A touch on a trigger of a loaded machine gun can cause death. Likewise touching what Allah Ta’ala has forbidden can cause destruction in this world and Hereafter. Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) is reported to have said: “It is better that a steel nail be driven into your head than for you to touch a woman who is not permissible for you (Baihaqi).” Subhanallah! A steel nail in one’s head!!! This hadith most eloquently highlights the extreme danger of touching a non-mahram (one with whom nikah is permissible). Just as a steel nail in one’s head can cause death, an illegitimate touch can cause destruction in both worlds. Another narration states that the person who touches a woman who is not legitimate for him will have a burning coal placed in his hand on the Day of judgement.
The sheer abhorrence and revulsion that Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) wished to instill in the heart of every Believer for the act of touching a non-mahram is expressed in another Hadith, wherein he is reported to have said: “It is better for one of you to collide with a pig covered completely in mud than to rub your shoulder against the shoulder of a woman who is not permissible for you (in a crowd or elsewhere) ( Tabrani).”
While a chaste and Allah-fearing person will not deliberately touch a non-mahram, often due to negligence this crime is committed. Among the more common occasions that this occurs are:
* When giving or receiving money at till points, road tolls, etc.
* In the work place when giving or taking something from a non-mahram
* At social functions, bazaars and other gatherings where intermingling of males and females take place
Hence one should not venture near any mixed gathering if it is not absolutely necessary to go there (such as going to one’s job). If going to such a place is completely unavoidable, one must be extremely careful. Also, respectfully ask for money, items or documents which are being passed over to be kept on the counter, desk, etc, from where one can pick it up without risking an illegitimate touch. May Allah Ta’ala protect us from every haraam, even it be the slightest touch. Aameen.
Source:http://alhaadi.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=955&Itemid=26
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
France: attack on the veil is a huge blunder
Raphael Liogier
After more than six months straining to convince itself of the immense, nationwide danger of a phenomenon that involves fewer than 0.1 per cent of France’s Muslim population, a parliamentary committee yesterday recommended the banning of the full veil in many of France’s public places. There is nothing eccentric about asking why they are getting so bothered.
As usual, when France confronts such debates, a panoply of intellectuals, politicians and artists gasp their indignation over an alleged assault on ‘our values,” wheeling out their rhetorical big guns to denounce the “philosophical scandal” of refusing to show one’s face publicly.
Five justifications
We have been systematically treated to five justifications, all hammered home with the aim of getting the full veil banned for good: the feminist, the theological, the humanistic, the securitarian and, finally, the prophylactic. None of these justifications has been convincing. For a start, the vast majority of women concerned have clearly actively chosen to wear the veil, sometimes in the face of opposition from their family. Moreover, many see their veils as a means of expressing independence, even sometimes as a vehicle of feminine empowerment.
In the 70s, Muslim women who had recently arrived from north Africa were often kept behind suburban doors by the heavyhanded control of their husbands. Sometimes they were forced to wear the veil, but we hardly gave a damn. But, paradoxically, once the veil had emerged as a voluntary item during the 80s, visibly flaunted in the street by a new generation of determined young Frenchwomen, concern began to rise. Pseudo-feminist rhetoric cannot conceal the fact that it is indeed the voluntary veil which is being fought, and not the imposed article. As to the second, theological justification, it is almost laughable to see members of the government and the president himself arguing that such a veil is not truly Muslim, as if more knowledgeable than the Muslims themselves about the orthodox prescriptions of their own lifestyle. A peculiar facet of so-called French secularism sees government ministers assuming the fashionable role of imams.
Others will opine that one cannot be a true citizen if one hides one’s face, because one is thus refusing human interaction. Yet some people wear dark glasses out of shyness or pure obnoxiousness, and nobody would think of denying them their right to humanity. The security-based objection, requiring one to bare one’s face in order to have the right to pick up one’s children from school, for instance, or if so required by a police patrol, is legitimate in the abstract, but only if one conveniently forgets the fact that in practice, the new generation of women — among the many we have surveyed — do not in fact refuse to comply.
It is no coincidence that the debate on French national identity is occurring simultaneously, for they are tactically complementary — picking on Muslim women, or Muslims in general, or all immigrants, as scapegoats, so we can avoid facing our current symbolic crisis. The French are confronted every day with the declining influence of their language, art and cinema — moreover the “grey panther” generation is realising that their own children could not care less, deeply enmeshed as they are in the globalisation of culture.
