A University- like the U.K's University of Law or BPP- may be 'for profit', wholly private, and yet be highly ranked globally in a niche area. This is a fact known to most lawyers. Indeed, there have been Lord Chief Justices who were educated in such for-profit Colleges.
However, C. Raj Kumar, Vee Cee of Jindal and Dean of its Law School, has written an article in the Indian Express which takes a different view.
Truth be told, its substantive content is nugatory but what is startling is that every sentence in it is false, foolish or reveals a startling ignorance of important developments in contemporary jurisprudence. Since the author is a Rhodes Scholar who also attended Harvard, we are led to wonder whether residence in India has a deleterious effect on the ability of such savants to think clearly or to express themselves in a rational manner.
Consider the opening sentence-
Universities are unique social organisations.
Is this true? No it isn't- what's more Indians know this better than most people. The fact is, Universities are similar to a wide variety of places of Higher Education or specialist Vocational Training. A Seminary or a Military Academy or a Law or Medical School may be a University in all but name- or, in Indian Law, be 'deemed' as such. Indeed, some of the most famous Universities in the World started out as Seminaries or Law Schools etc.
They are not corporations,
In Law, a University is a Corporation which has either been incorporated by a specific Act of the Legislature or else has been created under the provisions of an umbrella Statute. Indian linguistic usage has departed somewhat from that of England & Wales. But it remains the case that Indian Universities are 'bodies corporate' by Law established. It is a different matter that, with respect to Indian Corporation tax or the provisions of the Indian Companies Act, 2013, the term 'Corporation' has a restricted meaning- but only in that context. A good lawyer- or competent Law Professor- may write ad captum vulgi, for the general public, but, when doing so, must exercise a high degree of care. Imagine an Indian kid appearing for an interview for admission to a British University. Suppose she says- 'But this University is not a Corporation. The Law says only profit making organizations are Corporations'- she will be considered a dunce. Surely, O.P Jindal students may take higher degrees in England or elsewhere? Why tell them Universities aren't Corporations when they are indeed 'bodies corporate' which, however, under Indian Law, are removed from the remit of the Companies Act?
nor are they think tanks,
they may contain think tanks and, depending on their articles of incorporation- or other regulations- give up all functions save that of a 'think tank'. Thus, Rand Corp could have become a University or a University could have become a Rand Corp without any specific legislative intervention.
research organisations,
If a University grants research degrees, by law, it is a research organization though, by 'common knowledge', it may be anything but if, as often happens, its scholars are of poor quality.
NGOs,
A Public or Private Trust, of a certain description, is an NGO and under Indian Law and can seek to become a University- or be deemed as such- under existing laws in several States. Moreover, a private University which ceases to be recognized as such by the UGC does not thereby lose its original status as an NGO depending on jurisdiction and other relevant regulations.
media organisations,
A University may be a media organisation- it is often a publisher- with little substantive change to its articles of incorporation.
government agencies
They may effectively become so by delegated legislation- or so it may be claimed. This is a justiciable matter.
or civil society organisations.
They may well be considered to be quintessentially 'civil society organisations'.
Universities perform roles that may reflect some intentions and goals of these other entities, but they are sui generis
No they are not. They are either Public or Private Corporations endowed with legal personality by Legislative action. A 'Gurukul' or 'Madrasa' or 'Bible School' may be sui generis- i.e. self created. But it may not have legal personality simply by reason of causing itself to exist.
and uniquely situated in the larger context of the society.
No. A variety of institutions may be deemed to be Universities or may be accepted as being such for various purposes.
In the celebrated work, The Idea of a University, John Henry Newman observed, “…If then a practical end must be assigned to a University course, I say it is that of training good members of society… It is the education which gives [them] a clear, conscious view of their own opinions and judgements, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them…”
Newman was trying to recreate the type of Catholic University which was disappearing in Europe because of the rise of secular studies. However, he gave too much freedom to the students and so his vision was rejected by the Irish Catholic Bishops and the College he mooted developed along conventional, disciplinarian, lines such that both students and faculty, donning the gown, were denied freedoms that prevailed in the town.
