Editorial 1: Rising STEM research demands revitalised education

Context

With large sums of money being announced for initiatives such as quantum computing, cybersecurity, or artificial intelligence, it is essential to find students who are skilled; it is a struggle now.

Introduction

Higher educational institutions in India face significant challenges. While private engineering colleges, the newer Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and universities have expanded access to education over the last few decades, studies show that a vast majority of students graduating from these colleges lack the basic skills that are required by industry.

Some core concerns

• Research institutes have also voiced concerns about the quality of students who wish to pursue higher studies.
• While industries and premier research institutions have managed with top students from these colleges, there is a problem now.
• Across various sectors, there is a struggle to find students who are skilled, and it is alarming that the number of students pursuing higher education has dwindled.
• At this rate, institutions, which are already grappling with the issue of faculty shortages, will face even greater challenges in the years ahead.
• Large sums of money announced for initiatives such as quantum computing, cybersecurity or artificial intelligence could go underutilised in the absence of qualified talent.
• This widespread problem threatens the socio-economic fabric of the country.

Quality of training is an issue

• The root causeanalysis: lies in the quality of training in teaching institutions.
  • Many faculty members are products of their own institutions and are often pressured to chase papers and patents for their colleges to maintain their rankings, often at the expense of scholarship and pedagogy.
  • This results in poor-quality graduates, with a domino effect on industry standards, research output, and faculty quality.
• Current Solutions and Limitations While upskilling programmes, outreach initiatives, internships and online courses could address the problem to some extent, these efforts are not scalable enough to meet ever-increasing demand for skilled professionals.
  •  This article offers some broad ideas, based on the experiences of the writers, which may be of help.
  • These suggestions call for a rebalancing of current efforts and a more imaginative use of existing resources.

The key statistics and comparisons

• Premier institutes: such as the IITs, the Indian Institutes of Information Technology, the National Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), and other centrally funded institutions recruit about 5% of India’s undergraduate students.
  • For instance, IIT Bhubaneswar admits fewer than 60 students annually for its computer science programme.
  • In comparison, the private KIIT University admits over 2,000 students a year for the same discipline.
  • Similar comparisons can be made between IIT Madras and private institutions such as SRM and VIT.
  • This means almost all the students in the pipeline to industries and research institutions come from colleges where 95% of the students study.
  • The proposals in this article aim to strengthen this pipeline and foster greater collaboration between research institutions and teaching institutions.
• Terminology for Clarity: To make the distinctions clear in this article, institutions with large undergraduate programmes will be referred to as “teaching institutions” and those focused on research (such as premier institutes) as “research institutions,” even though they engage in both teaching and research.
• Alignment with national policies: The ideas in this article are for research institutions, teaching institutions, and the agencies that monitor them — all geared toward improving research, pedagogy, and incentive structures.
  • These proposals echo the objectives of the National Education Policy (NEP) and the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF).

What are the main recommendations?

• The first idea is to stop ranking teaching institutions and their faculty members based heavily on research output, such as papers and patents.
• Given the lack of a robust research environment in many teaching institutions, this emphasis on research output encourages participation in predatory conferences and publications.
• India, unfortunately, is a country with a large presence of predatory outlets.
• As a result, limited resources are diverted from improving pedagogy to producing low-quality research, further degrading student learning outcomes.
• Ranking teaching institutions separately, based more on their teaching quality, could alleviate some of this pressure.

Change focus

• Focus on Pedagogy Over Research: Until the quality of students entering the pipeline improves, faculty at teaching institutions should focus more on pedagogy and less on research.
  • While this may reduce research output in the short term, it will significantly enhance the quality of education and research in the long term.
• Emphasis on Faculty Development: Teaching institutions should lay greater emphasis on
  • faculty development programmes,
  • mentorship,
  • teacher evaluations, and
  • newer courses, online and offline.
• Encouraging collaboration on pedagogy: Collaborations with research institutions on teaching methods and pedagogy should be strongly encouraged.
  • One way to achieve this is by creating a dedicated teaching track within the academic hierarchy at these institutions, such as
    • ‘teaching assistant,
    • associate and
    • full professor’.
• Support for faculty interested in research: Faculty members interested in pursuing research should be encouraged to collaborate with their counterparts in research institutions.
  • Funding agencies can incentivise and mandate such collaborative projects.
  • The ANRF’s Partnerships for Accelerated Innovation and Research (PAIR) programme already calls for such initiatives.
• Criteria for faculty promotion: For this idea to succeed, it is important that faculty promotion criteria in teaching institutions are based on pedagogical skills, assessed through appropriate metrics.
  • This can be incentivised through
    • State and Central government funding to establish centres of excellence in pedagogy, such as centres of excellence in research, and
    • by mandating pedagogical components and inter-institutional collaborations when evaluating grant proposals.