To compensate for such losses, people over 40 are to be heard chanting mantras about the importance of French universal values and pointing fingers at those guilty of threatening them from inside France. In fact, they are thus digging into a deep narcissistic wound, their helplessness facing globalisation and the waning of the “French exception,” driving them blindly to trash our most sacred fundamental values while pretending to defend them.
Irrational panic
Whatever form the committee’s recommendation takes in law or decree, it will probably not be enforced, but a symbolic gesture, and a symbol of capitulation. The French Republic has become so weak, so morally corrupted, that it is ready to kick over its most cherished principles: liberty, equality, fraternity, on the part of the political elite, out of cynicism and petty tactics; on the part of the general public, out of irrational panic, even hatred for Muslims. The worst about all this fuss is that we are completely off target. Women donning the full veil are not against modernity but represent rather its sophisticated product, just like westernised Buddhists. The veil, surprising as this may seem, is good news for modern values. This deep western social movement is no threat to modern values, but rather vindicates the latter under unexpected aesthetic guise.
It is a massive blunder to fight this new, ultra-modern Islam. And it is not only France that is heading towards a colossal error of understanding, politically capable of spinning into historic proportions, but also Europe, the U.S., and all the other post-industrial countries, blinkered by Islamophobia, who turn out to be incapable of catching up on their own deep cultural changes and recognising their own best interests. It is a kind of collective, generational jet lag.
(Note: Raphael Liogier teaches at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques d’Aix-en-Provence and edits the Observatoire du Religieux www.world-religion-watch.org )
— © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2010
Source:http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/28/stories/2010012854270900.htm
After more than six months straining to convince itself of the immense, nationwide danger of a phenomenon that involves fewer than 0.1 per cent of France’s Muslim population, a parliamentary committee yesterday recommended the banning of the full veil in many of France’s public places. There is nothing eccentric about asking why they are getting so bothered.
As usual, when France confronts such debates, a panoply of intellectuals, politicians and artists gasp their indignation over an alleged assault on ‘our values,” wheeling out their rhetorical big guns to denounce the “philosophical scandal” of refusing to show one’s face publicly.
Five justifications
We have been systematically treated to five justifications, all hammered home with the aim of getting the full veil banned for good: the feminist, the theological, the humanistic, the securitarian and, finally, the prophylactic. None of these justifications has been convincing. For a start, the vast majority of women concerned have clearly actively chosen to wear the veil, sometimes in the face of opposition from their family. Moreover, many see their veils as a means of expressing independence, even sometimes as a vehicle of feminine empowerment.
In the 70s, Muslim women who had recently arrived from north Africa were often kept behind suburban doors by the heavyhanded control of their husbands. Sometimes they were forced to wear the veil, but we hardly gave a damn. But, paradoxically, once the veil had emerged as a voluntary item during the 80s, visibly flaunted in the street by a new generation of determined young Frenchwomen, concern began to rise. Pseudo-feminist rhetoric cannot conceal the fact that it is indeed the voluntary veil which is being fought, and not the imposed article. As to the second, theological justification, it is almost laughable to see members of the government and the president himself arguing that such a veil is not truly Muslim, as if more knowledgeable than the Muslims themselves about the orthodox prescriptions of their own lifestyle. A peculiar facet of so-called French secularism sees government ministers assuming the fashionable role of imams.
Others will opine that one cannot be a true citizen if one hides one’s face, because one is thus refusing human interaction. Yet some people wear dark glasses out of shyness or pure obnoxiousness, and nobody would think of denying them their right to humanity. The security-based objection, requiring one to bare one’s face in order to have the right to pick up one’s children from school, for instance, or if so required by a police patrol, is legitimate in the abstract, but only if one conveniently forgets the fact that in practice, the new generation of women — among the many we have surveyed — do not in fact refuse to comply.
It is no coincidence that the debate on French national identity is occurring simultaneously, for they are tactically complementary — picking on Muslim women, or Muslims in general, or all immigrants, as scapegoats, so we can avoid facing our current symbolic crisis. The French are confronted every day with the declining influence of their language, art and cinema — moreover the “grey panther” generation is realising that their own children could not care less, deeply enmeshed as they are in the globalisation of culture.
