Mana Prasad Wagley

In a decade, Kathmandu University has been successful in demonstrating itself as an institution producing quality manpower for the country. Nevertheless, the manpower produced by the university has also been drained to other countries. It has, through its affiliating colleges, started producing around 400 medical doctors in a year since last year; the number will increase in the coming years when it starts producing the MBBS graduates from its own constituent medical college.

Similarly, it has been producing management experts; around 40 per cent of the MBA graduates are holding key positions in different business organisations. It has also started imparting skills to the management executives by providing executive MBA courses, which have been considered a successful programme in the business sector. Hundreds of engineers are produced each year in electric, electronic, mechanical and computer sciences. Besides, it produces pharmacists, environmentalists, and educationists. Science, music, social work, and development studies are some other programmes KU is engaged in. All these indicate that KU has been a proven model of a successful university. It also provides lessons to everyone

that team spirit, high commitment and hard labour can make the impossible possible.

Since the very beginning of the establishment of the KU, it focused more on quality education through quality teachers and quality programmes. It has been fortunate that KU has been able to maintain the quality to date at par with the international standard. The evidence of which is the recognition of KU programmes worldwide. The support of different international donor agencies to KU programmes and its associations with big universities around the globe also prove the point. In fact, the country itself should be proud of having such a university where quality higher education has always been an issue.

Let us also analyse the financial pattern of the university. Although the university is established by a group of experts outside the government system, it cannot be considered as a private university. In private organisations, the owners get profit. In KU, the owner is the government itself. The property of KU belongs to the government and the university has no profit motive since it is adopting the principle of cost-recovery while raising students’ fees. It only gets a nominal grant from the University Grants Commission. A country like Nepal cannot afford free higher education for its entire people. It can only help the poor by different scholarship schemes for social justice.

With all these success stories, there are several questions that come up in people’s minds. Some of them are (a) Should there be such an effort to establish other universities? (b) How many such universities will be needed to produce quality manpower required by the country at least for the coming 20 years or so? (c) Who should lead such endeavours? (d) What should be the role of the country in promoting such efforts? (e) Should there be seriousness at high level in this matter? (f) Should educationists and education-friendly people start discussing this issue? (g) Has not it been already late to think of quality higher education for all students in all the institutions?

With all these credits to the KU, it is also essential to discuss the future of KU. Since Dr. Suresh Raj Sharma has been serving the university as Vice Chancellor for the past decade and been appointed again to the same position for the next term, it is not difficult to understand his importance. However, it can be argued that Sharma has done something significant to the country does not necessarily mean that he should be limited to the same for ever. In other words, the intellect and the capacity of Sharma should have been utilised by the country for quality education at the macro level rather than limiting him only to KU.

In this context, limiting him within the KU system would be an injustice to both him and the country as a whole. It can also be argued that there is a bankruptcy of intellectuals in the KU system that can be trusted to lead KU in the absence of Sharma. This also may mean KU and Sharma are synonymous.

If this is so, there is no future for KU and all its quality efforts. The university should take it seriously to groom its future leaders in time so that

possible hazards can be overcome before it is too late. This should already have been there in 10 years of university in operation. Unfortunately, it did not seem so.

This may also raise the question of trusting other people in the system and/or releasing one’s power. This is not only in the case of VC; the same applies to registrar, deans and department heads Unless people are prepared and trusted for leadership, KU can not sustain with the same group of leaders all the time. The VC should prepare a future VC and the registrar a future registrar.

The future VC and registrar should start working with the VC and the registrar immediately if KU wants its future bright.

For this a list of potential candidates from among the staff within the KU system should be identified. Then they should be trained to do so in future

with practical activities associated with the regular university activities. These intellectuals should work as interns for positions like VC, registrar, deans and department heads. Only then can the transition phase of handing over the power and authority become smooth. This applies to other universities as well.

The main anxiety is not the sustainability of KU; it is rather the possible danger of the extinction of a quality higher education model of the country. Otherwise, the leading agency responsible for producing quality manpower for the country will itself suffer badly from quality leaders to run its own system.

Dr Wagley is professor of Education, TU