One of the greatest challenges that universities around the world face today is in relation to their governance.
Governance is not a 'challenge' unless you are 'challenged' in the exercise of some mental faculty. If so, you should not be put in charge of administering or governing anything at all.
Indian universities are no exception.
Why? It is because they are located in this world- not some other planet.
University governance has become complex
It was always 'complex'. It may have become more so. But the reverse is more likely simply because there are many more Universities and so 'mimetic effects' obtain- i.e. governance is based on best-practice within a widening class of peers.
due to the multifaceted nature of the organisation and the fact that there are social expectations from different stakeholders — faculty, staff, students, parents, accrediting bodies, government departments, regulatory agencies, international partners, and donors.
This multifaceted nature existed ab ovo.
It is in this context that we need to recognise
the bleeding obvious
the role of universities in society and how to govern them in a manner that will fulfil these expectations from a diversified set of stakeholders.
No. Governing a University does not involve recognizing its 'role in Society' or admitting its complicity in Neo-Liberalism or Racism or any such shite. It involves doing better than the Uni which is your closest rival. That's what will prevent stakeholders upping stakes and hooking up with the opposition.
While corporations
Enterprises, not Corporations
have historically played a role in creating wealth and contributing to the economic and social development of a nation, they remain focussed largely on adding value to their shareholders.
The author means 'limited companies', not 'Corporations'. Furthermore, recent changes in Indian Law have restricted the extent to which Indian Companies, above a certain size, can focus on shareholder value.
The social expectations from a corporation are also limited to that objective.
No they are not. A lawyer who said 'such and such action of such and such Company is ultra vires because the Law requires and Society expects it only to focus on shareholder value' would lose his case. There is plenty of case law and, in India, statute law, which shows this simply isn't true.
However, there are new forms of challenges to this paradigm in which corporations are also reimagining their wider role in the society.
Reimagining a paradigm is not a challenge to it. Not having feet is a challenge to a runner. Reimagining prosthetics such that an Oscar Pistorius can run on blades may represent a 'paradigm shift'. However, paradigm shifts can occur endogenously rather than in response to a challenge.
The Global Compact and the UN’s vision for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) encourage businesses to examine their larger role in society.
It encouraged Arif Naqvi to commit fraud- at least, that is why the Yanks are trying to extradite him. There was a time when it seemed a smart move to pretend to be working with the UN to fulfil SDGs- more especially if Bill Gates invested in you- but then Gates pulled the rug from under Abraaj Capital's feet and suddenly the thing didn't seem such a smart idea after all. Naveen Jindal is by no means a fool. He got shot of Miniya Chatterjee fast enough.
Corporations
The author means Business Enterprises which may be Partnerships or Sole Traders or limited Companies of various types.
are founded on the principles of profitability and return on investment.
Public Sector Enterprises and NGO's are founded on Cost-Benefit analysis of an analogous type. If there are no externalities, then the two approaches yield the same result. Under Rational Expectations, there is 'Ricardian Equivalence' between Public or Private initiatives in this regard provided Coasian solutions are permitted. In other words, both Private 'internalization of externalities' and Public interventions can tackle the problem. The question is which approach has the larger deadweight loss. 'Ricardian equivalence' means there is no 'multiplier' effect- i.e. hysteresis does not change the growth path.
The Law & Econ approach of Coase, Posner may be rejected by a particular Law Professor. However, his students should be aware of it- if only in order to dispute it.
This vision of a corporation shapes and impacts a large part of its decisions.
Nonsense! Neither visions, nor dreams, nor revelations, nor ancient Mayan prophesies encoded in the paintings of Leonardo Da fucking Vinci, shape or impact any activity of a commercial type.
The pursuit of profit and the creation of wealth for a society, including the generation of employment are legitimate and useful objectives pursued by corporations.
No. It is illegal for some Corporations to pursue profit. Universities in India are not, speaking generally, permitted to 'pursue profit' for its own sake.