To compensate for such losses, people over 40 are to be heard chanting mantras about the importance of French universal values and pointing fingers at those guilty of threatening them from inside France. In fact, they are thus digging into a deep narcissistic wound, their helplessness facing globalisation and the waning of the “French exception,” driving them blindly to trash our most sacred fundamental values while pretending to defend them.
Irrational panic
Whatever form the committee’s recommendation takes in law or decree, it will probably not be enforced, but a symbolic gesture, and a symbol of capitulation. The French Republic has become so weak, so morally corrupted, that it is ready to kick over its most cherished principles: liberty, equality, fraternity, on the part of the political elite, out of cynicism and petty tactics; on the part of the general public, out of irrational panic, even hatred for Muslims. The worst about all this fuss is that we are completely off target. Women donning the full veil are not against modernity but represent rather its sophisticated product, just like westernised Buddhists. The veil, surprising as this may seem, is good news for modern values. This deep western social movement is no threat to modern values, but rather vindicates the latter under unexpected aesthetic guise.
It is a massive blunder to fight this new, ultra-modern Islam. And it is not only France that is heading towards a colossal error of understanding, politically capable of spinning into historic proportions, but also Europe, the U.S., and all the other post-industrial countries, blinkered by Islamophobia, who turn out to be incapable of catching up on their own deep cultural changes and recognising their own best interests. It is a kind of collective, generational jet lag.
(Note: Raphael Liogier teaches at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques d’Aix-en-Provence and edits the Observatoire du Religieux www.world-religion-watch.org )
— © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2010
Source:http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/28/stories/2010012854270900.htm
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
French panel recommends partial burka ban
Lizzy Davies
Committee urges that anyone covering their face be barred from entering public sector property, including hospitals and schools, and using public transport.
France on Tuesday took the first step towards barring Muslim women from wearing the full veil when using public services, but stopped short of calling for an outright ban after critics argued that such a move would be socially divisive and hard to enforce.
A cross-party committee of MPs was set up last year to explore the controversial issue in France of burkas and niqabs. The committee recommended to Parliament that Muslim women should be allowed to carry on covering their faces in the street.
Its final report, however, recommended that anyone covering their face be barred from entering public sector property, including hospitals and schools, or using public transport.
Under the proposals, a woman who fails to remove her veil in such cases would not face a fine for breaking the law but would be refused access to the service. She would not, for instance, be allowed to collect her child benefit payments or take the bus.
Nicolas Sarkozy, who has repeatedly said that the full veil “is not welcome” on French soil, is believed to be in favour of this partial legislation rather than other, more radical suggestions from recalcitrant members of his own Right-wing UMP party.
The French President has been warned that an outright ban on the full veil could be found to be unconstitutional and almost impossible to put into practice. Mr. Sarkozy, who has stressed the need to find a solution in which “no one feels stigmatised”, is also keen to play down speculation that his policies are doing more to aggravate social divisions than bridge them.
Steps to ban the burka, which have been opposed by the Muslim Council of France and other religious groups, have coincided with the French government’s “big debate” on national identity. Critics of the government, from the Left and Right, have accused Mr. Sarkozy of encouraging dangerous rhetoric which has seen the country’s five million Muslims become the object of increasing critiques.
Tuesday’s cross-party report — whose contents were leaked to the French press last week — looks likely to recommend the passing of a non-binding parliamentary resolution setting out the country’s “symbolic” opposition to the full veil.
After that, steps should be taken to vote into law a series of “separate but multiple bans” which would make clear the garment’s practical incompatibility with French values of sexual equality and freedom, the report will say.
“We have to make life impossible for them in order to curb the phenomenon,” one MP told the French daily Le Figaro. However, opponents have said that banning the full veil either outright or partially would serve merely to reinforce the isolation of women already partially alienated from mainstream society.
The 32-member panel, which has been meeting and questioning experts on the issue for the past six months, was set up by Mr. Sarkozy last summer after he declared that the full veil was “a sign of subservience [and] debasement”.
The president of the committee, Communist MP Andre Gerin, has not made any secret of his desire to see a ban on what he has denounced as a “walking prison”. His feelings have tapped into growing concern in France over an item of clothing worn by a small minority of Muslim women. According to police figures, no more than 2,000 women — most of them young and a quarter of them converts — wear a face-covering veil.
