Are State universities meant to drive market demand courses?

Hyderabad: Are State universities private limited companies and foreign franchise outlets? Are taxpayer-funded public universities meant to build knowledge capita or go for creating market demand-driven human capital alone?

All these questions are coming to fore following the Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE) appointing a vice-chancellors' committee to identify and introduce new courses at under-graduate and post-graduate levels. as also to review syllabuses of various existing courses.

The much talked about courses around which a wow factor is woven include public policy, global management, data science and business analytics.

Speaking to The Hans India, former vice-chancellor of a State university from Telangana said, "several courses like public policy, global management and the like are not really, new courses. For example, the usage of public policy existed way back a little earlier around the 1960s. Courses like data science, business analytics and artificial intelligence and the like also have decades of existence in the academic world."

Since a discipline and course have not been taught in a college and university here in our universities and elsewhere in the country, do not make them new course-disciplines.

Further, universities are meant to create knowledge capital. The value addition given by keeping the industrial and societal needs makes them both knowledge and job-oriented.

But, entirely tilting courses in the name of market orientation runs the risk of tens and thousands of students holding degrees rendering jobless. Secondly, how can any committee decide on introduction of new courses within a month without going through the demand forecasting at the State level. Telangana is one of the top five States contributing to the national GDP, India is emerging as the fifth-largest economy in the world. What could be the possible intake of students completing the new course degrees in various national geographies in the international markets given tens and thousands of young people who might come out of colleges and universities holding new courses and degrees every year into the market?

Lastly, how can a committee decide the fate of thousands of students without taking the stakeholders: students, faculty, and experts into confidence and consider their suggestions and objections?