z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-04.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 306
306 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
a working comprise between the possible misconceptions of the public and the possibly too narrow outlook of the scholar ; and ( c ) for a body of scholars engaged in the work of teaching to give an authoritative direction to the academic business of the University.
I want to impress upon the Committee that a University does not become a teaching University merely by engaging in the work of teaching through the agency of its own staff. That is not the criterion of a teaching University. A University may undertake teaching and yet may not be a teaching University. Whether or not a University is a teaching University depends upon whether or not the scholars engaged in the work of teaching have the authoritative direction of the academic business of the University in their hands. If it is in their hands then the University is a teaching University. If it is not in their hands then the University is not) a teaching University. A teaching University is a teachers’ University.
I am led to make these preliminary remarks because I feel that the Committee in inviting answers to its questions on the constitution is motivated by the desire to obtain such suggestions as will help to make the University of Bombay a teaching University. The existing constitution of the University of Bombay does not provide in any adequate or clear cut manner any of the three bodies I have said to be necessary for a University to function properly. The Senate of the University is not sufficiently representative of the life and interests of Bombay. The Syndicate has not the responsibilities and powers which should devolve upon the Executive Council of a great University and often has devolved upon it duties which it is absolutely unfit to perform. While the teaching staff which is really the heart of the University has practically no voice, let alone authoritative direction, in the academic affairs of the University.
To make the University of Bombay a teaching University I would first of all proceed to the constitution of faculties. For this purpose I will take it that my scheme of inter-collegiate teaching between the colleges situated in the City of Bombay is adopted. Under that scheme the several studies pursued in the colleges will naturally have to be grouped into Departments, e.g., Economics. History, Politics, Administration, Law, Literature, Languages, Chemistry, Physics, etc. It will be admitted that students are receiving at a University their final systematic preparation for one or other of the several occupations of life for which a University education is necessary at any rate, the most advantageous preliminary.
To succeed in this it is necessary to group together certain branches of knowledge which students pursue. Not only do the needs of students require such a grouping but the needs of the teachers point in the same direction, for it is obvious that certain studies have a closer relation between them and there is a greater similarity in the point of view from which they are approached. These forces emanating from the teachers and the taught have