In a country which places a high value on laicite — secularism — and which in 2004 banned headscarves in schools, it is unsurprising that such an overt display of religion has raised eyebrows. The major political parties, leading feminists and even one prominent imam have made clear their dislike for the full veil, which they view as an affront to women’s rights and a sign of an emerging strand of fundamentalist Islam.
Despite wide-ranging opposition to the garment and polls showing that a majority of the French public is in favour of a ban, opinions have differed in how to go about discouraging women from covering their faces.
The Socialist party, while condemning the full veil, has refused to support a ban. The UMP’s Jean-Francois Cope, a politician with half an eye on the 2012 presidential elections, grabbed the headlines with a proposal to outlaw the full veil anywhere on French streets and fine wearers €750 each — a suggestion rejected by the committee.
“The problem of public space, by that I mean the street, is very delicate,” said Mr. Gerin last week, explaining why his panel had rejected the option of an outright ban while not ruling it out for the future.
Mr. Cope, he added, was “behaving like a bull in a china shop”.
— © Guardian Newspapers Limited,
Source:http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/27/stories/2010012751110900.htm
Committee urges that anyone covering their face be barred from entering public sector property, including hospitals and schools, and using public transport.
France on Tuesday took the first step towards barring Muslim women from wearing the full veil when using public services, but stopped short of calling for an outright ban after critics argued that such a move would be socially divisive and hard to enforce.
A cross-party committee of MPs was set up last year to explore the controversial issue in France of burkas and niqabs. The committee recommended to Parliament that Muslim women should be allowed to carry on covering their faces in the street.
Its final report, however, recommended that anyone covering their face be barred from entering public sector property, including hospitals and schools, or using public transport.
Under the proposals, a woman who fails to remove her veil in such cases would not face a fine for breaking the law but would be refused access to the service. She would not, for instance, be allowed to collect her child benefit payments or take the bus.
Nicolas Sarkozy, who has repeatedly said that the full veil “is not welcome” on French soil, is believed to be in favour of this partial legislation rather than other, more radical suggestions from recalcitrant members of his own Right-wing UMP party.
The French President has been warned that an outright ban on the full veil could be found to be unconstitutional and almost impossible to put into practice. Mr. Sarkozy, who has stressed the need to find a solution in which “no one feels stigmatised”, is also keen to play down speculation that his policies are doing more to aggravate social divisions than bridge them.
Steps to ban the burka, which have been opposed by the Muslim Council of France and other religious groups, have coincided with the French government’s “big debate” on national identity. Critics of the government, from the Left and Right, have accused Mr. Sarkozy of encouraging dangerous rhetoric which has seen the country’s five million Muslims become the object of increasing critiques.
Tuesday’s cross-party report — whose contents were leaked to the French press last week — looks likely to recommend the passing of a non-binding parliamentary resolution setting out the country’s “symbolic” opposition to the full veil.
After that, steps should be taken to vote into law a series of “separate but multiple bans” which would make clear the garment’s practical incompatibility with French values of sexual equality and freedom, the report will say.
“We have to make life impossible for them in order to curb the phenomenon,” one MP told the French daily Le Figaro. However, opponents have said that banning the full veil either outright or partially would serve merely to reinforce the isolation of women already partially alienated from mainstream society.
The 32-member panel, which has been meeting and questioning experts on the issue for the past six months, was set up by Mr. Sarkozy last summer after he declared that the full veil was “a sign of subservience [and] debasement”.
The president of the committee, Communist MP Andre Gerin, has not made any secret of his desire to see a ban on what he has denounced as a “walking prison”. His feelings have tapped into growing concern in France over an item of clothing worn by a small minority of Muslim women. According to police figures, no more than 2,000 women — most of them young and a quarter of them converts — wear a face-covering veil.
In a country which places a high value on laicite — secularism — and which in 2004 banned headscarves in schools, it is unsurprising that such an overt display of religion has raised eyebrows. The major political parties, leading feminists and even one prominent imam have made clear their dislike for the full veil, which they view as an affront to women’s rights and a sign of an emerging strand of fundamentalist Islam.
Despite wide-ranging opposition to the garment and polls showing that a majority of the French public is in favour of a ban, opinions have differed in how to go about discouraging women from covering their faces.
