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The World-Class University Discourse: Disentangling the Conflict Between Efficiency and World Class-Ness

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The Future of Higher Education in India

Abstract

The discourse of world class universities has very recently swept the Indian higher education policy, a concept which has been burgeoning globally for quite some time now. A world-class university is the one which is held to be amongst the best in the world; it is ideally premised on academic freedom and displays high-quality output. What underlies this quest for achieving world-class status is competitiveness amongst the universities, inside the country and also with universities globally. There is always a comparison between universities and thus the ranking discourse is rendered legitimacy.

The paper tries to address two related and consecutive objectives. The first is to understand the concept (and nature) of competition as would ensue between universities in applying for world-class status. The competition would exclude many universities not well equipped. With competition being restricted to only a few universities, the second objective would be to look at what kind of efficient practices pertaining to dynamic efficiency, internal efficiency and allocative efficiency would possibly take place, as the potential universities compete. The paper concludes by highlighting the contradiction between the pursuit of efficiency and academic freedom on the one hand and quality on the other, the two crucial pillars for a university to emerge as world class.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Section “What is a world-class university?” discusses in detail the features of a world-class university.

  2. 2.

    As cited in Shattock (2017)

  3. 3.

    https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/education/six-universities-granted-institute-of-eminence-status/article24370554.ece

  4. 4.

    Until 2016, any university which scored between 3.01 and 4 used to get an A grade. Since 2016, this range has been divided into three: A++ for a score between 3.51 and 4, A+ for a score between 3.26 and 3.50 and A for a score between 3.01 and 3.25.

  5. 5.

    New Public Management is a management practice which is premised on marketisation, privatisation, performance based accountability, managerialism and contractual relations.

  6. 6.

    While the 90% weightage is given to indicators directly related to research outcomes, the remaining 10% is given to the indicator ‘Per Capita Academic Performance’, which is calculated by dividing the weighted scores of all other indicators by the number of full-time equivalent academic staff. This indicator also, therefore, depends on the research performance of the university.

  7. 7.

    The extent of publicness or privateness

  8. 8.

    There are specific indicators to this effect in NIRF and QS ranking.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics and Public Policy, School of Management and Entrepreneurship, Shiv Nadar University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Aishna Sharma

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  1. Aishna Sharma
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Higher and Professional Education, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), New Delhi, Delhi, India

    Sudhanshu Bhushan

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Sharma, A. (2019). The World-Class University Discourse: Disentangling the Conflict Between Efficiency and World Class-Ness. In: Bhushan, S. (eds) The Future of Higher Education in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9061-7_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9061-7_6

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