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Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses two dimensions of the crises facing the university in India and explores the incarnation of this very crisis in other nations in the Global South.

Paper long abstract:

The decolonisation of higher education is high on the agenda across the former colonised societies of the Global South. This paper addresses three less stressed aspects to decolonisation. The first, of course, relates to the democratisation of higher education, the second relates to issues of connectivity and the third has to do with plurality and diversity. In reimagining the future of the university we need to address issues of democracy, connectivity, plurality and diversity, one could argue across the Global South.

In late 19th century India decolonisation would have connoted the dis-identification with colonial practices and constructions. The modern university system that was first established in India in 1857, started off as an examining body. The demand for a university that emphasised its teaching and research was the first moment of decolonisation. Over a century, what developed in India is a very complex ecology, highly differentiated with the multiplicity of functions, at different levels. The crisis today is whether we are going to separate the teaching functions from research functions? Contemporary thinking on the subject has also been, in a way, driven by certain neoliberal assumptions. Thus one of the crisis posed for the university today is that of the break down of the model of the university of teaching and research. It would be important to compare how this works out in different nations of the Global South.

And finally, the decolonisation of higher education, it cannot mean the indigenisation of higher education, because the system of higher education today, is a globally connected one. Decolonisation is also seen as an opening out into the world, establishing connectivities. Since we have to consider planetary futures and simultaneously manage the task of nation building by producing a cadre of highly trained professionals who can ensure a sustainable future. We have recognised in the light of the pandemic as well as the major climatic changes which have been taking place, that we also have to think about planetary futures, and that when we plan for our education, we are not just planning for the task of nation building, but we are planning for the task of living in a deeply, highly connected world. we have to think then in terms of a cosmopolitics of higher education.