The Socialist party, while condemning the full veil, has refused to support a ban. The UMP’s Jean-Francois Cope, a politician with half an eye on the 2012 presidential elections, grabbed the headlines with a proposal to outlaw the full veil anywhere on French streets and fine wearers €750 each — a suggestion rejected by the committee.
“The problem of public space, by that I mean the street, is very delicate,” said Mr. Gerin last week, explaining why his panel had rejected the option of an outright ban while not ruling it out for the future.
Mr. Cope, he added, was “behaving like a bull in a china shop”.
— © Guardian Newspapers Limited,
Source:http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/27/stories/2010012751110900.htm
Monday, January 25, 2010
Education options: scope for media role
The Central government revealed, in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court on January 18, that 44 educational institutions in the country had failed to meet the standards and norms set by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to qualify for winning the status of “Deemed-to-be Universities” (DUs). This gave enough indication that these institutions would lose their DU status soon. The government’s statement was based on the findings of a Committee he aded by Professor P.N. Tandon.
Tamil Nadu accounts for about 15 of the affected institutions, including the one founded by a Union Minister. Understandably, the revelation led to agitations by students likely to be affected, in Chennai, Salem, and Thanjavur. There were also some incidents of violence. Not surprisingly, the first State government to come out with a clear stand on what needs to be done is the DMK government of Tamil Nadu. Higher Education Minister K. Ponmudy has gone well beyond welcoming the Central government’s move to propose abolition of the DU system itself. Revealing that Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi wrote to Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal in June 2009 asking that the powers of the State government and the existing universities be protected, Mr. Ponmudy has highlighted several aspects of the abuse of the DU system. Most important, he has reiterated the State government’s assurance that the students of the affected institutions would not suffer “in any manner.”
Need for more in-depth study and coverage
These significant developments have been adequately covered in the print and broadcast media, with some newspapers providing useful editorial analyses and comments as well. But it is clear that this challenging subject, and the key issues of educational standards and quality, and social opportunity, that have come to the fore, need more in-depth study and coverage than they have so far got in the public sphere.
Although the concept of the UGC honouring well-run colleges by extending to them the status of DUs in appreciation of their exemplary achievements in academic and research activities is nearly as old as the Indian Republic, the mushrooming of DUs in some States, particularly Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, is of relatively recent origin. While under the original policy the UGC conferred the status on an educational institution after rigorous assessment, in the latter case the DU status was won by some, if not several, institutions exercising enormous political pressure and resorting to corruption.
About 30 deemed universities function in Tamil Nadu and applications from more are pending with the UGC. Ever since the Central and State governments began, in the 1980s, abandoning their responsibilities in the vital sphere of higher education, Tamil Nadu has become a hunting ground of hyper-profit-seeking private players in higher, and especially professional, education. This has resulted in a serious imbalance, with private institutions far outweighing State-run and State-aided institutions. Of the professional colleges, the imbalance, purely in terms of the number of colleges, is more in the engineering than in the medical field, where there is an acute shortage of seats at the undergraduate and especially post-graduate levels.
There are some excellent-to-good private colleges and deemed universities that specialise in various professional fields and offer new kinds of opportunity to young men and women. Scholarly studies show that aside from the welcome expansion of educational opportunity in the relevant fields, this transformation, which took place over two decades, has contributed to, and indeed enabled, the spectacular development of the software and IT-enabled-services (ITES) sectors in southern India. But these worthy private colleges and universities are swamped by institutions that approach education purely as a business and care little for quality and even minimum standards, especially in terms of the quality of teaching, faculty, and educational infrastructure.
Limitless scope for exploitation
Today Tamil Nadu has 354 engineering colleges, of which 333 are self-financing institutions. Although the highest court of the land has banned the practice of collecting capitation fees, the overwhelming majority of self-financing colleges collect substantial sums from students at the time of their joining the institution (claiming privately that this is an inescapable part of the economics of running professional colleges in the private sector). Thus, in the main, the scope for exploiting young people and their families has become limitless, with the phenomenal rise in the demand for engineers and other professionally qualified people in the IT and ITES sectors.
In a highly competitive market, those with more resources and resourcefulness have succeeded in a big way. In the case of some, a small minority, a sustained commitment to educational values and excellence and a focus on improving performance and benchmarking has made all the difference, winning them an enviable reputation nationally and even abroad. But it is clear that the majority of players have used their clout with the right people to elevate the status of their institutions improperly.
