discussion
Social Science Education
and Research
T Krishna Kumar
A case is made out for
streamlining funding for research
towards universities, owing to the
superior quality of work and the
presence of synergies between
academics and research.
As I am dealing with collegiate and higher
education and raising some controversial
issues, I must caution the reader that I am
an econometrician and not an educational
economist. There is my namesake who also
contributes articles to EPW. I might have
compounded the confusion as I did work on
resource allocation problems in universities
more than 35 years ago.
I thank Vinod Vyasulu for comments on a
working draft. I alone am responsible for the
contents of the article.
T Krishna Kumar (tkkumar@gmail.com) is a
member of the guest faculty at IIM, Bangalore.
68
T
he article1 by A Vaidyanathan, the
chairman of the Fourth Review
Committee of Indian Council for
Social Science Research (ICSSR) – RC –
gave an overview of the committee’s
report. A few issues need to be raised re-
garding higher education and research
for a wider debate not only among social
scientists but also among all sections of
the Indian society. While I agree with
some of the recommendations made by
RC, I tend to agree more with some
recommen­dations of the National Knowl-
edge Commission (NKC).2 I refer to some
of the obser­vations and recommendations
of both these bodies and raise a few broad-
er issues on social science education and
research vis-à-vis education and research
in other disciplines.
Narrow Mandate
First of all I would like to recognise that
these two committees of experts had two
entirely different mandates. NKC has
before it a wide scope and mandate. Its
members are drawn from a wide spectrum
of scientists. The RC was given a narrow
mandate that seemed to suggest that
ICSSR as an institution stays in place, and
at best it can be restructured, if nece­ssary.
The first three terms of reference for RC
dealt with ICCSR. Its fourth and last term
of reference stated: “Any other matter
related to the conduct and care of social
science research”. This term of reference,
usually read in conjunction with the earlier
ones, does not give the committee the
option of doing away with ICSSR. Given
this narrow mandate the Vaidyanathan
Committee did an excellent job of
suggesting a few far-reaching reforms
for ICSSR.
If one were to examine the effectiveness
of ICSSR one must ask the following ques-
tion: “How well has ICSSR fulfilled its
inten­ded objective of promoting social
science research that is useful for develop-
ment planning and policy, relative to a
status quo of how the course of that
research would have been if ICSSR were
not there?”
This question, however, cannot be
answered easily as it requires a counter-
factual simulation of how the research in
social sciences would have traced itself
under the two scenarios, one with ICSSR
and the other without it. The information
we have is only how that research pro-
gressed or regressed, with and without
ICSSR, but under different conditions pre-
vailing under the two situations. Although
it is a difficult question, it is an important
one begging for an answer. Similar ques-
tions can be raised with respect to other
such bodies created by the government of
India in its initial tryst with the destiny of
an independent India striving to promote
science, technology, and development at a
very rapid pace.
The other important question to ask is:
After reviewing the contribution made by
ICSSR over three decades, and given the
changing socio-economic scenario, whe­
ther there is still a need to have ICSSR?
These two questions are quite impor-
tant as RC states that the most important
achievement of ICSSR has been creating
and supporting 27 institutes. Whether that
is an achievement in itself or not depends
on the answers to the above questions. RC
states that its survey of articles published
in select social science journals reveals
that 40 per cent of them are from scholars
working in ICSSR institutions and only
one-third are from authors from universi-
ties. The above statement of RC is in con-
junction with the statement by its chair-
man, “that the disappointing performance
of the council is attributable in part to the
sorry state of social science research gen-
erally, and to weakness specific to the
council. Government and public agencies,
which have been the main source of fund-
ing inde­pendent scholarly research, con-
tinue to be sceptical of its value.” One could
inter­pret this to mean that ICSSR could have
adversely affected the quantity and quality of
social science teaching and research in uni-
versities. If this were in fact true, that
would also explain partly why the research
April 5, 2008  EPW   Economic & Political Weekly

quality at ICSSR institutions itself has gone
down, as they get their research scholars or
faculty from universities.
Fragmented Education
The questions I raised are also important
because it seems to me that one of the
main reasons for some of the concerns and
issues raised by RC is that as a result of
these institutions the community of scien-
tists is fragmented and compartmentalised,
separating teaching and research in social
sciences on one hand, and segregating
social sciences away from other sciences
on the other. Such fragmentation has
pitched one group of scientists against
others in securing funds from the govern-
ment through these funding organisations
in ways unrelated to the relative produc-
tivity of one group of scientists in relation
to the others. The resource allocation is left
to the bureaucrats rather than the academic
community thus eroding autonomy, an issue
raised by RC. Such a resource allo­cation
system, divorced from academic achieve­
ments measured through the accepted norms
of peer review and competition found in
universities, can create inefficiencies in our
system of higher education. I agree with
the following comments made by NKC.
