Autonomy and the University: critical remarks

by Sivamohan Sumathy-2022/06/21

 In a brief span of two months, we have seen a massive overturning of our political perceptions. Anger at the Rajapaksa regime was building over a long time, but it was the shortages and the long queues, the failed crops after the fertilizer ban, and prior to that women protesting micro finance loans, lock down protests against layoffs, that was the tipping point. People poured into the streets, even as property became the street. Protests had as their baseline, a simple call – GOTA (the President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa) go home, leave office. Underlying this simple call is a multitude of demands, while at times contradicting one another, congealing on one demand; accountability, participation in governance, an economy for the people – in other words, a systemic change.

While we may ask Gotabaya Rajapaksa to go home, and ask for the Executive Presidency to be abolished, questions raised at the system, need to look closer to home too. Here, I mean the University and the university system. The University itself may not be run in the highly centralised fashion of the Executive Presidency, but the twin imperatives of economic policies and centralised forms of governance shape the hierarchies and educational sphere of the university. While individual universities are direct state entities, UGC as an APEX administrative body has a lot to say in the running of the university. A centralized form of governance has seeped into all walks of academic and administrative matters in the university. Structures of governance have been de facto centralized, taking power away from the academic and employees of the institution. Losing our independence in policy, we have lost confidence in our own work, in our degrees and have become apologists for what we do. We have become subservient to the dicta of the state, channelled through the UGC. We have had to prove our worth through spurious criteria like Sri Lanka Qualification Framework (SLQF) and their likes. Defunding of higher education has brought in a crisis to the university system too. Within the University of course there is a history of resistance to the encroaching hand of the state and its debilitating funding manoeuvres. Many of us have repeatedly called for the independence of the university – Autonomy. In these troubled times, when the country as a whole is on the verge of collapse, we may want to examine what Autonomy could mean today. Do we have the luxury of autonomy, at a time like this, when it’s starkly visible that we are so very integrally connected to the everyday of life of the country at large?

 

Rethinking Autonomy

Autonomy can be thought of in two ways. First, the university as an independent entity that has sole control over its administration and academic matters. Second, autonomy as a cardinal principle underlying democracy and democratization of university structures. It is this second sense of the term I will elaborate upon and reconceptualize. Autonomy is a function of democracy and is also a process, a movement, mobilizing university communities from the very bottom to the top, in furthering the principles of social justice. The idea of autonomy being a movement means that it is a dynamic process and has to be located in the context in which it functions. Autonomy in the second sense means maintaining the independence of the university from the top down directivess of those in governance and their undemocratic actions. It cannot be an abstract notion or principles. It has to be actualized as a struggle and participatory feature in which the many communities of the university involve. Merely talking about autonomy has little significance if what we mean by autonomy is not about making our academic and pedagogical objective inclusive and socially relevant.

Structurally, this can be understood through the following sets of relationships:

The University and the state

The University, structures and relations with its own members and communities

The University and the international and the global

The University and the people at large.

The above classification is for the purposes of analysis only and the four aspects are intertwined. In the exploration below I focus only on three of the four aspects, the relations between the state, the university and its structures and the relations between the university and the people at large.

The State and the University: in our quest for autonomy, we have to turn our lens upon the state to understand the overall operation of power, politics, hegemonic authority and money. The state remains the major funding source for the university; and through policy it shapes the mandates of the university. Funding and policy have a symbiotic relationship here and in turn restricts autonomy as a democratizing movement initiated and implemented by and at the lowest levels of university hierarchy. The state also intervenes in the workings of the university, through what has been identified as politicization. Politicization takes place through appointments, perks, and other kinds of advantageous treatment of those in positions of power. It has to noted here that the idea of autonomy of the university has had especial significance for those in the system in recent years as politicization, it is assumed, is at a peak, and has to be curbed. Politicization has relevance largely in the areas of finances, recruitment, and in political victimization/-favouritism. At the structural level, the state aggressively intervenes through Quality Assurance Programs, and the shaping of curriculum and policy tied to funding and the threat of defunding.

 

The University, its members and communities

The internal relationships among constituent members of the university are our locus of interest here. This relation [u3]is expressed structurally, through certain formal and informal arrangements of hierarchy; and through bodies of governance and participation. The latter: bodies of governance and participation are: Faculty Boards, the Senate, Councils, Unions, other associations, Departments, Postgraduate Institutes, centers like the Center for Distance and Continuous Education, advisory committees, sub committees, Student Unions and other student bodies. Another facet that expresses this relation is the sphere of pedagogical and academic imperatives- the curriculum, lectures, examinations, marks, grades, extra-curricular activities, are sites of pedagogical interaction that shape the relationship among members of the university, particularly those between students and teachers.

University structure is arranged hierarchically, with the council at the top of the apex.

 

Yet, this hierarchical structure has a certain level of participation by the many layers of the staff and students. While there is room for improvement, the biggest concern is that of the informal networks of power and hierarchy that act in tandem with the structural hierarchies.

It is important to look at how the structures of governance can be further democratized, bestowing a good measure of autonomy on the individual. Any movement for autonomy should devote itself to challenging the hierarchies, discriminatory and disempowering practices, harassment, and attend to gender, sex, class and ethnic identifications and discriminations.

 

The Flipside of Autonomy

Autonomy can be a double-edged sword. Autonomy can mean that the government and state agencies are able to wash their hands of ‘providing for’, asking universities to self-finance education. Autonomy is understood as financial autonomy and that is how state agencies often understand the word. Related to the above, the UGC and other state agencies can dictate to us as to what our curriculum should be, what should be emphasized in our teaching and research and where universities should be headed. This impinges on relations within the university, as, funding imperatives, cost cutting moves, devaluing standards, and defunding certain programmes, creates tension among departments and academics within the university. Some programmes are perceived to be more viable commercially. Within the public good that university education is, structures that promote privatization exist, such as fee levying study programmes. For instance, a body that caters to distance education, bringing in enormous amounts of revenue for the University, in turn, acts as a model for other faculties and departments to emulate. Remuneration rendered for services in these programmes are attractive and creates desires and ambitions among the staff for such independences. Autonomy is a tendentious, spurious ethical principle.

Conclusion

Maybe, it is not autonomy one needs to foreground, but democratization of the structures, where productive dialogue can take place between the people and the University community. This will happen through channels that take economic democratization and political democratization as key concerns. Autonomy needs to be rethought as forging links and greater integration with the rest of the people through points of pedagogy, research, policy and dialogue. In doing so, we can retain our independence as educational institutions and reinvest in our education, not through SLQF, but as service, contribution, critical intervention and through concern for ourselves, our wellbeing and the wellbeing of the country.

(Sivamohan Sumathy is attached to the Dept. of English, University of Peradeniya)

Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.