Then came a frenetic rush for winning the status of DU. Apart from being a brand-building exercise, this status would enable these institutions to wriggle out of government controls and supervision by monitoring agencies. Many who managed to win the unmerited status of DU for their institutions became defiant towards overseeing institutions, the UGC and the All-India Council of Technical Education (AICTE). The new status was rarely used to improve the quality of education by enhancing faculty strength and quality, and provide better facilities, academic and otherwise, to the students.
In its affidavit to the apex court, the Central government stated that the 44 institutions, identified for being awarded the DU status, had violated the guidelines prescribed for achieving excellence in teaching and research or innovations, and introduced unrelated degree programmes, thus going beyond the grant of the status. Barring the notable exception of some public-funded institutions, none of the 44 could produce any evidence of quality research, according to the Tandon Committee. It found that many institutions increased their intake disproportionately, and in some cases exponentially in relation to the qualified faculty strength and academic infrastructure. There were also instances where the fees were considerably higher than the ones recommended by the official committees.
The Tandon Committee said that 38 institutions justified their continuance as DUs; 44 were found deficient and had several shortcomings that needed to be corrected over a period of three years; and 44 others simply did not have the attributes to continue as DUs. Another notable finding of the committee was that families rather than professional academics controlled many of these institutions. A newspaper report quoted a member of the committee as saying that some of these institutions had been “atrociously scandalous” in admitting more than 1,500 candidates for Ph.D. studies, with a faculty strength of less than 200! One institution was reported to have opened ‘study centres’ in about 500 places.
The Hindu’s consistent role
While appreciating the editorial of The Hindu (“A step in the right direction” January 21, 2010) and welcoming the government’s move to withdraw the status given to 44 institutions, many readers have referred to the consistent role played by the newspaper against exploitation in the field of education.
“The editorial was timely and served a much-needed cause,” writes Seshadri Ramkumar from Lubbock, Texas. “A good number of institutes that have mushroomed in the recent past have made minimum to nil contribution to research and outreach.” S. Vivekanandan, writing from Madurai, takes exception to the recommendation of the Tandon Committee that 44 deemed universities, found to be deficient, should be given three years to rectify the shortcomings. He feels the move “will seriously jeopardise the ‘Right to Quality Education’ of the stakeholders of higher education.” He wants the government to withdraw the deemed university status conferred on all private institutions. “It is a good sign that the government has not spared even the institutions founded by a Union Minister,” writes K. Raju from Chennai.
As a reader points out, this newspaper has been consistently informing the public through its news coverage of higher education and educating it through competent articles and interviews with experts in the field of education, such as former UGC chairman Yashpal. In fact, several newspapers and magazines, besides some TV channels, have been reporting the hyper-commercialisation of engineering and medical education and the greedy exploitation of the aspirations and dreams of youth. But the message, it is clear, is yet to reach a large section of the people — going by the fact that tens of thousands of parents, in their eagerness to educate their children, are not prepared to resist opting for the third-rate, and even the worst, of the colleges.
Source:http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/25/stories/2010012555600900.htm
Tamil Nadu accounts for about 15 of the affected institutions, including the one founded by a Union Minister. Understandably, the revelation led to agitations by students likely to be affected, in Chennai, Salem, and Thanjavur. There were also some incidents of violence. Not surprisingly, the first State government to come out with a clear stand on what needs to be done is the DMK government of Tamil Nadu. Higher Education Minister K. Ponmudy has gone well beyond welcoming the Central government’s move to propose abolition of the DU system itself. Revealing that Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi wrote to Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal in June 2009 asking that the powers of the State government and the existing universities be protected, Mr. Ponmudy has highlighted several aspects of the abuse of the DU system. Most important, he has reiterated the State government’s assurance that the students of the affected institutions would not suffer “in any manner.”
Need for more in-depth study and coverage
These significant developments have been adequately covered in the print and broadcast media, with some newspapers providing useful editorial analyses and comments as well. But it is clear that this challenging subject, and the key issues of educational standards and quality, and social opportunity, that have come to the fore, need more in-depth study and coverage than they have so far got in the public sphere.
