In recent days, the news from the University of Mumbai has been far from inspiring – clumps of plaster have fallen off the ceiling at the CD Deshmukh Bhavan, and it was good fortune that no one was injured; creepy crawlies were found in the water dispenser that students use to collect drinking water, and timely warning videos circulated by vigilant students have kept people safe so far.
On March 19, students were informed that they would have no drinking water or water in toilets at CD Deshmukh Bhavan the next day – March 20. The head of the department of applied psychology, Dr Vivek Belhekar, who signed the notice informing students, did not explain what they could do if they felt thirsty or needed to use the toilet.
Hindustan Times reported on April 1 that the 243-acre Kalina campus has 61 buildings, many of which were constructed in the 1970s; infrequent maintenance has meant that many of these buildings have fallen to decrepitude. A university committee in 2015 recommended the demolition and reconstruction of some of these buildings, including Ranade Bhavan, which has a lecture hall and several departments.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority was tasked with infrastructure development for the university, and a Delhi-based consultant was appointed to draw up a master plan in 2019. The consultant was paid over Rs1 crore, but the HT report found that neither authorities at the MMRDA or the University knew the whereabouts of the masterplan.
Almost all the news about the University these days shows a stark fall in standards – the examination grading system was made online since 2017, and vast numbers of students applying for re-evaluation discover that sections of their answer scripts were not checked at all.
There are now calls that the evaluation system go back to being offline – a clear indication that technology adoption alone is never an improvement, especially if poorly planned or implemented without rigour.
Appointments have been under the scanner, with a few already appointed found to have forged their degree certificates.
Admission too has been mired in allegations of corruption, with admission granted to politically connected students failing to meet eligibility criteria.
Over 10 years ago, a deputy registrar was caught accepting a bribe, and it was alleged that affiliation of colleges and granting of approvals was happening on payment in flagrant violation of the rules.
In 2010, a government search committee drew up a list of candidates who could be considered for the post of vice chancellor of the university; Dr Rajan Welukar, a statistician from Nagpur was appointed to the position – but the search committee had not proposed his name, which was not on their list!
A new committee was formed, chaired by Dr A. Kolaskar, who had earlier been associated with Welukar; that committee recommended the newly appointed vice chancellor for the post – the list of scholars chosen by the committee originally headed by renowned sociologist Andre Beteille of Delhi University was binned.
The steady downward slide at the university is stated to have begun with the Maharashtra Universities Act of 1994 that opened the doors for political interference in appointments and other crucial arenas, making the university like another government department.
The University of Bombay, as it was called then, was founded in 1857 after the ‘Wood’s Despatch’ -- the letter sent by Charles Wood, president of the Board of Control of the British East India Company to Governor-General of India Lord Dalhousie in 1854, recommending that English be used as the language of instruction in India.
Woods recommended that a class of English-educated Indians was necessary to serve as a workforce for the East India Company.
Samaldas Arts College in Bhavnagar, modern-day Gujarat, where Gandhi was a student, was affiliated to the University of Bombay; Babasaheb Ambedkar too is an alumnus.
However, the problems are not of Mumbai university alone – Member of Parliament Sonia Gandhi, in an article in The Hindu on March 31 detailed the Union government’s “profound indifference” to the education of India’s youth and children – 89,441 schools run by the government have been shut since Narendra Modi first became prime minister.
“The country’s poor have been forced out of public education, and into the hands of a prohibitively expensive and under-regulated private school system,” she wrote.
Sonia Gandhi also explained that the centralizing of power by the Union government, even though education is a matter under the concurrent list of the Constitution, outsourcing of education investments to the private sector, and the communalization of institutions and curricula is detrimental to democracy and freedom. Loans are offered to universities at market rates of interest, and universities repay these through hiked student fees.
The quality of education is also under question – teachers are being recruited for their conformity to the ideology of the ruling political party, rather than for the merit of their scholarship.
Five years ago, a residential workshop for Mumbai University staffers was abruptly cancelled after the first day’s programme after student leaders protested that the organization conducting the camp, Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, was a think-tank affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
“The country’s poor have been forced out of public education, and into the hands of a prohibitively expensive and under-regulated private school system,” she wrote.
Sonia Gandhi also explained that the centralizing of power by the Union government, even though education is a matter under the concurrent list of the Constitution, outsourcing of education investments to the private sector, and the communalization of institutions and curricula is detrimental to democracy and freedom. Loans are offered to universities at market rates of interest, and universities repay these through hiked student fees.
The quality of education is also under question – teachers are being recruited for their conformity to the ideology of the ruling political party, rather than for the merit of their scholarship.
Five years ago, a residential workshop for Mumbai University staffers was abruptly cancelled after the first day’s programme after student leaders protested that the organization conducting the camp, Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, was a think-tank affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
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*Independent journalist
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