Universities, on the other hand, are founded on the twin principle of creation of knowledge through research and its dissemination by teaching.
This is not the case. Indian Universities may or may not have research facilities. It is sufficient that they disseminate knowledge of a stipulated type.
Regardless of the public or private character of a university, they are universally expected to pursue the vision of a common good.
Universally? Don't be silly. Where in India will you find people who expect Indian Universities to 'pursue the common good'? Most people only attend such places to get a credential which in turn will permit them to either get a job or a 'suitable' marriage partner. The 'signaling' and 'screening' function of sheepskins has been well discussed by Nobel Prize winning Economists since the early Seventies.
Universities are endowed with the responsibility of providing access to education
No. They are expected to actually educate. A Library may provide access to learning.
and are involved in the democratisation of knowledge.
No. Authoritarian States may have excellent Universities. No 'democratization' is involved. However, good primary and secondary education which is free and compulsory could be said to have a 'democratizing' effect. But Universities- even if free to the student- are not compulsory. Even if free, there is a high opportunity cost to attending them. Thus, though Universities may contribute to Social Stratification and Income inequality, they can't be said to 'democratize knowledge' or create a level playing field such that opportunities become more equal.
They provide opportunities for teaching, learning, and research as public service to society, especially to its youth.
A 'public service' is non-excludable- i.e. anyone can avail of it. Universities are selective and provide a 'rival' & 'excludable' service. I suppose we can imagine a completely free on-line University which anyone with an internet connection can access. However, nothing of this type currently exist in India such that the vast majority of its people can avail of its services.
Financial parameters such as turnover, EBITDA margin, sales, market-share and resource-utilisation have temporal dimensions on which the success of a business and the corporation is measured.
Measurement has a temporal dimension because...urm...we exist in Time. What is the point of saying something so obvious? The fact is the success of a business is evaluated in relation to its competition and the opportunity cost of holding its shares. The latter is the only relevant 'financial parameter'.
Even in assessing the social impact of a corporate entity, quantifiable parameters such as money invested in CSR initiatives annually or the reduction in the carbon footprint define the level of success.
No. These 'quantifiable parameters' can be 'gamed'. They are likely to lose all utility and give rise to rents.
However, universities, for the most part, drive individual-specific intangible outcomes of intellectual growth and holistic development, inspiring young people to become transformative leaders, enabling learners to embrace the real world and preparing them for careers that can help society progress.
Sadly, there is little evidence of this. Whereas a degree in certain subjects currently correlates to higher life time earnings, this is seldom the case with a Masters. Most PhDs reduce life-time earnings. The problem becomes worse when we adopt a Cost Benefit approach. In general, even the last two years of a degree program- which prepares you for a Masters- don't raise productivity. They merely enable the capture of a rent which is associated with a deadweight loss.
Who is India believes Rahul's expensive education turned him into a 'transformative leader'? Smriti Irani, on the other hand, doesn't have a College degree. Yet she defeated Rahul in his own ancestral pocket borough.
These functions cannot be measured in quarters, financial years or, for that matter, even in a few years.
Yes they can. Does university education lead to higher productivity- i.e. value added per labour unit- or does it merely overcome information asymmetry or permit the capture of a rent? If so, Universities should be disintermediated.
We need a long-term horizon to understand the pivotal role of universities in accelerating the socio-economic growth of a nation and the vision of building a knowledge society.
This is not the case. Time horizons are irrelevant under Knightian Uncertainty. The 'regret minimizing' strategy accepts that there may be no future time period because an extinction event may supervene. Indian economists- like Sukhamoy Chakroborty- showed that assumptions about 'time horizons' lead to bad economic policies.
The fact is Universities only have a 'pivotal role' in accelerating social-economic growth if they are raising productivity. This can be measured immediately. The vision of building a knowledge society by getting cretins a sheepskin in some mumbo-jumbo has failed all over the world.
Universities work in the realm of ideas
Everybody works in the realm of ideas.
— ideas that can shape the future of our society and the world at large.
