The Student as Stimulus How Student Participation Facilitates Quality in Higher Education
Francis Kuriakose
Technical Presentation
Student Charters and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC)
24 January 2017
The Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) St. Berchmans College, Mahatma Gandhi University Kottayam, Kerala
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The Student as Stimulus How Student Participation Facilitates Quality in Higher Education
Francis Kuriakose ‘The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest,…, (and) for the ease of masters, and whether he neglects or performs his duty, to oblige the students in all cases to behave to him as if he performed it with the greatest diligence and duty’. Adam Smith (1776) The centrality of student in the scheme of education has been overlooked at many levels-from setting up of pedagogy, the structure of everyday at school and prospects of life after education. I believe that any excuse for not taking the student into consideration comes from our commitment elsewhere- to other stakeholders in education (patrons, masters) or disturbingly a perverse devotion to the ‘system’ itself, once it is established. The open invitation to dwell on the role of student participation in building quality of higher education in this context is an occasion both rare and long overdue. I am grateful for this opportunity to present my thoughts to a wider audience interested in genuinely making the experience of university education a rewarding one, especially from a student’s vantage point. Indeed as Justice Albie Sachs of South Africa (2010) distinguished ‘knowledge’ from ‘acknowledgement’ in the context of reconstructing society in post-apartheid times, acknowledgement of student’s role in ensuring quality is the first step in evaluating quality. As Justice Sachs remarked, knowledge involves an awareness of facts where as acknowledgement involves recognising the social and emotional significance of the facts, i.e. assigning responsibility to them. To begin the process of acknowledgement of a problem, it is important to understand the truth in it. ----------------------------------------------------------The author acknowledges the research assistance of Deepa Kylasam Iyer, University of Cambridge (Fall 2017) in preparing this document. The author is grateful to Professor Antony Joseph K., Head of Department of Commerce and IQAC Coordinator, St. Berchmans College, Changanassery, Kottayam for extending an invitation to the National Seminar. The usual disclaimers apply. The author can be contacted at
[email protected]
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S. Radhakrishnan (2009), in his philosophical work An Idealist View of Life, had warned us of the dangers of pursuing the narrow criterion of communicability as the test of knowledge. The problems that a student endures, especially in his daily life in the university, cannot all be communicated as a policy problem. Then how can we begin to think about solving them? In this regard, some rumination on dialogic truth will be of help. Of the different kinds of truths available to us, such as microscopic truth (that which excludes all other variables except the phenomenon in study), logical truth (like laws of science), experiential truth (of the Gandhian variety), the one that serves most in an institutional enquiry of this kind is the dialogic truth – i.e., truth based on exchange of ideas by people who challenge, question and debate assumptions based on diverse realities. Opening student voices into this conversation of reforming higher education belongs to this category. From my own academic discipline – Economics -, I can find an even better illustration. The famous Japanese production system (Chang, 2011) that is known world over for its high standards of quality and efficiency works on a simple principle - each enterprise trusts the creativity and good will of the people participating in the activity for suggestions and improvement, considering them as moral agents. This implicit trust placed on students as active agents and an opportunity to begin the process of dialogue is very precious. The Problem of Assessing Quality The problem of assessing quality of goods consumed has plagued economists in pressing ways since the whole business of valuing commodities were based on this information. In Economics, there are three kinds of goods that give rise to asymmetries of information (where buyer knows less about the goods than seller) – (i) search goods in which quality of the product is known ex-ante so that prices can be assigned clearly (eg: petrol), (ii) taste goods in which quality of the product becomes obvious ex-post consumption (eg: second hand cars) and (iii) credence goods for which quality of the product may never be established even after outcome is observed (eg: legal advice). Higher education comes in the second category as taste goods. This means that higher education is prone to market failure of asymmetric information and its attendant correlates. The buyer (in this case, student) is informed of little about the quality of what is being bought before consuming the goods. Being aware of this aspect is important while discussing student role in 3
bringing quality to education because asymmetric information calls for more openness, transparency and accountability in the process of giving and managing education by universities. Yet, when a review of select studies on measuring and identifying quality education and setting standards was done in the Indian context, very little attention was paid to this phenomenon over the decades. As early as 1950, The Commission on University Education under S. Radhakrishnan observed that ‘Intellectual work is not for all, it is only for the intellectually competent’ (GoI, 1950: 98). While viewing universities as public institutions, distinguishing unwarranted exclusion of students on social grounds and justifiable discrimination on academic grounds was set in tone. In the decades after independence, the problem of setting standards in higher education was acutely felt on close heels of unprecedented expansion of university system in India. In ‘Standards in Democratised Higher Education: An Analysis of Indian Experience’, Rudolph and Rudolph (1970) examined the core (PhD numbers, student teacher ratio) and ancillary facilities (hostel, infrastructure) that could act as variables that determine standards of higher education. They observed that the importance of regionally and sectorally disaggregating data on higher education in India would leave us with a differentiated fare of standards. This was acknowledgement of substantial regional variation in understanding and addressing quality concerns. On restructuring the university system, Singh (1975) identified three stock problems plaguing higher education in India- access to education, making teaching relevant and managing the institutions. We have taken this advice to heart. Over the decades, we have succeeded in legislating to ensure there is more access to education and have set up administering to ensure the institutions are regularly managed. What has been consistently missing is the student, her interests and opinion on what kind of training she should receive.