We attempted to create stand-alone research
institutions, pampered with resources, in
the belief that research should be moved
out of universities. In the process, we forgot
an essential principle. There are synergies
between teaching and research that en-
rich each other. And it is universities which
are the natural home for research. What is
more, for universities, research is essential
in the pursuit of academic excellence. It is
time to reverse what has happened in the
past and make universities the hub of re-
search once again.
I would like to add my own additional
and supplemental remarks. The word
pamper used by NKC may be read in this
context of ICSSR in relative terms and in
comparison to the resources made availa-
ble to research carried out in universities.
The justification for creating IITs, IIMs,
and ICSSR institutions seems to be a view
then prevailing that the universities had
organisational structure and bureau­
cracy frozen in time and were not suited
to bring about a rapid change in the
direction of research needed for India’s
rapid economic and technological devel-
opment. If that were the problem, the solu­
tion seems to lie in creating an incentive
Economic & Political Weekly  EPW   April 5, 2008
structure for universities to bring about
such changes through special grants for
deve­loping centres of excellence within
universities than creating new institutions
and giving them a life of their own,
indepen­dent of universities. These views
are based on my experience of working
as a teacher-cum-researcher in sciences
and social sciences on both sides. I worked
as a professor at universities in the US, and
within India at an IIT, an IIM, ISI-Bangalore
campus, and one of the ICSSR institutions.
Universities vs Institutes
When I was at the central university,
Hyderabad, the science faculty expressed
views similar to those of NKC.3 Some
CSIR- supported institutions located in
Hyderabad approached the University of
Hyderabad for recognising those institu-
tions’ senior research staff and their infra-
structure faci­lities for guiding PhD
research in those institutions, with the de-
gree to be awar­ded by the University. The
senti­ment expressed by the faculty then
was quite reflective of what NKC said. Their
res­ponse was on these lines: “When the
govern­ment pampers them with so much
research funds at the expense of not giving
universities the needed research funds,
why should we give them an advantage
that we have and they do not have?” When I
was teaching there in a social science depart­
ment, even to get my research paper typed
for publication, I had to spend from my
pocket and get it done outside the depart-
ment, as the depart­ment had only one
secretary for several productive faculty.
Let me move to the other side and com-
pare this with my experience at one of the
ICSSR institutions, where I was a professor
and a member of the board of governors.
There were more secretaries per faculty,
and in fact some of them did not have
enough work as the faculty there, in my
opinion, produced less research output.
The research fellows, who were later
desig­nated as professors, are paid salaries
as per UGC norms, like the university
faculty. Many of them did not do any
teaching nor did they do research, over
and above the work done by university
faculty, commensurate with more time
devoted for research, even after accoun­
ting for the time spent on sponsored
research projects. In universities the depart­
mental promotions are subject to review
discussion
and scrutiny by academic community of
other disciplines. In ICSSR institutions the
promotions are based on committees with
social scientists alone. I had seen how the
concept of merit promotion was used both
in the central university in Hyderabad and
in the ICSSR institution. Persons with no
teaching experience and no peer-reviewed
research publications of sufficient stand-
ards were promoted to the rank of assis­
tant and even associate professor in the
ICSSR institution. Such a thing cannot hap-
pen in a university, with checks and balan­
ces imposed by the faculty of other disci-
plines. These checks and balances apply, as
ultimately whether one is a science faculty
or a social science faculty, he/she draws the
same UGC scale of pay. While one cannot
compare research in one discipline with
that in another, the standards of rigour for
peer review are the same across disciplines.
Hence a university provides better checks
and balances for maintaining quality.
There is no doubt that different universi-
ties may have diffe­rent quality standards,
but all of them try to maintain the highest
possible standards using checks and bal-
ances based on peer-review norms.
When we have UGC, which also has
inter-university centres, and centres of ex-
cellence scheme, what is the need to have
Council for Science and Industrial Research
(CSIR), All Indian Council of Technical Edu-
cation (AICTE), and ICSSR? Why cannot re-
search funds currently disbursed by CSIR,
AICTE, and ICSSR be channelled through
UGC to universities that reap for­ces of syn-
ergy between teaching and research and
maintain higher quality standards than
non-university institutions? When the uni-
versities can bring about the desirable fea-
tures of exposure to students, and also
competition between students and faculty
of different disciplines, what is the need to
have islands of lower quality institutions?
