z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-04.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 305
ON UNIVERSITY REFORMS 305
important branch of knowledge. University organization cannot proceed on these lines, and the difficulties described above can be removed only by placing the appointments of all teachers of the University in the hands of the University itself acting through the Academic Council ( see constitution of the new University) or at least by giving the University an effective voice in their appointment.
I therefore propose that the collegiate branch of the Educational Service should be separated from the Administrative branch and should be placed under the University with proper safeguards. In other words the teachers’ posts at the different colleges should be converted into chairs attached to and supported by certain foundations in the present case by the private colleges and Government. But the appointments to these chairs should be controlled by the University.
I attach the greatest importance to the control of the University over the appointment of its teaching staff. Hitherto the University of Bombay has attempted to maintain the standard of University education by means of its power to test it by a rigid system of examination. The result has been a gradual lowering of the calibre of its graduates. This is principally to be attributed to the egregious error committed by the fathers of our University education in not at all recognizing that the only means of maintaining the standard of University education are the rigid exclusion of students who are unfit for University studies and the existence of a body of highly qualified and productive teachers, organized in departments adequately equipped. In other words they attempted to maintain the standard of the University degrees without attempting to maintain the standard of the teachers and the taught. When events are moving us in the direction of making the University of Bombay a teaching University, it must be clearly realized that “the power to control teaching is of more importance than the power to test it by granting degrees”. A University cannot become a teaching University unless its academic affairs, i.e., teaching and examination are left to the uncontrolled discretion of those engaged in teaching. But it will be fatal to the standard of a University degree if the University reposed such a large trust in a body of teachers in whose calibre it has no confidence. I therefore propose that the University should have the power of purse over the colleges. All Government grants to the colleges should be made through the University, so that the University will have a voice in the appointment of the staff of teachers and their equipment in the matter of libraries and laboratories.
Questions 36-39 : If a University as a corporation of learning is to serve the community, then its constitution must provide ( a ) for a body which will keep it in touch with all varied requirements of the community ; ( b ) for a body which will give the University a statesman-like guidance in the provision and also in accommodation of means to ends so as to bring about