4 July 2023 : Indian Express
Indian Express
4-July–2023
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1. THE BUBBLE OF EXCELLENCE
Syllabus – GS III
Context – The QS World University Ranking 2024 was released on June 27. Universities took nine out of the top ten US and European spots.
India and concern
- As for Indian institutions, after eight years, IIT-Bombay finally cut the top 150 universities list, ranking at 149. This is being celebrated in India as a milestone for our education system.
- But what the narrative ignores is the fact that such lists do not purely rank institutions on merit. A considerable degree of bias is involved, leading to a perpetuation of the status quo. This is because the rankings provided are based majorly on the competence and prominence of their researchers.
- The ranking criteria comprise the following nine indicators: Academic Reputation (30 per cent), Employer Reputation (15 per cent), Faculty Student Ratio (10 per cent), Citations per Faculty (20 per cent), International Faculty Ratio (5 per cent), International Student Ratio (5percent), International Research Network (5 per cent), Employment Outcomes (5 per cent) and Sustainability (5per cent).
- Consider the caste-wise distribution of India’s population. According to most estimates, eighty per cent of the country comes from Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) or OBC communities, while only about 20 per cent are “upper” caste.
- Yet, as per a report in Nature, 98 per cent of professors and 90 per cent of assistant or associate professors are from the “upper” castes in IISc, IIT Delhi, Bombay, Kanpur and Kharagpur. This reveals a jarring gap in representation.
- The knowledge base and perspective of only 20 per cent of the population occupies at least 90per cent of the space in the field. When we put this in the context of the survey, it is clear that if academics from IIT Bombay respond to the Academic Reputation survey, they will most likely name peers from similar institutions conducting prominent research and are most widely cited.
- Unfortunately, that category includes only a marginal number of researchers from lower caste backgrounds, even if we go by the faculty demographic of the institutions mentioned above.
- Given that the percentage of professors from the Dalit Bahujan Adivasi (DBA) community is as little as two per cent in such spaces, where is the representation of their work? Where will their work be cited? Moreover, the number of citations is a strong indicator of legitimacy.
- This translates citations into material benefits such as promotions and salaries. And so if there is no representation, there will be even lesser engagement—ultimately depriving those less prominent of their citational value, regardless of the merit of their work.
- This system reinforces the same patterns, keeping the knowledge and experience of the majority in this country unexplored or invisible. In addition, it maintains the elitism of a field that is opaque, and the gate keeps these spaces based on the “merit” argument — which, in turn, is decided by the same people.
- The cyclical nature of this perpetuates the status quo and ensures that institutions remain ivory towers that are both inaccessible and unassailable. THEN, the QS World Ranking of institutions is part of the structure that perpetuates global pedagogic inequalities.
2. UNSEEN & UNHEARD
Syllabus – GS II
Context – The police killing of a 17-year-old, and ensuing riots in France, underline Emmanuel Macron’s failure to address political fault lines.
Riots and Macron
Nahel was shot by a police officer during a traffic stop; the incident was caught on camera.
But as violence erupted in the suburbs around Paris and spread across the country, it is becoming increasingly clear that the brutal visuals of Nahel’s death were a catalyst. It is the political failure of President Emmanuel Macron, his government, and perhaps the political class as a whole that the episode has underlined.
- Since he took office in 2017, Macron’s presidency has been rocked by protests. The most significant among these was the Gilet Jaune (Yellow Vest) movement against rising prices and what was perceived as tax breaks for the rich.
- Then, earlier this year, a politically embattled Macron’s pushing of pension reforms —which raised the working age from 62 to 64 — led to nationwide strikes.
- For a long, the French idea of citizenship retained a progressive core. Yet, the fundamental promise of liberty, equality and fraternity at the heart of national identity has been unable to adapt to the idea that the French citizen is increasingly multi-lingual or, as someone whose community has faced the brutality of colonialism, has a different relationship with the state and its symbol.
Steps to be taken
A democracy as mature as France needs a better way to deal with protests than deploying over 45,000 police personnel and arresting over 3,000 citizens. It needs to find a politics that allows the disenfranchised –whether they trace their ancestry to the former colonies and live in cities or are farmers and workers fearful of change — to feel seen and heard.
For Enquiry
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