Telangana Assembly special session on OU needed

Osmania University in its hundredth year stands in a new born state of Telangana more as wilting old banyan tree. More than 700 hundred faculty positions are vacant and many departments which had a prestigious past are at the verge of closure.

In 1952 in the then Hyderabad state Legislative assembly there was a lengthy discussion on the status and the need to improve the University. The current Government of Telangana did not take this centenary as an opportunity to discuss the problems facing the university thread bare in a special session of the Assembly or through wider consultation with academicians.

The down word slide of the university had a history of more than four decades. Probably the process got accentuated when the university is seen as a site of recruitment of revolutionary young people for a rebellion in the hinterland by Political Left forces and not as an intellectual space to connect the regional reality of deprivation with rigorous academic enquiry.

The situation was further muddied by the politics of the Political Right wing forces that had blessings of the powerful people in the establishment designed as Nationalist antidote to the Revolutionary left. The democratic electoral process was stalled in 1980s showing external political influence as a problem.

Instead of searching for an alternative democratic mode to form a legitimate student body the authorities closed the option all tighter. This step led to proliferation of organizations and their big brother attitude on campus. It closed the legitimate link between the democratic student representation and the university authorities. Organizational politics then on undermined the academic issues.

The era of identity politics unleashed in 1990s could not do any damage control but accentuated fragmentation of student body further. On the other hand from mid nineteen eighties university gradually started losing its autonomy as successive state governments started appointing persons in their good books (with very rare exceptions) in the office of Vice Chancellor.

The Executive Councils were filled with political appointees. This affected the recruitment adversely, nonacademic considerations like party, group and caste loyalties crept in to the process of recruitment and gradually the recruitments stopped happening.

The internal maladies and dis functioning compounded by the adverse policy environment led to the current crisis of the university.

University students played an important role in formation of Telangana state with many hopes of revival of the university. There is an urgent need to student union elections in the university in the lines suggested by the 2006, J.M.Lyngdogh Committee on student union elections.

It will cleanse the university from factional politics and will create a genuine students body working as a channel of communication with university and also with the government. The long standing demand of providing 3000 Rupees scholarship for the postgraduate students, 8000 rupees to the research scholars has to be taken up with all seriousness.

This scholarship can be linked with the performance of the students and has a possibility to enhance the quality of learning and research.

Next in priority is the filling of allteaching vacancies with keeping equity and efficiency in mind as there is no dearth of talent from hitherto socially and educationally backward sections of society also.Academic excellence has to be given top most priority in these appointments.

As the university was envisaged to be a cosmopolitan space there must be efforts to bring in 15 % to 20% of the faculty must be recruited from outside the Telugu speaking lands. Rigorous periodic evaluation of the teaching faculty has to be put in place so that redundancy and lethargy does not take roots.

There is an immediate need to improve English and other foreign language learning facilities to each needy and interested student of the university. This measure helps the students to improve their communication skills and also to think about developing linkages with academic world outside the university in the current era of fast and effective communication. With spending minimum resources university can reap rich dividends in this area.

This will also help the native young learners to interact more with number of foreign students coming from Middle East and Africa. In the wake of influx of foreign students there is an urgent need to improve standards of learning so that the reputation of the university gets buoyance.

Otherwise the university will acquire an infamy of being an easy going mediocre center, certificate providing center in overseas. The library facilities have to be improved drastically. There is a need to run libraries round the clock and open up the library facilities with some payment to interested academicians who are not on roles of the university.

The constituent undergraduate colleges of the university which cater as feeder channels to it have to be improved on war footing. Recruitment of faculty in those colleges has to be taken up as priority. In turn the University departments must forge closer association with these colleges and work closely in improving teaching and develop research skills there.

Executive council has to be constituted with people concerned with academic and have positive reputation in the area of learning and industry and social action. Autonomy of the university has to be restored.

There is a need for providing one time centenary grant of Rupees 500 corers to the university. Telangana government must take this centenary as an opportunity and call for a more informed debate on all-round development of this great seat of learning which is currently facing serious geriatric disorders.

By: Dr H Vageeshan
Writer is Assistant Professor in Political Science NALSAR University of Law