It is the ideas of people who aren't wasting their time as pedagogues which shape our society and determine our future.
Many such pursuits of ideas may lead to impactful outcomes only in the long term,
This is irrelevant. Is the 'pursuit' raising productivity now? If not, it won't have any 'impactful outcome' of a positive sort. Universities, like other enterprises of a bureaucratic sort, may say- 'true, we are currently providing you a shitty service. But, long term, you will all have plenty of pie in the sky if you just continue to pay us for our shitty service.'
but it is necessary to pursue those ideas.
No it isn't. Don't pursue shitty ideas.
This is true not only in the case of disciplines such as STEM and medicine, but also in broader areas of humanities and social sciences.
It is not true at all. In STEM subjects we notice that the curriculum changes rapidly as 'open questions' re. the utility of a particular 'idea' are 'closed' such that they are known to be shitty. This also happens in the humanities and social sciences in top institutions which have to compete with each other. Thus, if you go to a top Uni and ask to specialize in shit, you won't get a supervisor. You'll have to go to a shitty Uni where there is some elderly pedant who still believes that crap.
Corporations measure sustainability in terms of profit,
No they don't. Sustainability has to do with the competition in the future.
which requires maximising revenues and minimising costs.
Every type of organization should be trying to minimize Costs and maximize Benefits. Where there is open competition, those who fail to do so will be weeded out.
Marginal revenue and average productivity that can be ascribed to each employee, directly or indirectly, are important indicators of the strength of the workforce.
Every sort of enterprise should be monitoring average and marginal value added by labor.
The steadfast focus is on generating maximum possible revenues with a productive workforce that minimises costs. Universities, on the other hand, are constantly working on improving their faculty-student ratio that reflects the importance of specialised attention to students and the time at the disposal of faculty members to pursue original and impactful research.
Foolish Universities- or those that cater to cretins- may do so. However, if you have bright students, they will only want to sign up for courses given by the brightest scholars. If there are ten thousand people monitoring a particular course- and all ten thousand are the best and brightest- there will be even more value-added because of complex interaction and mimetic effects within the student body. The magic of the Condorcet Jury theorem enables rapid error correction.
It is true that the mentally challenged may need plenty of one-on-one time with an instructor who spoon feeds them. It is also true that a stupid scholar needs time off to do some bogus 'research'. But this is not the case with those who do 'original and impactful research' because there is an immediate productivity gain which changes their transfer earnings. Since leisure is an economic good- at least for the smart- open competition ensures that the best and brightest have a superior teaching/research tradeoff curve.
The author is pretending that Universities deal with homogenous demand and supply curves. Yet, the whole point of 'Higher Education' is that it is meant for those with higher cognitive skills. This means there is a 'Power Law' at the bottom of it. A few will be immensely more productive than the many.
For example, two of the oldest universities in the world, Oxford and Cambridge take pride in the fact that they have a tutorial system of learning and mentoring where faculty and students engage, mostly on a one-on-one basis, discussing the written work of the student in a threadbare manner.
Oxford and Cambridge are highly selective. A tutor may start off with a first year student with no previous knowledge of the subject. By the third year, the tutor is learning from her.
However, elite Universities do have their failures. Would the author's tutor at Oxford not have torn this article of his to shreds? Perhaps. Intellectual affirmative action- or the notion that you can't expect too much from dusky folk- is a poison that must be purged from Higher Education.
The idea of personalised engagement with students across liberal arts colleges in the US or the different forms of faculty mentoring support systems adopted by other leading universities in the world is a natural aspiration for every good university.
The US is very rich. India is very poor. It is foolish to try to imitate a rich country- where smart people want to live- when you are based in a poor country which smart people are struggling to get the fuck away from. There is a good reason most Indian students don't want 'personalized engagement' with faculty. The Professor, more often than not, is more ignorant and bigoted than the sort of student who went to a good school. Also, you don't want to pick up his accent or homely habit of spitting on the floor.
