Objectives of Higher Education in India

Abstract

REFERENCE was made in NATURE of May 6, p. 757, to an article in The Mahratta about a proposal for the establisliment by the Bombay Government of a Deccan College Institute for higher education in mathematics, philosophy, English, philology, Indian languages, history and economics. The paragraph in question concluded: “In view of the growth of unemployment among the educated classes . . . the comment suggests itself: higher education for what?” The writer of the article has taken exception to these words as implying “a desire to restrict the functions of universities to utilitarian subjects only”. They were, in fact, meant to call to mind the danger of promoting educational undertakings without a clear sense of direction and purpose. The whole subject of the unemployment of university graduates is dealt with by W. M. Kotschnig in his “Unemployment in the Learned Professions” (Oxford University Press, 1937). In his survey of the problem in India, he points out that unemployment is worst amongst graduates in liberal arts courses and that this is traceable to a wrong emphasis in education, too much stress being laid on higher literary and theoretical studies. A proposal to establish a new college previding liberal arts courses for graduates appears to call for an answer to the question whether these courses are likely to qualify not merely for the conferment of higher degrees but also for careers which are not already overerowded.