The Modern Review/Volume 29/Number 4/University Finance
University Finance.
The Catholic Herald of India writes
Had the members of the Bengal Council, before debating on the Dacca University Budget, read Professor J. Sarkar’s article on University Problems in the January issue of the Modern Review, it is likely they would have clipped the Dacca grant without any scruple. The fact is, our Indian Universities are heading straight for bankruptcy, for the simple reason that every University wants to teach every possible knowledge under the sun, and shine in these as well as in a few others, an ambition that stretches them consideiably beyond their financial compass. That is how we find in the Calcutta University classes of ten graduates lectured by twelve experts. Only recently, one of Oxford’s foremost scholars threw up the work in despair, because his post-graduate students didn’t understand a word of what he said.
It may be a good joke for universities enjoying big Government grants to outbid one another in the matter of the salaries offered to professors— we see Dacca would pay a maximum of Rs 1800 per mensem and Lucknow a minimum of Rs 1000 (according to an advertisement in the Bengalee)—but these and other high salaries are to be thought of in connection with the chronic starvation of the large numbers of Indian taxpayers, students and their guardians, for it is they who must pay. These salaries are much too high for a poor country like India. In Japan, which is a richer country, the President of an Imperial university gets a maximum salary of 7000 yen, equivalent to Rs 10500, per annum. Here in Bengal, Dacca pays its Vice-Chancellor Rs 48,000 per annum, with free residence! In a free self-ruling India, the people are sure to insist that no officer in any province should draw more than Rs 1000 per mensem. If the prime minister of Japan can do his work on Rs 18750 per annum, other ministers on Rs 12000 per annum, the highest judicial officer on Rs 9000 per annum, and Imperial University Presidents on Rs 10500 per annum, we do not see why any Indian university should pay its professors more than Rs 12000 per annum. It may be argued that eminent scholars and experts cannot be had for such a salary. If that be so, we do not want them. Let us first have village teachers for our illiterate population number 94 per cent, of the whole. But as a matter of fact we know good scholars and experts can be had for Rs 12000 per annum, if they are sought in the open scholastic market. The Vice-Chancellor and Principal gets in the University of Edinburgh £1610 (=Rs 24150), in Aberdeen £1500 (=Rs 22500) and in Glasglow £2000 (= Rs 30000), but the Dacca Vice-Chancellor gets Rs 48,000 per annum and a residence. We know he must be paid some thing extra for serving in a foreign country. But does that mean that he must get twice or almost twice as much as the Scottish officers of similar rank, who are presumably not scholars of inferior stamp?