Still, a smart Professor with an unintelligible accent can do a good job of organizing study material and setting appropriate tests. Moreover, in a large enough class, you can find a study group of peers where you can explore recent developments in the field. The whole point of University- as opposed to a Tutorial College- is that you get to learn from other students as smart as yourself- if you are smart. If you aren't, it is good to find this out while you are still young enough to shift from purely academic interests to professional or vocational training.
Having recognised the distinctive roles played by universities and corporations, it is important for universities to reimagine their role and impact in society.
Clearly the author is surrounded by people who don't understand that a University isn't a Business Enterprise. His colleagues say 'what's wrong if I sold the exam papers? Yeh bas ek dandha hai yaar! This is just a business, isn't it?'. The author then has to very patiently explain 'University is not a shop or factory. We are not here simply to make money any how. Please recognize the distinction between a University and a Business Enterprise. Now try to imagine what role a place of learning should play in Society.'
Just exactly how shit are Indian Universities? In particular, is O.P Jindal University really so utterly crap that the Dean of the Law Faculty has to write as follows in a Newspaper?-
We need to make universities, public or private, more committed to their stated mission,
why aren't they already committed to it? What is wrong with the way O.P.J recruits its faculty?
which requires a different paradigm of recognising their contributions to the society.
Guys who teach for a living must have had teachers who had some basic level of professional commitment. Do they really need to be told-
The three ways to accomplish this are promoting excellence in teaching
i.e. don't be shit at teaching. Try to be good at it.
and research,
forget research. First get good at teaching. If you do so, your students will ask you questions whose answers you don't know. Do some research to get those answers. That's it. That's the whole story.
creating favourable regulatory structures
rather than unfavorable ones- why not add 'disposing of feces in a hygienic manner rather than smearing your shit all over the walls'? If the cretins the author is addressing don't get that favorable structures are better than unfavorable ones, then they also need to be told how to wipe their own arses.
and financially empowering universities to fulfil their mission.
as opposed to what? Disempowering them fecally by smearing your shit all over them?
Universities strive to improve their faculty-student ratio,
Bureaucracies, left to themselves, want to grow in manpower while reducing the quantity and quality of the service they provide.
establish more research centres and schools,
Bureaucrats want more offices and Conference centers and so forth.
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":
First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.
The author may well belong to the first sort but what he is advancing here is the agenda of the second sort.
generate more socially relevant knowledge,
Knowledge is either 'socially relevant' or it is mumbo-jumbo. What the author is writing is mumbo-jumbo.
and provide an interdisciplinary learning environment. Universities cannot function within binding organisational structures that breach the very academic freedom and autonomy that drive them.
This is completely false. China and Singapore have been rising up the University League Tables precisely because they are authoritarian. Academic freedom has been useless in India because it has led to the capture of Campuses by Leftists and thugs. The price of autonomy is having to pay your own way.
Corporations can provide resources through CSR initiatives and philanthropic donations for the creation and development of universities.
But those Universities can turn to shit if 'academic freedom' and 'autonomy' take root. Why? Those Campuses will become the target for a 'long march through the Institutions' by crazy nutjobs on the one hand. On the other hand, they will become a place of safety for thugs.
The problem with 'benefit of clergy' and freedom from arrest on medieval campuses was that those places became the haunt of goliards and gangsters. It was only after the State brought the Universities under strict control that they began to contribute to Socio-Economic progress.
While public universities receive government funding, private universities to a large extent depend on private, philanthropic funding.
How stupid are the people this author writes for? Do they really not understand the difference between the public sector and the private sector?
But in both cases, the dependence on financial resources should not weaken the autonomy or independence of the university.
Yes it should. The taxpayer will rebel against financing useless shit. The reason Indian voters in some States don't insist on higher Education and Health spending is because they know the money will be wasted.
This has also been underscored in the National Education Policy 2020.
Why does this Law Professor sound more and more like some third rate Babu? The answer is simple. For Oxbridge and Harvard alumni, residence in India rots the brain. Look at Rahul Baba!