Consequently,
standardisation of quality has progressed with regulation as a tool with deleterious consequences. Remarkably, it is only the recent decades close to 2000, that a focussed attention on the role and responsibility of the participants (students and teachers) has been recognised as a pressing variable in determining quality. The understanding of Indian economy that values knowledge as a commodity might have inspired this shift (Kuriakose & Iyer, 2010). Politicisation of higher education, corruption in hiring and 4
enrolment practices as well as the unpreparedness of students with a poor quality of secondary education might have catalysed this shift in emphasis. For example, Errol D’Souza (2004) indentified students as performing dual functions in universities - of demanding education by paying a fee and supplying inputs into the system that the faculty can process. As the input supplier in education, students receive attention as independent evaluators of faculty and research assistants and collaborators bringing out a central role for them in the system. Shah (2005) probed the roots of mediocrity in Indian universities through a structural perspective and identified the responsibility of teacher that contravenes the bureaucratisation of her profession. Rather than the provision of autonomy that might incentivise an academic’s performance, routinization of her role as an equivalent to government cadre of officials drains her of individuality and incentive to contribute in increasing the stock of knowledge (research)
or disseminating them (teaching). Drèze and Sen (2013) identify the
problem with Indian higher education institutions which do remarkably well in specialised areas of learning but have limited intake and incentive to do good quality academic work while taking university system with multiple disciplines. We have a number of select institutions who train promising students in select disciplines but our universities do not feature in the top ranking of higher education institutions in the world (Kuriakose & Iyer, 2016a). Student Participation as a Variable My primary hypothesis is that our quality in higher education is a reflection of our quality in development. On his thesis Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen (2000) identifies freedom as the primary end and principal means of development. On the arrangements that make up these principal means of development, he identifies social opportunities including systems of good health care and education as enablers of development. Japan and closer home, Kerala are examples where massive programs of public funded social arrangements were in place long before the reduction of poverty was managed. Contrariwise, the complimentary and interrelatedness effect of development ensuring higher quality of health services and education should not be missed. Indeed, not just expansion of various freedoms, but the distributional aspects of freedom need to be taken into account to reduce inequality of access and performance. Unfreedom of a section of people (women, poor, minorities of various kinds) need to be observed in contrast with other sections 5
which perform these functions effortlessly. The importance of social participation in engendering equality and inclusivity lie here. Beyond elementary associations, the ability of different sections of people and especially students to discuss issues in the university system is a sign of equality of democratic participation, a step in increasing inclusivity and an opening to discuss the quality question. Why is participation important? Primarily, opportunity to participate is the first step in overcoming barriers to associations of privilege and power. Students rarely get to constructively engage in critical thinking about the institutions they are part of with other stakeholders like teachers and administration. Secondly, participation opens a way to address how social and economic resources are to be distributed within the institution. For example, students can contribute to how a public space or forum within the college can be used (utilization of social resource) or bringing a specialised library or reading room in their department (economic resource) can be better utilised. And finally, participation also gathers ideas about norms and values that go into the very fabric of what a university is as defined by its inhabitants. In order to generate public hearing of problems faced by particular sections, modifying existing policies and facilitate greater social understanding of what a university could be. Quality and the Concentric Model: A Proposal With these ideas in mind, I would locate student in a concentric model of institutions (see figure 1) to explore the potential of her participation. In the micro (immediate) level of scrutiny is the student. Their primary function in an academic institution is to grasp the subject they have come to study and imbibe higher values of life while living within the academic community.
