A roundtable on Friday highlighted once more the ailments that the country's public universities have been suffering from. Obviously, a major ailment is the increasing level of politicisation that has undermined the functioning of the universities. The political activities of students together with the involvement of teachers, or a major section of them, in partisan politics has seriously affected the academic atmosphere of the universities. The hallowed places of learning that our universities once were are today in more ways than one a battlefield where the focus is by and large on the propagation of some political programme or the other.

Increasing politicisation has led to conditions where less than competent teachers are appointed to the various departments in the universities. Moreover, the clear political division among teachers along the lines of so-called blue, white and pink panels has demonstrated patently the fact of how classroom performance by teachers may have suffered through their loyalty to political parties. All of this raises once again the question of whether or not the University Ordinance of 1973 may have had a contribution to the making of the crises we have regularly observed at the universities.

One must, therefore, now tackle the grave matter of what can be done to salvage the universities from their present predicament. Clearly, there are some who wouldlike the 1973 ordinance to go. But such a step would be fraught with risks. And that would be because any move to undermine or push aside the ordinance would put the autonomy of the universities in danger. We believe that our universities must be places where academic and research excellence is promoted, intellectual freedom is unimpaired with all the doors to knowledge flung open and idealism is shaped free from all sorts of political stranglehold.

That implies the creation of conditions where good, foolproof measures are in place on such issues as the appointment of vice chancellors. Additionally, appointments and promotions of faculty have to be made free of political and other such negative influences. In other words, the universities must have an atmosphere where teachers will be solely driven by a sense of academic integrity and act by their conscience while students remain steadfastin their pursuit oflearning.

We are looking forward to internally evolving mechanisms of the universities, rather than externally imposed solutions, to have them operate as respectable institutions of higher learning that are at par with ivy league universities of the world. As such certain modifications in the ordinance without undermining its basic character are in order. In essence, strong safeguards towards keeping politics away from the universities need to be put in place. The bottom line: let us clean up the mess without drilling holesin university autonomy.