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48 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Sir, that this waste will take place with regard to any other subject that the University might appropriate to itself as a subject for post-graduate research, for the simple reason that our colleges are, so to say, pocket universities in themselves. Each college is teaching almost every conceivable subject, and it has upon its collegiate staff, professors who teach all subjects which are laid down for the University examinations. That being so if the University establishes separate professors for post-graduate work there is bound to be duplication and waste in addition to the several disadvantages which I have mentioned in the earlier part of my speech. I therefore submit, Sir, that if the object of the bill is to promote higher education and research, the best method would be not to separate the colleges from the University as has been done now but to make a synthesis in which the University and the colleges would be partners on terms of equality and would be participating in promoting together, both the undergraduate and the post-graduate studies. Sir, what I have stated I must say is really not mine. It is what was recommended by the Sadler Commission which analysed a similar problem which faced the University of Calcutta. There is no doubt about it that the Sadler Commission was one of the most expert Commissions that could possibly be had in this country. I do not personally understand how, for instance, this Government can strut about with a report brought about by men who were absolutely inexpert in their job and pit it against the elaborate and considered judgment of experts who sat upon the Sadler Commission.
I have read with great care the report prepared by the University Committee for the reorganisation of the University of Bombay. But I have found nothing in it which can lead me to alter my opinion* that the recommendations of the Sadler Commission will be far more effective and beneficial than the recommendations of the Bombay University Committee. I, therefore, think that it would be far better if my honourable friend the Minister for Education could still in some way, either by introducing provisions in this bill itself or by giving powers to the Senate in the matter of making regulations, allow the University to localise teaching by giving greater control over colleges which may be called “constituent colleges” situated in geographically compact centres. The committee has, I think, admitted that Poona is a place which is ripe for establishing a separate university. There is no doubt that Bombay itself is ripe to have a separate university for itself and I think that if the colleges located in these two centres were separated and grouped into a university, we would be solving the problem of the promotion of higher education and research. As regards mofussil colleges which are scattered about in the Presidency we can very easily deal with them by adopting the suggestion of the Sadler Commission which recommended the establishment of a “Mofussil Board.” I say that
*Dr. Ambedkar’s written evidence to the Bombay University Reforms Committee is printed as Appendix III.