Although the concept of the UGC honouring well-run colleges by extending to them the status of DUs in appreciation of their exemplary achievements in academic and research activities is nearly as old as the Indian Republic, the mushrooming of DUs in some States, particularly Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, is of relatively recent origin. While under the original policy the UGC conferred the status on an educational institution after rigorous assessment, in the latter case the DU status was won by some, if not several, institutions exercising enormous political pressure and resorting to corruption.
About 30 deemed universities function in Tamil Nadu and applications from more are pending with the UGC. Ever since the Central and State governments began, in the 1980s, abandoning their responsibilities in the vital sphere of higher education, Tamil Nadu has become a hunting ground of hyper-profit-seeking private players in higher, and especially professional, education. This has resulted in a serious imbalance, with private institutions far outweighing State-run and State-aided institutions. Of the professional colleges, the imbalance, purely in terms of the number of colleges, is more in the engineering than in the medical field, where there is an acute shortage of seats at the undergraduate and especially post-graduate levels.
There are some excellent-to-good private colleges and deemed universities that specialise in various professional fields and offer new kinds of opportunity to young men and women. Scholarly studies show that aside from the welcome expansion of educational opportunity in the relevant fields, this transformation, which took place over two decades, has contributed to, and indeed enabled, the spectacular development of the software and IT-enabled-services (ITES) sectors in southern India. But these worthy private colleges and universities are swamped by institutions that approach education purely as a business and care little for quality and even minimum standards, especially in terms of the quality of teaching, faculty, and educational infrastructure.
Limitless scope for exploitation
Today Tamil Nadu has 354 engineering colleges, of which 333 are self-financing institutions. Although the highest court of the land has banned the practice of collecting capitation fees, the overwhelming majority of self-financing colleges collect substantial sums from students at the time of their joining the institution (claiming privately that this is an inescapable part of the economics of running professional colleges in the private sector). Thus, in the main, the scope for exploiting young people and their families has become limitless, with the phenomenal rise in the demand for engineers and other professionally qualified people in the IT and ITES sectors.
In a highly competitive market, those with more resources and resourcefulness have succeeded in a big way. In the case of some, a small minority, a sustained commitment to educational values and excellence and a focus on improving performance and benchmarking has made all the difference, winning them an enviable reputation nationally and even abroad. But it is clear that the majority of players have used their clout with the right people to elevate the status of their institutions improperly.
Then came a frenetic rush for winning the status of DU. Apart from being a brand-building exercise, this status would enable these institutions to wriggle out of government controls and supervision by monitoring agencies. Many who managed to win the unmerited status of DU for their institutions became defiant towards overseeing institutions, the UGC and the All-India Council of Technical Education (AICTE). The new status was rarely used to improve the quality of education by enhancing faculty strength and quality, and provide better facilities, academic and otherwise, to the students.
In its affidavit to the apex court, the Central government stated that the 44 institutions, identified for being awarded the DU status, had violated the guidelines prescribed for achieving excellence in teaching and research or innovations, and introduced unrelated degree programmes, thus going beyond the grant of the status. Barring the notable exception of some public-funded institutions, none of the 44 could produce any evidence of quality research, according to the Tandon Committee. It found that many institutions increased their intake disproportionately, and in some cases exponentially in relation to the qualified faculty strength and academic infrastructure. There were also instances where the fees were considerably higher than the ones recommended by the official committees.
The Tandon Committee said that 38 institutions justified their continuance as DUs; 44 were found deficient and had several shortcomings that needed to be corrected over a period of three years; and 44 others simply did not have the attributes to continue as DUs. Another notable finding of the committee was that families rather than professional academics controlled many of these institutions. A newspaper report quoted a member of the committee as saying that some of these institutions had been “atrociously scandalous” in admitting more than 1,500 candidates for Ph.D. studies, with a faculty strength of less than 200! One institution was reported to have opened ‘study centres’ in about 500 places.
The Hindu’s consistent role
While appreciating the editorial of The Hindu (“A step in the right direction” January 21, 2010) and welcoming the government’s move to withdraw the status given to 44 institutions, many readers have referred to the consistent role played by the newspaper against exploitation in the field of education.