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Figure 1: Concentric Model of Quality in University Student Participation (micro level)
Possibilities of a Professor (meso level) Human Development (macro level)
Source: Author Compilation
There are three aspects to ensuring academic quality from a student’s perspective. There is no substitute to student’s intrinsic motivation to increase her own academic standards. What Malcom Gladwell (2008) describes as the 10,000 hour rule or deliberate long term practice is the way to develop skill. The second point is that a particular form of rent seeking behaviour is observed in the student community where a quick and easy way to find employment is seen as the basic premise of university education. The building of quality of an individual takes time and effort and it is a long term process where the return comes after a significant period of investment. This rent seeking behaviour also attracts bright students to abandon academic pursuits for other opportunities. What needs to be acknowledged here is that the cost of this behaviour is the declining quality of education. Finally, students with original ideas also need to be aware of the group pressure to conform. To maintain excellence at a personal level, it requires a certain ‘escape velocity’ from social pressure and constraints. Assuming these standards are maintained by the students, we can now see what the structural features are, that impede good student performance. The meso (middle) level of the model identifies teachers as facilitators of student achievement. I will not dwell on this aspect too far as it is beyond the scope of this lecture. The macro (outer) layer of the model is the environment itself and here the aspects of
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development are embedded. It is not an accident that universities that rank high globally comes from countries with high human development (see table 1). Table 1 University, Country of Location and HDI Rankings University Ranking
Name of University
Country
(2016)
HDI Ranking (2015)
1
University of Oxford
United Kingdom
14
2
California Institute of
United States
8
Technology 3
Stanford University
United States
8
4
University of Cambridge
United Kingdom
14
5
Massachusetts Institute of
United States
8
Technology 6
Harvard University
United States
8
7
Princeton University
United States
8
8
Imperial College London
United Kingdom
14
9
ETH Zurich
Switzerland
3
10
University of California
United States
8
United States
8
Berkeley 10
University of Chicago
Source: The Times Higher Education Ranking (2016); UNDP (2015)
The question is what can we do to ensure a high quality environment to enable student participation in universities? The importance of environment, both physical and intellectual, cannot be overstated. Some of the best universities in the world are also inspiring places to be in architecturally and in terms of social association (MacFarlane, 2009). An open welcoming space that never closes down for the day, and that which takes care of various aspects of life (including public reading room, book shops, cafeteria of discussion, parks for jogging and walking) make up spaces where young people can think and discuss. Associations are another way that inspires people to both use what they are learning and enjoy other creative pursuits. From the famed Apostles of Cambridge University to secret and open societies in 8
universities of repute bring the diverse interests of students together. Institutional and inter college collaboration also plays an important part here. Many projects in public health, artificial intelligence research and development economics are between the two famous neighbour universities - Harvard and MIT. Similarly, academia- industry linkages are great opportunities to nurture entrepreneurship and build ideas to improve communities (Kuriakose & Iyer, 2016b). This is seen, for example, in Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (IISc). Within a university, invitation of research and teaching staff from fellow universities is common. This also calls for serious introspection into the matter of pluralism of gender, geography, discipline and ideology of teachers that constitute a department (Guha, 2012). Students should have access to various streams of thought within and across disciplines to open their mind and worldview. Including students as graduate and teaching assistants to professors is fairly common even in Indian universities like Indian Institutes of Management Ahmedabad (IIM A) and Indira Gandhi Institute for Development and Research, Mumbai (IGIDR). Indeed, in IIM A, the students are encouraged to open small business units that offer food and merchandise. Similarly, in National Law School of India University (NLSIU) Bangalore, the under graduate students write their own laws within campus, monitor and follow them to ensure institutional discipline. They gather periodically and amend the laws with legal reasoning to incorporate changes. Students feel a sense of ownership if they are given serious responsibilities of managing themselves and their school. Grades and finances are the two main aspects that bother under graduate and graduate students in India. Direct scholarships and student ships, assistance in the form of research and teaching under a faculty can mitigate financial worries and retain students in academics. A strong connection with alumni including mentoring the current students is practiced world over. Engaging student minds in larger problems of humanity is a way to inspire larger and useful intellectual work out of students. Conclusion The role of student participation can open up avenues to reform student capabilities, role of teachers and the ancillary environment of development in the university location. The concentric model focuses on the three aspects and sees participation 9
as bringing in inclusivity, power to use social and economic resource and generating norms for university role in society. The role of development in general in increasing quality of university cannot be overstated. Suggestions for reforming structural attributes from high ranked universities across India and the world reveal that the best practices could be adapted with local variation. On the social environment that school is, John Dewey (2005) proposes two steps: ‘setting up conditions that stimulate visible and tangible action, followed by making the individual a partner, a sharer of both outcomes and values, that she can own up the success and failure of the project of reform as her own. As Amartya Sen trenchantly remarks on the search for ideal institutions in an essay ‘What Should Really keep us Awake at Night?’, ‘we will not get perfect institutions, though we can certainly improve them, but no less importantly, we also have to make sure, with cooperation from all sections of the society, that these institutions work vigorously and well’ (Sen, 2015).
