them to do more.
On another front, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant recently announced at a job and internship fair at Sankhali’s Ravindra Bhavan that the state has set a ‘zero unemployment’ target. Given the significant figures of jobseekers and unemployment rates here, this is an ambitious target, but one that is all too important for our youth. Together with improving access to jobs, Goa really needs to also upskill its youth. Efforts have been underway on a few fronts, but much more is needed, urgently. As if to underline the importance of education and jobs, the past week’s headlines also brought the sad news of a student from a top-notch educational institute ending his life. Assuming the young lad took the drastic step because of educational pressures, it only underlines the challenges facing our youth.
Education is a slow-moving ‘story,’ one that takes years to unfold, and the impacts of which take decades and generations to show up. Yet, it’s an important story. It can make or break our future as a society. Access to education and jobs and understanding the pressures students face are themes that should be uppermost on society’s mind.
