Unhealthy concept: SINP also runs MSc courses

With the backing of senior science policy-makers, some of India’s top research institutions may soon throw themselves open to postgraduate, perhaps even undergraduate, science education. Research laboratories with the original mandate of developing technologies or pursuing basic research are acquiring the status of universities.

Earlier this year, the University Grants Commission granted 10 research centres run by the department of atomic energy the status of deemed universities ? the Homi Bhabha National Institutes. The laboratories under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research may also become deemed universities. An expert panel set up by the principal scientific advisor (PSA) to the Government of India has also recommended that the prestigious Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) accept MSc and, perhaps, BSc students.

The motivation for such proposals is understandable. India needs brand institutions such as the IISc or the TIFR to attract the nation’s best students to science, coaxing them away from what are certainly more lucrative career opportunities in information technology or management or accounting.

Curiosity-driven career vectors may indeed be fostered in research laboratories where students get an opportunity to intermingle with researchers pursuing cutting-edge science and technology.

But the proposals to open such laboratories to science education are also causing justifiable concern among the academic circles.

It is not yet clear how many new deemed universities will offer undergraduate science education, but a member of the PSA expert panel told KnowHOW that some senior faculty members in the IISc have agreed to this concept. If the IISc indeed sets such a precedent, other laboratories may follow suit.

However, allowing plus-two level students to enter laboratories may lead to a concentration of talent in a relatively small group of elite institutions at the expense of the traditional university-based science education system. It is sad that science education in a vast majority of universities, particularly the state universities, has deteriorated to a point where such proposals are seen as solutions to the problem.

The nation’s universities have traditionally served as the primary source of scientific staff in research institutions. The existing science education allows unhindered lateral movement of talent from virtually any university into top laboratories. The new plans will change the scenario overnight. Will it be beneficial to Indian science?

Unless such issues are addressed, the proposals of granting the status of deemed university to laboratories and institutions will merely introduce a caste system in India’s science education.