Attempts to decentralise India’s universities have created a backlash over privatisation and raised questions about what autonomy means in practice.

The University Grants Commission has awarded graded autonomy to eight new institutions, including the University of Delhi, one of the largest in the country, six years after first introducing the concept and granting it to 60 providers.

The decision is in line with the country’s National Education Policy, which sets out plans to move away from firm central control – which can equate to slow decision-making and a lack of agility – to a system of “light but tight” regulation, with institutions governed by independent boards with “academic and administrative autonomy”.

Depending on which category they fall into, autonomous institutions are free to hire foreign faculty, set student fees and launch new courses, so long as they are able to finance them via tuition fees rather than requiring additional government funding.

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Students and teachers at Delhi have criticised the policy for enabling the commercialisation of higher education via self-financing courses, warning that students will be left paying higher fees and staff receiving lower wages. 

“Such a step is against the interest of sections of the society that are socially and economically deprived because it doesn’t provide them equal opportunity,” said the Delhi University Teachers’ Association in a letter to the university’s vice-chancellor.

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Narender Thakur, an associate professor of economics at Delhi, told ̽����Ƶ that greater autonomy would increase the “intervention” of private players in India’s higher education system, such as banks offering student loans, and exclude “disadvantaged castes”.

But this level of administrative freedom was a far cry from real autonomy for universities when it came to managing their finances and governance, according to Soumya Mishra, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Southern California’s Pullias Center for Higher Education.

“The money that they get in many ways still comes with strings attached,” she said, with central and state leaders dictating key budget areas such as staff salaries for government-funded courses.

The culture at Indian universities might also hamper attempts to make meaningful change, with the appointment of university leaders often a highly political process. This can lead to poor governance and little motivation to drive decentralisation, Dr Mishra argued.

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“You have a system that does not have people in place who can actually use the autonomy,” said Dr Mishra. “Even if you give them the autonomy, they’re going to be unwilling to use it.”

There is also little information available about what has happened to the first tranche of institutions granted autonomy and whether the policy has led to improvements in areas such as research output or student graduation rates – important data to collect if the government is to continue rolling out autonomy.

“In the future we might be dealing with institutions that are very different in quality,” said Dr Mishra. “While getting category one or two autonomy is a great step, the government needs to invest in strengthening internal governance and accountability systems, especially at state universities, if this policy is expected to have any real positive effect on academic and research outcomes at the universities.”

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com