 

Explore joint agreements

• The second idea is for research institutions to establish joint degree agreements with teaching institutions.
• These agreements should be stronger than one-off workshops or outreach programmes.
• For instance, top-performing students at teaching institutions could spend their final two years in research institutions, receiving a “hyphenated degree” bearing the insignia of both institutions.
• To make this feasible, the curricula at teaching institutions must be aligned with those of research institutions, in content and pedagogy.
• Faculty from research institutions can engage with their counterparts in teaching institutions through regular workshops, on-site visits, and hands-on training in the best pedagogical practices.
• Resources must be allocated to support these partnerships as they will help reverse the decline in the quality of teaching in undergraduate-focused institutions.
• This initiative can begin with one research institution partnering with one teaching institution for a couple of degree programmes, and expand gradually.

Way Forward

• Such joint agreements would yield three major benefits:
  • improved student quality in research institutions, enhanced teaching and
  • curriculum quality in teaching institutions, and
  • revitalisation of the teaching institutions themselves.
• Variations of this model already exist on a small scale.
  • For instance, select third-year civil engineering students from NIT Surat spend their final year at IIT Bombay and are automatically admitted to the M.Tech. programme.
  • Similar student-transfer programmes exist between community colleges and research-intensive universities in the United States, significantly improving both access and quality.
  • Many Indian teaching institutions already have agreements with international universities, so there is no reason why such agreements cannot be established in India, and even within the same city.
  • These agreements would not only facilitate student mobility but also promote faculty exchanges between the two types of institutions.

Conclusion

The ideas proposed in this article, which advocate a rebalancing of current efforts, can produce two key outcomes: a much needed refocus on pedagogy that will raise the quality of undergraduate education; and an improvement in research output as a result of less pressure on faculty. These proposals do not require major additional resources, but only a willingness to embrace creative thinking. While science and engineering have been used as examples, the ideas here are equally applicable to fields such as the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Revitalising the country’s teaching institutions is critical to producing a larger, higher-quality talent pool, capable of driving innovative research and scientific discoveries.

Editorial 2: Aadhaar biometric data access will aid forensics

Context

While the Aadhaar Act’s provisions on core biometric information help in protecting privacy, there is a compelling case in re-evaluating these restrictions in specific contexts.

Introduction

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has strict regulations about the disclosure of data in order to protect a person’s right to privacy and ensure that there is no misuse of personal data. In the normal course of events, the police do not have access to either demographic or biometric information in the Aadhaar database. While Section 33(1) of the Aadhaar Act permits the disclosure of certain information under an order of a court not inferior to that of a High Court judge, Section 29(1) and the proviso to Section 33 itself make it very clear that “core biometric information”, which includes fingerprints and iris scans, cannot be shared with anyone for any reason whatsoever.

Upholding rights and the dilemma

• Scientific support for identifying bodies: In cases involving identifying unknown bodies, where access to fingerprint data can offer essential scientific support to an investigation and reinforce the fundamental right to a life with dignity.
• Balancing privacy and Dignity: The dilemma here involves balancing the two components of the right to life i.e., the right to privacy with the right to life with dignity.

What are the judicial rulings on respectful treatment of bodies?

• High Court and Supreme Court Rulings: A number of rulings by High Courts and the Supreme Court of India have highlighted the need for respectful and humane treatment of bodies.
• Examples of Inhumane Practices: For example, courts have addressed issues such as the inhumane practice of keeping a prisoner’s body hanging for an extended period after death during an execution (as outlined in certain prison manuals).
• Repatriation of deceased migrant workers: the need to ensure the respectful repatriation of the bodies of migrant workers who die abroad.

What are the characteristics of deceased individuals who remain unidentified?

