How does one do that ? Only if,
to begin with, one knows what really
constitutes "World Class"
Till date, the thrust of
building world class institutions in our country has been on infrastructure as
defined by buildings and labs and conference halls. A pity, because it has meant that once the granite and
glass is in place, it is assumed that we have become World Class ! Clearly,
it is not that simple or straight forward.
This misplaced interpretation
of "World Class" has meant that huge funds are sought for or
attempted to be raised for catering to "only this aspect of world
class" which is one of the reasons for the huge “capitation fees” and "cash donations" demanded by our
colleges from prospective students. This
itself arises because of the kind of weightage “such physical infrastructure
and” is given in the evaluation of Institutions for accreditation purposes by
the NAAC.
Those of the readers who
remember their college calculus will recall that there were several identities
where there were “necessary conditions” for it to be true and also
“sufficient conditions” required to be fulfilled for it to be true.
Similarly, while infrastructure as referred to above
i.e. buildings, labs, classrooms, conference halls, hostels are “necessary
requirements” for a world class academic institution, they are not “sufficient” ;
indeed, while these tangible things only give an aura of a world class
institution, they do not capture its essence. The sufficient conditions to be fulfilled
(not in any particular order) are, et
al,
a)
Fairness and transparency of the admission process
b)
Support (by way of scholarships, grants and assistance-ship)
extended to meritorious students of insufficient means
c)
Diversity if students in terms of gender, race, religion
d)
Number of foreign students attracted by the Institution
e)
Quality of faculty,
f)
Quality and style of teaching,
g)
Ability of faculty to involve students in their subjects and
create an abiding and passionate interest in learning,
h)
Quality of research work and publications of the faculty
i)
Placement record of the students
j)
Career record of students after 5 years, 10 years and longer
k)
Endowments by past students
l)
Peer and public recognition of faculty – awards, prizes
(including National, International,
Nobel etc.)
m)
Performance of students in extracurricular activities like
sports, music, arts, crafts etc.
n)
Administrative efficiency, be it in terms of ease of admission process, examination administration,
timeliness of results declaration, estate maintenance (classrooms, offices,
hostels, mess, pubic areas etc.), responsiveness to complaints in any of the above
areas, safety in and security of the premises and people living and working
there.
Currently India’s rankings on
the Best Institutes in Asia or the world make for a rather sad and embarrassing
reading.
Consider the QS University
Rankings for 2014. There are only 6 Indian Institutions in the first 100 in Asia, with the first entry coming in at a
lowly No. 38 of IIT Delhi and ending
with IIT Guwahati at 95. See the link
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/asian-university-rankings/2014#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=
In case of QS World University
Rankings, there are only 3 Indian Universities (all IITs) in the first 300, with the first entry being IIT Bombay wahy
down at Rank 222, followed by IIT Delhi
at 235 and rounded off by IIT Kanpur at 300 ! See the link http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2014#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=
In case of QS World University
Rankings by Faculty for Science and Engineering there are only 5 Indian Universities
ked by IIT Delhi at No. 46 and rounded off by
IIT Kharagpur at No 87. See link
: http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/faculty-rankings/engineering-and-technology/2014#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=
Clearly, we are way behind and, unless the shortcomings are clearly understood
and systematically addressed, there is
no hope in heaven of our improving are rankings and attracting either foreign
students and foreign faculty to our Universities. There is also a very mundane reason for
working on improving the quality of our Colleges and Universities – such improvement
will a) stem, to a significant extent, the outflow of Indian students to colleges abroad
which also means a huge drain on our foreign exchange reserves, and b) hopefully, also attract foreign students
to our colleges giving a “quality push”
to academic diversity and excellence on our campuses as well as earning
us scarce foreign exchange.
An article by Mr. Atanu Dey (see
extract below) estimates that close to US $ 13 billion is spent every year, by Indian
students going abroad.
India Spends $13,000,000,000 on Education
Abroad
March
19, 2008
That’s
what a report in the Hindustan Times claims: US $13 billion each year. Figures
such as these are unbelievable but I suppose someone must have done the
numbers. In any case, I had estimated that number to be around $10 billion a
few years ago.
Let’s
pause for a moment and figure. $13 billion every year. Or in the last 10 years,
about $100 billion. Imagine what you could buy for that money. How about 100
colleges with first class infrastructure with housing, classrooms, labs? Each
year India could have an additional capacity for 10,000 college students and in
10 years you could have 100,000 additional capacity. Imagine the multiplier
effect of that spending — in construction, in salaries to teaching and
non-teaching staff. Imagine the boost to the industry from creating human
capital. The imagination boggles at the sheer waste.
Imagine
how much infrastructure you could build for $100 billion.
- See more at:
http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/03/19/india-spends-13000000000-on-education-abroad/#sthash.OoFrdxOP.dpuf
Just imagine what we can do and
how much we can save if we can stem this flow even by 50 %. While this is a “money argument” the fact is that we will also tremendously
gain as a nation if our Colleges and Universities can upgrade to international
standards. This will mean much better quality of higher learning with all its concomitant
and spin-off benefits – better research,
better solutions for our problems be it in areas of technology, IT/Software,
Medicine, Law and Social Sciences.
We, at pratik management, have
embarked on a Project to identify the key drivers that help build and sustain
World Class Universities so that these can be shared with and advised to our
existing Indian Centres of Higher Learning. We request all readers of this article, particularly
those who are Indians and have studied abroad, to write to us on what they have perceived
to be “world class characteristics” of colleges abroad vis-à-vis their experience in India.
To help you respond, we are listing below some areas in which we
seek your comments
a)
Pre-admission interaction
b)
Admission Process, per se
c)
Induction / Settling down
d)
Benefits of Student Diversity
e)
Quality of Faculty
f)
Quality of teaching
g)
Style of Teaching
h)
Encouragement to students for creative and innovative thinking
i) Quality of administration related to examinations, announcement
of results, hostel accommodation, maintenance of premises / hostels / cafeteria
etc.
j)
Safety and Security on the campus
k)
Support to foreign students and those that have language
problems
l)
Help / Assistance provided to students who lag in Class
m)
Facilities for extra – curricular activities on the campus
n)
Medical support on the campus
o)
Overall ambience - what
did you find good and what not so good
p)
Discrimination, if any, experienced by you on account of being a
foreigner
q)
Any other issues you would like to highlight
Eagerly awaiting your inputs.
October 23, 2014
Mumbai
