Politicians should be kept out of academics

BANGALORE: Prof M R Srinivasan, Former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission on Thursday opined that politicians should be kept out of the Syndicate and other academic bodies. He was delivering the 47th annual convocation of the Bangalore University held here on Thursday.Prof Srinivasan is also the Chairman of the Task force on Higher Education that was constituted in 2002 by the State government. He said, “During our work, we noted that universities in Karnataka are enjoying very little autonomy and are subjected to constant political and bureaucratic interference. Thus, depriving the university of initiatives that a visionary Vice-Chancellor might take up in the interest of building up excellence,” he said.Further, Prof Srinivasan said that in their report submitted to the government, they had recommended that politicians should be kept out of the academic bodies including Syndicate.“We also recommended setting up of a State Council for Higher Education, comprising only experts in the field of education. It has emerged as a large body consisting of many bureaucrats. Such a council might improve standardisation and uniformity. But it will not promote innovation or creativity,” he said.Referring to Central College of BU, Prof Srinivasan said that it does not have a regular principal. That is the reason why heads of various departments don’t report to the principal, but to the university authorities. This practice might have been effective when BU was carved out of the old Mysore University, as the VC could directly supervise the activities.“Now, the BU VC has to look after more than 600 affiliated colleges. Central College functioning without a principal would result in the absence of leadership, hampering the future growth of the college. It might also cause hindrance for research activities or creating new centres of excellence,” he said.