Indeed,
students are the kernel of the education system and hence every policy and proposal for reform must be a step in improving the life of the ultimate stakeholder – the student.
References Chang, H.J. (2011). 23 Things they don’t tell you about Capitalism. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Dewey, J. (2005). Democracy and Education. Stilwell: Digireads Publication. Dreze, J. & Sen, A. (2013). An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions, New Delhi: Penguin Allen Lane. D’Souza, E. (2004). Contractual Arrangements in Academia: Implications for Performance. Economic & Political Weekly, 39 (21), 2165-2168. Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and Company. GoI (Government of India). (1950). The Report of the University Education Commission 1948-49, Vol 1. New Delhi: Ministry of Education. Guha, R. (2012). Patriots and Partisans. New Delhi: Penguin Allen Lane. Kuriakose, F., & Iyer, D.K. (2010). Human Resource Management in a Knowledge Economy, Yojana, 54(6), 38-40. 10
Kuriakose, F., & Iyer, D.K. (2016a). India of Ideas: Mapping the Status of Higher Education in India and Mobilizing Discourse towards a Quest for Equity and Excellence. Higher Education for the Future, 3(2), 213-226. Kuriakose, F., & Iyer, D.K. (2016b). Exploring University-Industry Technology Transfer in India: Two Models. Retrieved 17 January 2017 from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308031291_Exploring_UniversityIndustry_Technology_Transfer_in_India_Two_Models MacFarlane, A. (2009). Reflections on Cambridge. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan. Radhakrishnan, S. (2009). An Idealist View of Life. Publishers India.
New Delhi: HarperCollins
Rudolph, L.I., & Rudolph, S.H. (1970). ‘Standards’ in Democratised Higher Education: An Analysis of the Indian Experience. Economic & Political weekly, 5 (35), 209-218. Sachs, A. (2010). Post Apartheid South Africa: Truth, Reconciliation and Justice. In Reimagining India and other essays. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan. Sen, A. (2000). Development as Freedom. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Sen, A. (2015). What should really keep us awake at night. In Sen, A.D. & Kanjalal, P. (Eds.) The Country of First Boys and other essays. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Shah, A.M. (2005). Higher Education and Research: Roots of Mediocrity. Economic & Political Weekly , 40 (22-23), 2234-2242. Smith, A. (1776/1996). An Inquiry into the nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations. Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, 2 volumes. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. The Times Higher Education Rankings (2016). Retrieved 19 January 2017 from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2017/worldranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats United Nations Development Program (UNDP). (2015). The Human Development Report 2015. Retrieved 19 January 2017 from http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2015_human_development_report.pdf
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Appendix: Summary of Proposal
On increasing student participation in academics
(i) constitute graduate studentships, research assistance, teaching assistance (ii) invite interdisciplinary lectures and seminars with student presentations (iii) ensure the presence of reading room and department library (iv) collaborate on academic projects with neighbouring colleges within the same universities
On increasing student social association
(i) include student representatives in institutional regulatory bodies (ii) encourage entrepreneurship facilities/ incubation centres (iii) openness and funding to student conceived societies and clubs (iv) alumni network and mentoring
On increasing transparency and accountability with student participation
(i) publish details of student activities in college website (ii) periodic review meeting and social audit with faculty presence (iii) student evaluation of courses and teaching
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