Drowning In University Degrees

A decision to allow Indian students to pursue dual degrees has drawn flak by critics, writes Prof. Pushkar.

AsianScientist (Sep. 12, 2013) – A long-standing complaint of many Indian educationists, employers, parents and students is that the country’s higher education system does not allow or facilitate broad-based learning. Loud calls for a more interdisciplinary kind of college education have been made for the past many years.

Students at a typical Indian college or university are admitted to a specific discipline – say biology or sociology – and complete a certain number of courses to earn an undergraduate or graduate degree in that discipline. They are neither required nor permitted to do much more by way of courses outside their discipline except for a very limited number in related subjects.

Partly in response to criticisms that college education is narrow and far too specialized, denying students the freedom to learn from across disciplines, the University of Delhi, one of India’s premier institutions, made the decision earlier this year – an extremely controversial one – to replace its three-year undergraduate degree with a four-year one. Now, students are required to complete a broad range of 11 compulsory “foundation courses” – such as science and life, building mathematical ability, information technology, Indian history and culture, language, literature and creativity – in their first year before they go on to specialize in one discipline. Early reports suggest that the foundation courses, which, according to critics, were rushed through without sufficient deliberation or planning, are not going too well.

Comparisons have been made with the University of Hong Kong, which too introduced the four-year undergraduate degree with 150 “common core” courses fairly recently (in 2012), but after several years of discussion and planning.

More recently, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the leading government organization responsible for the coordination, determination and maintenance of higher education standards in the country, has taken a new initiative to promote broad-based learning and to give students more choice in their education. Students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels will now be allowed to pursue degrees in two disciplines simultaneously. Other than being qualified to be admitted to both disciplines, however, they may pursue the second degree only via distance education.

At first blush, this appears to be a bold decision that will benefit students. As things stand now, hundreds of thousands of students are unable to get admitted to the better colleges in the discipline of their choice. Others have to take up disciplines such as engineering or management because their parents want them to. For such students, the second degree option offers a great opportunity. They can now pursue degrees in the disciplines of their choice in addition to degrees in the disciplines to which they are admitted in college. Further, students pursuing a first degree in disciplines with lower levels of employability can opt for second degrees in disciplines which have greater employability. Thus, under the new scheme, for example, the less employable history or Sanskrit student is allowed to simultaneously pursue a degree in more employable disciplines such as economics or commerce albeit via the distance mode.

Thus, the dual degree provision, it is hoped, will not only help students develop a broader set of skills and knowledge base but also make them more employable. But a big hurdle stands in their way – the poor quality of higher education.

According to a report by Aspiring Minds, 47 percent of graduates are unemployable in any sector of the knowledge economy. What is rather interesting is that over 40 percent of employable graduates are not from the top 30 percent colleges. Evidently, many ‘good’ institutions do not impart the necessary knowledge or skills for employability.

A disturbing finding in the report is that the 40 percent or so employable graduates from the bottom 70 percent colleges who have gained sufficient knowledge and skills despite the poor quality of their institutions have no way to signal to employers that they can do the job, as recruiters do not as a rule bother with second- or third-tier institutions because they perceive degrees from such institutions as quite worthless.

In a scenario where even the better colleges (the top 30 percent) do not provide the kind of education that would make a student more employable; and a good number of employable students come from poor quality educational institutions (the bottom 70 percent) with little capacity to send a signal to employers that they are employable; it seems doubtful that dual degrees, with the second obtained via distance education, whose credibility is at best on par with the bottom 70 percent institutions, will actually improve the employment prospects of those gaining their first degrees from poor quality institutions.

In broad terms, one degree, certainly in employment friendly disciplines such as engineering or management, should suffice for a student who gets to attend a college which has qualified faculty in its ranks and is reasonably well run. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of such institutions. Therefore, many students, even those in ‘professional’ programs, opt for more degrees – whether it is a second bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree in another or the same discipline – not necessarily because they are competing for scarce jobs, but because they hope to catch up somehow on those required skills that are necessary for meaningful employment.

Dual degrees can help a student secure a job sooner rather than later but the key requirement is that the institution at which the student is pursuing the first degree has credibility. If for example, a history student at Delhi’s prestigious Hindu College pursues a second degree in mass communications, she will almost certainly become more employable. On the other hand, an engineering student from Andhi Gali (Blind Alley) College (a fictional institution) will not become more employable by pursuing a second degree in business studies.

As the anthropologist-columnist Sarah Kendzior noted in another context about Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs): “It is not about the degree, but the pedigree.”

Dual degrees may benefit those with the pedigree but will not benefit those who need it more – students pursuing their first degree at poor quality institutions.

One can think hard and long and whichever way possible on the advantages of dual degrees but the answer would be the same: students will not become more employable simply by accumulating another degree. In fact, they are already accumulating degrees, often illegally by pursuing two degrees at the same time, or taking up a second degree after a first. What the dual degree provision will do is save the student time but without changing the outcome in any significant way.

The dual degree provision is an improvisation on both the double major and the double degree systems at Western or Western-style institutions. The distance education clause has been introduced in India because its universities lack the necessary organizational and academic uniformity for the dual degree provision to work. The UGC has been advising universities to switch to the semester system and to make provision for credit transfers across institutions but few have done so or seem likely to in the near future, making it impossible for potential dual degree students to attend two institutions. Other institutions, including many with the ‘university’ label, offer degrees in select disciplines only, typically such as engineering or management that are believed to lead to quick employment after the completion of a degree. Therefore, the student has very limited choice in choosing her second discipline.

In its present form, the dual degree initiative burdens students with the task of obtaining a second degree when they have no access to or possibility of earning a good quality first degree. It will simply lead to a new era of degree accumulation without benefiting students in any substantial manner.

Editor’s note: The author has previously written a different and shorter version of this op-ed for the Indian Express.

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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.

Pushkar is a faculty member at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani-Goa.

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