z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-04.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 302
302 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
to those centres where the colleges are situated in close proximity. If this scheme is to be utilized on a large scale the first thing to do is to control the location of colleges so that they shall be established in close proximity. In other words it is necessary to prevent adventurous educationists from opening individual autonomous colleges in all sorts of unseemly and unpromising towns. When one recalls the waste, duplication and dissipation of resources involved in the existence of such separate and scattered colleges one is surprised to see that such anarchical situation should have been tolerated so far. I regard it a great piece of good fortune for the Bombay Presidency that the growth of these isolated colleges has not as yet become so rank and wild as in Bengal. But steps must be taken at once to counteract the establishment of scattered colleges at random if the standard of University Education is to be maintained. For this purpose I should lay down the centres of University Education in this Presidency and should not allow any college to be started at any other place. In my opinion the following places should be marked as actual or potential centres of University Education : —
I—Bombay. VI—Hyderabad (potential).
II—Poona. VII—Dharwar (potential).
III—Ahmedabad. VIII—Sangli (potential).
IV—Surat (potential). IX—Nasik (potential).
V—Karachi X—Amalner (potential).
Having defined the centres of University education the next thing to do is to organize the teaching at those places. At most of the above University centres there is as yet only a single college providing education in Arts. Only in Bombay and Poona are there groups of colleges in close proximity. There the problem of University teaching can be easily solved by permutation and combination of the various college staffs into departments. At those centres where there are as yet only a single isolated college the problem of providing education of the university type can be solved in two ways (1) by allowing the foundation of new colleges in close proximity of the existing ones for the purpose of teaching one particular subject or (2) by recognizing the existing college as a university and to allow it to expand by starting new departments of study. The former plan seems to be easier of success. But the latter would be better from the standpoint of efficiency. By adopting this policy, instead of having a number of colleges scattered through the different parts of the Presidency to meet the educational demands in those parts of the Presidency we would be able to have other universities in other parts of the Presidency to meet the educational demands in those parts. By this we may not have achieved the ideal of a centralized university. But we may at least be achieving the next best, of having all the colleges which are affiliated to a university situated in the university town in close proximity of one another to combine together in intellectual co-operation and make the university so to say a living personality.