Our Hierarchical Universities

Our Hierarchical Universities Sudhir Chandra DISCONTENT is mounting among lecturers, who constitute the majority of university teachers, against the existing three tier academic hierarchy. It is also shared by a number of people occupying the middle berth. Not all the causes of this discontent 'are strictly academic. But it derives chiefly from a frustratingly long experience of the systematic abuse of the existing structure for personal and group interests. It is no exaggeration to maintain that only in rare cases are appointments to higher posts made on merit. Various extraneous considerations play the key role in these appointments. This is an alarming situation. It fosters academic politics, and for purposes of professional advancement renders virtually irrelevant the acquisition of intellectual excellence. It induces the growth of camp-followers and time-servers, and inhibits scholars and thinkers And the irony is that this system is maintained ostensibly for encouraging teachers to take to reading and research; its abolition is resisted on the ground that but for its rewards and punishments teachers would not read and write. To this we shall return later. Let us meanwhile cast a quick glance at the academic class war that the academic hierarchy has deepened.