IGNOU indeed posed a terrible policy mismatch. On one hand, the university encourages social correction by encouraging incarcerated and wayward (prostitutes) people to take to education and return to mainstream of life, grants admission to retired and old people to self-education for a placid quality life thereafter, on the other hand it closes such world-class programmes as Community Colleges and Gyandeep.

By closing the community colleges, IGNOU indeed indirectly denied the right to good life to those who could not carry out their basic education in their formative period. This unfortunate people had to yoke into bread-winning vocations for their family and dependents, but also harbour a cherished dream to return into a placid educated life as they grow old. This community of people is not protected by any government pension, so have to live on their own earning all life.

By closing Gyandeep, IGNOU indeed showed its flawed vision and caused a similar unconstitutional flutter to another large community, the retiring soldiers, who though protected by a fat pension, lose grand social status in absence of equally good job for want of a quality educational certificate.

Thus by closing the community colleges and Gyandeep IGNOU indirectly created socially unprotected communities pitted at the mercy of the people at large.

Technically IGNOU is a great applied philosophy for improving the gross enrollment ratio (GER) in quality education in India. During the five-year tenure of vice chancellor Professor VNR Pillai IGNOU’s enrollment reached over 45 lakh and outreached over 30 countries. IGNOU tied up with over 45 foreign universities world over, expanded into all continents, and grew to become the second largest university of the world, only to the Chinese Open University.

Contrast this profile of IGNOU in the GER-driven educational situation with percentage-driven GER in regular government universities. Even if we ignore the count of money-spinner private universities of India, the contribution of the Indian universities to quality education and GER is not at all encouraging. Indian universities rank below 150th in the world ranking of universities, both in quality and vision.

The cases of the government universities are even pathetic. Most of them admit students passed their 10+2 exams with very high percentage: in Delhi University, it is between 90% to 100%, who are already highly meritorious. In private universities, it is with a percentage lower than these but with such high premium standard as would be unreachable by majority of middle-class or low middle-class families.

Such exclusive admission leaves their teachers with the least tension and glory for good work, because students are already highly intelligent.

Comparatively, when an IGNOU or a open university student successfully competes the civil services, or NET tests or wins quality foreign scholarships, the credit goes to the academic counsellors of IGNOU and the open universities, because they successfully groom up such students who passed their +2 or graduation with 40% to 60% marks in aggregate. These cases are also plenty in IGNOU’s records.

However, India’s paranoid snob education evaluators, mostly ensconced in cushy positions of conventional government universities, do not acknowledge such grand records of IGNOU. Because this calls their bluff of quality in education.

Amid such a dichotomy of policy and vision about national education in India and its practice is tormented another unprotected community, the senior citizens. Especially those among them who served all their life in private organizations, were wantonly kept on very low growth yardstick all their service life as is the wont of majority of private firms, and are not protected by a pension.

These people are unfortunate because even when the government comes out with some so-called pension, which actually is as good as a dole to beggars, is contested by some over-zealous private companies. If careful evaluation be made, such private firms would be found to have faced in their corporate innings a long tradition of unionism and labour unrest because of their anti-labour-maximum-profit policies.

In fact, Indian labour movements under the AITUC, CITU, BMS, etc. prospered in India from 1950s till the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission for Central Government employees in early 2000s only because of these maverick entrepreneurial maladies in India.

IGNOU and open universities also aimed to create opportunities for this community of senior citizens to educate and contribute to the society by earning credibility for self-sustenance.
That way the senior citizens would not be a burden on the society, nor onto their children. Most of them are, first, family-discard, then, social-discard, albeit the fact that India has laws to protect and respect them. These laws are generally not implemented or practiced at homes.

Our education policy-makers have also drawn blank about this aspect. If a senior citizen aims to join higher education, then try to get enrollment in MPhil and PhD programmes in regular universities, s/he would be discarded even after qualifying academically and merit-wise in the university system.

In advanced countries, especially in the USA, Europe and China people enrolling for their MPhil/PhD at a senior age is a natural welcome scenario. In India, such efforts are not technically denied, but socially ignored. Seldom a university in Delhi would want to accommodate the senior citizens for their MPhil/PhD. In greater India there are universities with very sympathetic academic councils, but these are highly dormant and seldom known.

Given opportunities to enroll for their higher education leading to their NET, MPhil/PhDs, a senior citizen would be self-dependent and stop becoming a burden to his/her family and the society.

Not only that, given development of her/his intellectual maturity, s/he would also contribute to the society faster than a young PhD degree holder, by getting invited as a guest lecturer, doing regular academic research and writing books for the rest of her/his life and thus staying fit.

She would be a source of hope and wisdom for her/his family and the society.

Is it not possible? Do we not want a socio-economic ethos in this line? It is time India’s education outlook had broad, liberal and cosmopolitan outlook. (IPA Service)