There is no denying the fact that some of
the CSIR institutes and ICsSR institutes pro-
duce good quality research output. But the
point is that such good research would im-
prove the quality of education in universi-
ties if it takes place there.
Alternative Structure
I suggest an alternative organisational
structure in which whether it is physical,
biological or social sciences there can be
69
discussion

very few governmental institutions that
do research for the government, such as
one at the central government level and
one for a few states. While they can have
a core group of government appointed
research staff, the bulk of them can be
hired on deputation from universities.
These insti­tutions may carry out
time bound policy and defence-related
research for the government. The govern-
ment might consider abolishing CSIR and
ICSSR altogether and merge or integrate
the existing CSIR, and ICSSR institutions
with the local state universities.4
The entire funding for research can be
channelled through a common auto­
nomous national foundation for re-
search in sciences, humanities, techno­
logy, and social sciences. The allocation
between the disciplines can be guided
by peer review process normally
employed by univer­sities in allocating
the resources.
One cannot go back in time to reverse
the decisions but one can learn from his-
tory and make corrections for the future.
In my opinion, creation of IITs, IIMs, CSIR
laboratories and ICSSR institutions was
not the right decision in the first place as
that decision stunted the growth of univer­
sities. Just like the RC there could be re-
views of CSIR and UGC. NKC may examine
all these to get answers to the two main
questions I raised. But having created
them and the main objective of creating
them having been partly achieved, let us
make the best use of their relative success
over universities by making them even
better and integral parts of our university
system. Let us make them technological
and management universities on the
lines of Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon Univer-
sity, etc, on the one hand and Singapore
Management University on the other.5 It is
for similar reasons that NKC recommended
establishment of a National Science and
Social Science Foundation for funding
research to universities and to use UGC
for providing recurring support for the
teaching function.6
The RC made several observations on
the poor quality of social science research
and blamed it on the information tech­
nology industry and other countries that
attract our young social science students.
We hear similar statements made by other
disciplines such as law, physics, chemistry,
mathematics, and statistics. In order to get
at least a few of the brightest students
into the profession, some national level
institutions started four and five-year
bachelor degree programmes for students
graduating from high schools. This kind of
response skirts the basic issue of identi-
fying the causes for the poor quality of
students coming out of our degree
colleges. There are some basic factors,
not all inde­pendent, that determine the
quality of performance of an individual
performer in any activity, whether it is
business, sports, music competitions, and
academic institutions. These are: expo-
sure of the indivi­dual, financial means of
the indivi­dual, innate skills of the
indivi­dual, acquired skills of the individ-
ual, interest of the individual, opportu-
nities provided to the individual, choice
made by the individual, enabling envi-
ronment provided by the institution,
disabling restrictions imposed by the
government and the institution, resour­
ces available for the institution, actual
production technology used by the

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70 April 5, 2008  EPW   Economic & Political Weekly


institution, and competition bet­ween
individuals and institutions.
Concluding Remarks
Education is a graded and a continuous
process. At the stage of entry level degree
course the students do not have adequate
exposure, nor are they given the option
to make the choice of a discipline and the
college. The parents make the choice for
them. There is very little counselling
given to either students or their parents
on making this choice. Quite often this
choice depends on physical access, finan-
cial means, and degree of competition
that exists for various disciplines. Given
the limited opportunities provided by
the educational institutions and the
government, students who choose social
science at this stage are not necessarily
incom­petent, and neither are they of lower
levels in merit. But the poor academic en-
vironment confronting them eventually
turns them out as poor quality social sci-
entists for no fault of theirs. Had there
been better physical and financial access
to them for pursuing professional and
science degree courses, they could have
taken to profe­ssional courses or science.
If they had better social science education
at that level, and at subsequent stages,
they could become good social scientists.
While they are in first degree courses, the
students get exposure to the subjects
taught and also develop some maturity
and independence to make choices further
ahead in life.
