Careers360 World-class universities: What can India learn? | Page 8

Competence is an enemy of creativity,
universities in India are producing
competent, not creative people
materials etc., which are not available
elsewhere.

work, so one needs to keep an eye that.
Unless a great work is not done no need
to worry. I feel competence is an enemy
of creativity. There are many universities, colleges and schools in our country which are producing competent
people. These schools are focused
on getting high percentage to students, not creativity. These are the
schools which are draining away
India’s creativity.

Q. Do you agree that universities
should be autonomous, ?
A. They should be, I feel all academic work has to be autonomous,
people should be free to ask any
question, should be able to think on
anything deeply, even though there
are areas where universities need to
collaborate.
There have been several experiments
when steps were taken to bring people
from different areas at one place and at
the same time ensuring that academic
and other autonomy is maintained. It is
not possible to do at one particular university in India, either because of lack
of physical resource or due to lack of
intellectual resource or due to funding.
The other problem with universities
is that they are controlled by different
types of people with different agendas.
The problem with laboratories in India
is that a battery of bureaucracy gets
formed; you have a director, a deputy
director and so on.
So I mean to say that if people are given
autonomy it does not mean that they do
not work or will not work, they work,
they do things on their own. Nobody
should think that if a university has been
formed it will do all sorts of work, it will
do things itself, let it grow on its own and
do new things.
University should be place where people should enjoy working; there should
be an atmosphere where they should
work on their own, not under some pressure or control.

Q. Top Universities produce heavily,
their per faculty output is around

University should be place where
people should enjoy working; there
should be an atmosphere where
they should work on their own, not
under some pressure or control.
All academic work has to be
autonomous, people should be
free to ask any questions, should
be able to think on anything deeply,
though there are areas where
universities need to collaborate
3.1 per faculty. Very few in India can
match that, even if they do, they are
miniscule in numbers, you opinion
on it?

A. I do not think we should worry about
it. It also has to be seen that the best of
the places do not publish too much, they
have competition among themselves,
they have to get money to publish. Many
a times they publish enormous amount
of work, competent work but not great
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