What is ‘excellence’ in science education?

The Ministry of Human Resources Development selected six educational institutions as Institutes of Eminence (IoEs) last year. It recommends increasing this number to thirty. They will enjoy greater autonomy and additional financial resources (for government ones) to improve their global rankings.

Autonomy and financial resources are only two of the conditions required for optimal functioning of educational institutions. Some characteristics of autonomy such as ability to grant degrees, freedom to choose research topics, design courses and curricula already exist in elite institutions. The real challenge is creating a Kaizen ecosystem that will continuously improve teaching and research quality.

The present UGC guidelines focus on obvious inputs such as faculty-student ratios, laboratory facilities and libraries. These are of secondary importance. How do we determine the minimal requirements of a flourishing ecosystem that will improve the functioning of these institutes?

One place to start is with the published diagnoses of the state of science and technology education in the country. This author has looked at a sample of studies by nine investigators since 1960. They have ferreted out many factors they claim have hindered the achievement of high-quality results. The list is long enough to induce paralytic despair. How can we prune this list to make it more manageable?

In 1902 and 1930, Ross and Raman were awarded Nobel Prizes for scientific work done in India. After Independence many Indians have continued to excel, but mostly outside the country. Between 1968 and 2009, Khorana, Chandrasekhar, Sen, and Ramakrishnan received Nobels for work done overseas. Both Indian-origin Fields Medal winners have done their mathematics outside India. These observations help us prune the list.

Because Indians have excelled when placed in more demanding ecosystems outside the country, we can eliminate factors such as lack of originality, curiosity, courage, diligence, or intelligence.

Similarly, because we did excel prior to Independence within the country, we can eliminate factors that have not changed much between the two periods such as our other-worldliness, civilisational continuity and complacency, oral tradition, caste system, algoristic thinking, paucity of resources, and the tendency to simultaneously accommodate conflicting views.

Science values many of the same things we value in life such as honesty, fairness, openness, and respect for others. These values have become a part of scientific culture because they were found to be beneficial. Some values in science such as doubt and hunger for opposing points of view conflict with prevailing Indian socio-cultural traits.

The path ahead

This author identifies seven additional factors that are essential for a well-functioning scientific ecosystem.

Primacy of ideas : Scientific culture gives primacy to ideas. There is a continual questioning of assumptions and authorities. Indian culture is marked by an easy acceptance of assumptions, and by deference to age and hierarchy. Respect should be bi-directional and does not imply subservience.

Peer-reviews : The second condition is to have peer-review as a systemic element. We should be able to critique the work of our colleagues. Unfortunately, years of being polite about the work of our colleagues have made us almost incapable of judging quality. As a result, some of us seek approbation from outside our institutions.

Discussing research with colleagues : Sixty years ago, Haldane perceptively commented upon our tendency to discuss only non-professional matters with our colleagues. This seems just as true today. This partly stems from low self-assurance and partly from a fear that half-baked ideas may be stolen. The mark of a flourishing ecosystem is colleagues discussing work with peers over tea, coffee, lunch, in corridors.

Integrity and ethical behaviour : As science is largely publicly funded, maintaining trust is of paramount importance. Scientific misconduct, such as plagiarism, falsification, and fabrication will destroy a scientific career when charges are proved, especially of junior colleagues. Careful peer-review can minimise but not eliminate such conduct. Cover-up of misconduct, misallocation and misappropriation of credit, and reprisals against whistle-blowers are other serious deviations.

Improved teaching : The next element is to strive for a healthy connection between research and teaching. Faculty should be able to convey some of the excitement of their research to improve their teaching. Teaching should not be left only to those who no longer conduct research.

Merit-based personnel policies : Another critical requirement is merit-based recruitment, retention and promotion. For retention and promotion, performance has to replace policies based on seniority. This is easier said than done and there is no substitute for professional judgment in addition to the objective criteria that exist to assess performance. Strictness either in recruitment or in granting tenure will ensure long-term quality. We recall what mathematician Andre Weil once said: “First-rate people attract other first-rate people, but second-rate people tend to hire third- raters, and third-rate people hire fifth-raters”.

Capable leadership : The final requirement is for knowledgeable leadership that nurtures new generations of talent. That there is little nurturing is borne out by the fact that small productive groups under a charismatic leader invariably disintegrate after his demise. Administrative positions are coveted because of their prestige.

Andre Weil has this advice for directors: “If he is genuinely interested in building and maintaining a high quality institute, then he must not grant complete self-determination to a second-rate department; he must, instead, use his administrative powers to intervene and set things right.”

While reasonable people will differ about the relative importance of factors listed here, it seems to me that progress has to be made simultaneously on all of them. Getting most of them right is not good enough.

Once institutions create thriving ecosystems that enable superior performance, rankings will continually improve of their own accord. This is a long-term endeavour. But the UGC is unrealistic that “world-class Teaching and Research Institutions will emerge” in 5-15 years. Even in the US, there has been no comparably successful research universities since Stanford, Chicago, and Caltech were founded in 1890s. Discoveries in science are elusive and hard-won. Not having conducive ecosystems in place makes them equally harder.

The writer is an independent researcher based in Bengaluru.