Our education system, at such a crucial
stage, is fragmented and each fragmented
part is made to float as a separate island of
a discipline. Each degree college specia­
lises in some discipline and does not pro-
vide its students an exposure to other
disci­plines. This fragmented system also
prevents any competition between stu-
dents of different disciplines. As the tea­
chers in these three- and four-year degree
colleges do not have research experience,
the teaching and the curriculum become
outdated. The situation is made worse by
the universities that have facilities to offer
such opportunities. They shirk from their
responsibilities and do not offer first de-
gree courses under one roof. The entry
level college students do not get in contact
with teachers in universities who subject
Economic & Political Weekly  EPW   April 5, 2008
themselves to academic rigour through
research and peer review. This absence of
undergraduate teaching at the universities
is thus depriving the youngsters a motiva-
tion that such better quality teachers can
provide. The situation is very different in
US and European universities where
univer­sities offer undergraduate (or entry
level collegiate) education.7 In fact some
of the best universities there have very
good undergraduate programmes and
attract and motivate very good students.
That training produces better students and
researchers at graduate and postgraduate
levels. Thus in my opinion the answer to
improving the quality of higher education
and research must start with increasing
opportunities to under­g raduate students
and letting the universities offer under-
graduate instruction in all subjects.
As science and professional students at
the undergraduate level are not exposed
to social science as a discipline, we are
barring entry into social sciences for such
bright students. By isolating the social
science students from science and profe­s­
sional students, and offering them low
quality instruction, we are not providing
opportunities for them to compete with
their peers in other disciplines. Students
who take social science subjects at this
stage are denied opportunities to move on
to other disciplines. Science and profes-
sional students continue to be science and
engineering students, social science stu-
dents continue to remain such and the dif-
ferences between them are accentuated
through isolation, and through a funding
mechanism that has its own pecking
order preferring one discipline over the
other. As per the statistics given by NKC,
this level of education accounts for 85 per
cent higher education. Using ABC Analysis,
maximum impact on higher education,
and social science research included, can
be brought about by reforming this basic
part of our higher education system. NKC
is seized with these issues and it is addre­
ssing them quite well as I can see from
various documents NKC has placed on its
web site and my informal discussions with
some members. It is for these reasons that
NKC made the following recommendations
regarding university education:
(1) There should be 1,500 universities by
2015 enabling the gross enrolment ratio
discussion
to reach 15 per cent. There should be 50
national universities, and these national
universities should undertake undergra­
duate degree programme and the degree
should be granted on the basis of complet-
ing a requisite number of credits, obtained
from different courses.
(2) Every student should be required to
earn a minimum number of credits in his/
her chosen discipline but should have the
freedom to earn the rest from courses in
other disciplines. It is essential to provide
students with choices instead of keeping
them captive.
I focused on only a few issues that I con-
sider to be of great importance. There are
several other issues and recommendations
of the two committees that seem to either
complement or conflict with one another.
There is a need for a wider debate on
these issues.
Notes
1 ‘An Overview’, Economic & Political Weekly,
February 2, 2008, pp 21-24. The full report can
be accessed from the ICSSR web site: http://www.
icssr.org/finalreport.pdf.
2 I am referring to its Report to the Nation 2006. This
can be accessed from its web site: http://know­
ledgecommission.gov.in/reports/report06.asp.
3 One might say that my observations are anecdotal
and hence are selective. These are based on what
one may call a purposive sample rather than a
random sample, but these are unrefutable facts
nevertheless.
4 One of the reasons for low quality of research in
ICSSR institutions, in my opinion, is that there is
very little lateral mobility of researchers between
universities and these institutions. Such a merger
or integration of ICSSR institutions with universi-
ties can resolve this problem.
5 Similarly, there is now a new kind of fragmenta-
tion created through specialised univer­sities such
as law universities, health univer­sities, and
technological universities. The reason for establish-
ing them is the perceived low quality of universi-
ties. Let us reverse the trend by strengthening the
universities and merging these special universi-
ties with the main older universities.
6 This might imply that ICSSR, CSIR, AICTE, etc,
should cease to exist for funding research.
7 My son who enrolled as a student for a BS degree
course in communication engineering at Duke
University had taken courses in subjects other
than engineering, developed interest in Public
Policy and Law. Ultimately after an MS degree in
engineering he did a law degree and became a
lawyer. When I was teaching at the School of Man-
agement of Arizona State University I had a stu-
dent in the MBA class who had his BS degree in
aerospace engineering, followed by a dental de-
gree. There are several such cases in US. I myself
went to US with master degrees in mathematics and
statistics but enrolled directly for PhD in econom-
ics as I worked as a research assistant for an eco-
nomics professor. Such opportunities and expo-
sure do not exist for students in India. At the time
of my appointment as professor of economics at
University of Hyderabad, the then head of the eco-
nomics department raised an objection stating
that my basic degree was not in economics and
hence I was not qualified for professorship in eco-
nomics as per the advertisement issued by that
university for the post.
71