“The editorial was timely and served a much-needed cause,” writes Seshadri Ramkumar from Lubbock, Texas. “A good number of institutes that have mushroomed in the recent past have made minimum to nil contribution to research and outreach.” S. Vivekanandan, writing from Madurai, takes exception to the recommendation of the Tandon Committee that 44 deemed universities, found to be deficient, should be given three years to rectify the shortcomings. He feels the move “will seriously jeopardise the ‘Right to Quality Education’ of the stakeholders of higher education.” He wants the government to withdraw the deemed university status conferred on all private institutions. “It is a good sign that the government has not spared even the institutions founded by a Union Minister,” writes K. Raju from Chennai.
As a reader points out, this newspaper has been consistently informing the public through its news coverage of higher education and educating it through competent articles and interviews with experts in the field of education, such as former UGC chairman Yashpal. In fact, several newspapers and magazines, besides some TV channels, have been reporting the hyper-commercialisation of engineering and medical education and the greedy exploitation of the aspirations and dreams of youth. But the message, it is clear, is yet to reach a large section of the people — going by the fact that tens of thousands of parents, in their eagerness to educate their children, are not prepared to resist opting for the third-rate, and even the worst, of the colleges.
Source:http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/25/stories/2010012555600900.htm
A step in the right direction
At last, the Union Human Resource Ministry has decided to act against the Deemed-to-be-Universities (DUs) that have not met the prescribed standards and norms. It has informed the Supreme Court that 44 DUs stand to lose the status in the light of the findings of the committee headed by P.N. Tandon that went into the functioning of the 126 DUs across the country. They were found to suffer from serious deficiencies and aberrations, with many of them being run as family enterprises. In the case of another 44 DUs, which do not face imminent de-recognition, notices will be issued requiring them to rectify the defects perceived in their organisation, infrastructure, or management. Tamil Nadu has the dubious distinction of hosting as many as 16 of the DUs to be divested of the recognition. Many of the delinquent institutions started, initially, as medical or engineering colleges and then launched arts and science colleges to boost their overall student strength and ultimately get the ‘university’ tag of the ‘deemed’ variety. Flawed, if not dubious, management practices and admission of students beyond the limit determined by the norms seem to be the two major factors that invited de-recognition.
HRD Minister Kapil Sibal has held out the assurance that the two lakh students in these DUs will not be adversely affected and they will be able to get their degrees. The Ministry has said these institutions will be re-affiliated to their respective universities. It is for the government to ensure that the transition process is swift and smooth. Ever since Mr. Sibal took over, there have been serious moves to stem the rot in the higher education sector. Over the past decade, there had been a proliferation of deemed universities, mostly in the southern States, thanks to the clamour for the DU tag that gave managements a great deal of functional autonomy. These DUs even succeeded in persuading the government and the University Grants Commission to let them drop the appellation ‘deemed’ and call themselves ‘universities’. Now, the report of the Tandon committee and the United Progressive Government’s favourable response to it hold the promise of a salutary change in the situation. The HRD Ministry needs to go far beyond the de-recognition move and bring about systemic changes in professional education. For instance, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is crying for an overhaul in its functioning, especially in the sanctioning procedures and norms applicable for engineering colleges. On the medical education front, there is a strong and urgent case for expansion so as to keep pace with health care needs of the community.
Source:http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/21/stories/2010012155130800.htm
HRD Minister Kapil Sibal has held out the assurance that the two lakh students in these DUs will not be adversely affected and they will be able to get their degrees. The Ministry has said these institutions will be re-affiliated to their respective universities. It is for the government to ensure that the transition process is swift and smooth. Ever since Mr. Sibal took over, there have been serious moves to stem the rot in the higher education sector. Over the past decade, there had been a proliferation of deemed universities, mostly in the southern States, thanks to the clamour for the DU tag that gave managements a great deal of functional autonomy. These DUs even succeeded in persuading the government and the University Grants Commission to let them drop the appellation ‘deemed’ and call themselves ‘universities’. Now, the report of the Tandon committee and the United Progressive Government’s favourable response to it hold the promise of a salutary change in the situation. The HRD Ministry needs to go far beyond the de-recognition move and bring about systemic changes in professional education. For instance, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is crying for an overhaul in its functioning, especially in the sanctioning procedures and norms applicable for engineering colleges. On the medical education front, there is a strong and urgent case for expansion so as to keep pace with health care needs of the community.
Source:http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/21/stories/2010012155130800.htm
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