• Economic Disadvantage and Migrant Status: There are cases of deceased individuals who are unknown, but investigation by the police later show that they are predominantly from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
• Lack of family connections and access to justice: Many are daily wagers in the informal sector or are migrants moving between districts and States.
  • They also involve individuals who have strained family relationships.
  • These factors, of a lack of close connections, communication breakdown, and unequal access to the criminal justice system, are what frequently result in missing person reports not being filed by family or the next of kin.
• Living conditions and risk factors: These unidentified bodies are either homeless people or those living in makeshift accommodations on highways, victims of hit-and-run accidents without identification documents or mobile phones, or those with mental health issues and travelling to unfamiliar places.
• Victims of Homicide: In some instances, they may be victims of homicide, with the bodies disposed of in remote areas by the perpetrators to escape detection.

What are the standard investigative procedures for unidentified bodies?

• Examination and Documentation: When an unidentified body is discovered, the body is examined, photographed, and distinguishing features such as tattoos, scars, or deformities are noted.
•  Evidence collection and analysis: Investigators collect evidence from the scene, review CCTV footage, analyze phone records, and share information with local police, border districts, and media outlets.
• Cross-Checking with Missing persons reports: Investigators compare the findings against any prior missing person reports.
• Fingerprint collection and matching: Fingerprints are collected from the body and sent to fingerprint bureaus for potential matches with criminal records.
• Importance of fingerprints in identification: The value of fingerprints cannot be overstated.
• Invaluable aid to identification: Even in cases where a body is severely decomposed, fingerprints can still be retrieved by experts — the ridge pattern-bearing skin of the fingertips is retrieved and placed in a solution of formaldehyde.

A limited database

• Restricted to criminal records: fingerprint databases for police investigations are often limited to the records of those with known criminal histories.
• Lack of digitisation in many states: In many States, these records are not yet digitised, making it even more difficult to cross-reference data quickly and efficiently.
• Enhanced identification of unidentified bodies: In these situations, accessing the Aadhaar database would help in the identification of bodies.
• Assisting families with last rites: If a fingerprint search returns a match, the police could potentially identify the individual, and help family members with the last rites.
• Supporting effective investigations: it would also ensure that investigations, especially in cases of homicide, proceed effectively.

What are the legal barriers in Aadhaar Act’s prohibition on biometric Sharing?

• In this scenario, the absolute prohibition in the Aadhaar Act, against sharing core biometric information for any purpose, is a significant challenge.
• In the United States, law enforcement agencies can access advanced identification tools through the Deceased Persons Identification (DPI) Services.
• These services utilise advanced algorithms to match the deceased person’s fingerprints against extensive databases which include those managed by the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense.

Why is there a need for re-evaluation of Aadhaar Act restrictions in specific contexts?

• Balancing privacy and identification needs: While the Aadhaar Act’s provisions on core biometric information serve a crucial role in protecting privacy, there is a compelling case in re-evaluating these restrictions in specific contexts, such as identifying a deceased person.
• Access based on First Information Report (FIR): Providing the police with access to a deceased person’s core biometric information, strictly based on a first information report (FIR), cannot be said to violate any constitutional norms.

Way Forward

Suggested legal mechanism for accessing biometric data

• Verification under Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS): Such disclosure, after verification of the FIR registered regarding the unidentified body under Section 194 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (earlier Section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and which deals with police inquiry when information is received regarding unnatural deaths) should not, ideally, require a High Court order (as required by Section 33 of the Act).
• Jurisdictional magistrate orders as a practical solution: It can be on the order of the jurisdictional judicial magistrate.
  • This reduces the burden on the higher judiciary in handling cases where access does not raise concerns about violations of privacy.
• Ensuring Dignity for Both the living and deceased: Through well-defined and legally sound mechanisms, this approach ensures the dignity of both the living and the deceased.

Conclusion

Tracing the identities of the deceased using all available legal means is not just a practical necessity for law enforcement agencies aiming to uphold public safety or a way to provide closure to grieving families. It is a constitutional imperative. It is rooted in the right to life, which extends beyond mere animalistic existence. The law must safeguard this right for all individuals, particularly for those from poor, marginalised, and socially disadvantaged backgrounds, who already face unequal access to the criminal justice system.