Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai (TISS), has been enduring a fund crunch crisis for the past few years. As the situation worsened and student protests ensued in 2018, the worst affected were not just the beneficiaries of scholarships and fee waivers. The teaching faculty and the student body at large are all suffering as a consequence of the delayed release of grants, withdrawal of the Tata trust funds and a progressive reduction in maintenance grants to TISS by the University Grants Commission.
The cause of the protests last year was the withdrawal of financial aid to the SC/ST students applying through the Government of India-Post Matric Scholarship and drastic changes in the fees structure for post-graduate students. Both of these factors have resulted in a decline in enrolment of GoI-PMS students.
In order to investigate the financial health and prospects of the institute, an official but not unbiased committee was set up, which did not have any student representative on board and comprised of people from the administration and the faculty itself.
As per this committee’s recommendations, which were reviewed by TISS Director Shalini Bharat herself, the institute required differential fees structures for marginalised students, financial aid for needy students through CSR funding etc.
In an interview in October last year, the Director also posed alternate solutions such as self-financed courses, seeking support from alumni, initiation of revenue-generating programmes, etc. However, presently, the financial situation at TISS has not improved. Now, it has been suggested that teachers must become self-sustainable by taking up more research work.
As per the latest annual report of TISS, the institute has several ongoing profitable projects which generate revenue for the institute. Still, the burden of carrying these projects alongside their responsibility to teach falls on the faculty.
What is more worrisome for the teaching staff is that contractual (ad-hoc) teachers have not yet received extensions on their contracts and the few who have, have only gotten extensions up to a year. There is speculation regarding the future of certain programs as well.
While their official statement is that no more courses are to be scrapped despite the fund crunch, there has been speculation regarding the fate of several socially relevant programs like Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policies, Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies and the Nodal Centre for Excellence under the scheme of Human Rights in the last year. TISS Hyderabad officially declared the closure of its popular Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences programme in November 2018, which resulted in protests from students and faculty alike.
According to Jit Hazarika, president of TISS’ student union, the application of these courses has a unique social significance, of which we are now deprived. Furthermore, the shutdown has greatly impacted the morale of current and past students who are now seeking employment.
While the programmes for social sciences are in jeopardy, TISS has continued to expand. New centres and technical courses, for instance, diplomas in statistics and management studies, which charge exorbitant fees (up to ₹4 lakhs) are being introduced. Expansion at this rate in light of the funding crisis begs the question of sustainability and accessibility.
If the teaching staff cannot find or create avenues to make their programs self-sustaining, and if the fees are to be kept at a minimum to ensure inclusivity, how can TISS function in the long run without unfairly burdening its employees and prospective students?
Moreover, the mistrust between the administration and the students has only been exacerbated by the shutdowns of social sciences’ courses and opening up of new, extremely technical programmes. In response to the student union’s demands for greater transparency during the 2018 protests, student representatives were allowed into the Social Protection Office (now the SC/ST cell and Equal Opportunity Cell).
Two programme officers were hired, and their responsibility was to liaison with the student body, administration and state structures on scholarship-related issues in an attempt to maintain transparency.
The TISS SU president, Jit Hazarika, says, “All requests for sharing of data regarding enrolment of SC/ST students and amount of expenditures incurred for maintenance of infrastructure by the SU have been declined. Although the administration maintains that the institute is running in deficit, according to our own calculations, we do not believe this can be the case unless the accounts are made public.”
“The programme officers,” Hazarika adds, “who were intended to be representatives of the students’ interests, have now become extensions of the administration that pays and appoints them. As they are not accountable to the students, their role is mainly clerical and their posts nominal. The SU representatives within the concerned cells are not consulted, and there persists a gap in communication.”
On the issue of the fund crunch crisis, Hazarika further comments, “There is a lack of transparency and accountability in the institute with regard to decision making. Whereas the funds’ reduction from the UGC and the Tata trusts is a serious concern, this cannot be a reason to withdraw all responsibility to sustain the programmes that have strong social value. It is pertinent to seek the central university status for TISS since the administration is unable to mobilise adequate funding for its various programmes. This would also bring relief to the students from the exorbitant fee structure.”