The accountability of a university is to be achieved on the basis of
external audit. Not
its own commitment and capacities to fulfil its stated mission,
If it has both, why bother with 'accountability'?
which in turn must be benchmarked against global standards of quality.
Why babble such obsolete management speak bullshit? Global standards are irrelevant. India should benchmark against similarly placed nations- or, better yet, nations which were even poorer in living memory- and work hard to imitate what made them successful. Why do Indians want to study in Singapore? Why don't Singaporeans want to study in India? India has the absolute and comparative education in Higher Education. What went wrong? We know the answer. Mindless bureaucracy and a type of politicization which soon turned into naked thuggery. But there was a larger problem which has to do with the rapid mental deterioration displayed by Oxbridge or Amrika returned scholars in India. This predates Independence.
The mathematician, D. Kosambi's first boss in India was a 'Senior Wrangler'. However, on returning to India, the fellow gave Maths a wide berth. Remarkably, so did Kosambi- who had a first rate mind. First he grumbled about having to teach Indians- i.e. guys who just wanted a Civil Service job- then, after the Tatas gave him a berth at their Institute of Fundamental Research, he turned Bolshie and started babbling about Bhratrhari and then published silly proofs of the Reimann hypothesis in some journal of Indian agricultural statistics!
It may be that Madras and Calcutta were more hospitable to the mind. But Bose of boson fame turned to a silly type of politics and faded out of Physics. Still, Mahalanobis's Institute of Statistics was first rate. Thus, in the early Fifties, India was exporting Econometricians to the US! Hannan, of Hannan Consistency fame, was taught by Indians! But India stopped making progress in this field and began importing a silly type of methodology only suitable for rich countries.
Why? Indian academics- more especially those with higher degrees from the West- were impatient of Indian conditions. They wanted to reduplicate American excellence without considering that the only way this was affordable was if they were making much bigger proportionate contribution to Indian economic growth. This was eminently doable. Suppose a Friedman type Income-sharing agreement were permitted. Then India would have lots of cheap Medical Colleges of excellent quality. Instead some Indians find it cheaper to study Medicine in China! We have the comparative and the absolute advantage but still we lose out! Why? It is because Indian Universities can't see that they need to pay for themselves not just leech off the tax-payer or wealthy donors.
Consider the Law. India should be taking the lead in the legal equivalent of BPO. Its Law Schools should be laying out a road-map to make Indian Courts better at adjudicating commercial matters. Because this isn't being done, more and more contracts are 'offshored'- i.e. put under another jurisdiction where litigating is more expensive but the outcome is timely and rational.
What is the point of wanting pie in the sky on your plate pronto?
The pursuit of excellence in teaching and research ought to be the most important objective of a university.
It doesn't cost anything to have this objective. Show me the University which says 'our objective to be shit at teaching and rubbish at research'.
The students remain at the centre of institutional governance and all efforts need to be taken with a view to fulfilling their goals and aspirations.
Rational students don't want this. Why? They know there is information asymmetry between them and the learned. That's why they want to study. What they need is a trustworthy faculty which will enable them to change their goals and aspirations in line with the correct economic theory. Thus, my goal of becoming the next Beyonce should be discouraged by my teachers. They should convince me to give up twerking and concentrate on qualifying as a Cost and Management Accountant.
Universities are not comparable to corporations.
Then why waste our time comparing them?
As William Bruce Cameron observed, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
Cameron said, in 1963, It would be nice if all of the data which sociologists require could be enumerated because then we could run them through IBM machines and draw charts as the economists do. However, not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
Since then there have been several revolutions in I.T. My smartphone has more processing power than a mainframe of that vintage.
Lawyers should know that 'Big Data' mining and interpretation can indeed provide clinching arguments in important legal cases. If a matter is justiciable then there is always some quantitative technique which lawyers can use to make their case.
Hopefully, this abysmal article does not reflect the author's own views on the Law or his method of pedagogy. Still, it is a shameful piece of writing. It shows that a 'turnkey' solution- even if we re-import savants of our own race- is untenable so long as 'incentive incompatibility' in this field obtains.
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