Academic & Research Excellence urgently needed to face burgeoning influx of International students & cut throat competition among universities worldwide

AS THE WORLD is all set to take a quantum jump in the international education, there is a dire need to effect massive transformation in the teaching sector with quality product and value for money.

Statistics suggest that the need for international education will increase from meagre 1.8 million international students in 2002 to 7.2 million within next seven years.

 This rise shall create huge challenges as well as opportunities. In the given scenario, India is sitting on a goldmine of opportunity to attract foreign students in universities as also to arrest the outward flow of talent.

 Currently some 3,60000 students are going out of India for quality education abroad, draining some 1,30000 Crores rupees of foreign exchange, while the education budget of central government is around Rs. 85000 Crores.

Internationalization at home and globalization of higher education should therefore form an important aspect of the strategic framework of India's higher education that should enable the country to leap frog in respect of quantum change in quality, employability and research relevance.

The issue came under scanner at a meet in Pune and academicians dwelt at length the topic with thrust on driving academic and research excellence through Internationalization at Home. Educationists batted for an urgency to make Higher Education in India a vehicle of transformation of republic into a vibrant, developed and prosperous country and a world leader in higher education and research in certain areas of vital interest to humanity.

They were speaking at a two days international conference on Internationalization at home atSymbiosis International University, SIU Pune.  The meet assumed greater significance as country’s education policy is under finalization under the Chairmanship of Dr Kasturirangan, the renowned space scientist who has headed ISRO as its Chairman.

 These areas of vital national relevance are energy security, food security, environmental sustainability, waste water treatment technologies, solid waste management systems, sustainable and eco-friendly transportation systems, herbal and indigenous medicines, yoga science and meditation technologies, new and smart materials, info-Nano- bio sciences, green building architecture and vision science and acoustic engineering to name a few.

For these disruptive reforms, according to eminent cademician Prof. P.B.Sharma, Chairman of Association of Indian Universities, AIU, we are conscious of the fact that we can meet this lofty objective of leapfrogging on quality and relevance of our higher education and research not by working in isolation, but in collaboration and cooperation with reputed institutions and universities within as well as outside India.

The immediate task, he says, should be to arrest the decline of quality and employability as also to foster an environment of quality and relevance driven excellence in institutions of higher learning.

Universities have to be transformed into “Factories of Innovation, Technology Incubation and Enterprise development” along side with producing Industry-ready-professionals for the new knowledge economy which is rapidly descending in the industry, trade, business and governance, and in fact in all human endeavors, said Professor Sharma while delivering Presidential Address at the conference at SIU.

 The Founder Vice Chancellor of Delhi Technological University, Prof Sharma laid stress on the need for a sustained focus on Quality, Relevance and Excellence so that universities in India could become, in true sense, partners in progress of nation’s development and meet the global aspirations of human excellence.

Care and concern for the society, catering for local and global needs, service to society and Nature should find an important space in the curriculum and should become an important aspect of higher education and research in our universities, he emphasized.

India’s higher education has registered an impressive growth during the last 70 years of independent India. The rise of the IISc, IITs and a few selected central and state universities are some of the finest examples of India success story in field of higher education. Likewise, the accelerated growth of Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, IISERs, National Law Universities, establishment of new AIIMS, new IITs, NITs, NITTRs, new Central Universities, specialized universities to promote education and research in traditional medicine, physical education, music and culture all make a highly impressive reading of India’s higher education landscape.

        

With only 20 Universities and 500 Colleges in the country at the time of independence with 210,000 students in higher education, India’s higher education grew by leaps and bound during the last 70 years, more rapidly in the post globalization era, 1991 onwards.

        As per the UGC Annual Report 2015-16, the numbers have increased to 40 times in the case of the Universities, 100 times in the case of Colleges and the student enrolment has gone up to 165 times in the formal system of higher education in comparison to the figures at the time of independence.

     To be precise as on March 31,2016,the number of Universities stood at  799 universities – (44 Central, 75 Institutions of National Importance, 342 State, 198 State Private and 140 Deemed to be Universities) and 39071 Colleges and 11923 standalone institutions enrolling 34.6 million students as per the UGC Annual Report 2015-16. 

Prof. Sharma, Currently VC Amity University Gurgaon, says numbers alone do not suffice to earn India its repute in the field of Higher Education in the world.

Serious concerns have been voiced repeatedly for utterly poor employability, acute shortage of well qualified faculty, lack of culture of research and knowledge creation, poor connect with industries and for ineffective regulatory system. The system at present is also least supportive of internationalization. The net result being that despite significant growth in the enrollment, quality, relevance and excellence remain as major challenges being faced by India’s Higher Education system.

According to him, on one hand the higher education in India is reeling under the crisis of low employability, on the other hand, it has a great promise in store for accelerating society and industry relevant research and innovations, given the innovative and creative potential of the young India. For this to make a phenomenal success, the higher education system in India has to align itself to the relevance and excellence that shall make higher education a powerful vehicle to fuel the growth of startups and new enterprises in plenty and meet the challenges of higher education of tomorrow  driven by mind boggling advancements on the scientific and technological fronts.

He envisioned a great potential for Indian universities to rise to the world repute, and that too in a short span of time. After all China, Taiwan, Korea and Singapore, could transform their higher education during the globalised era, so why not India? They could do it by their sustained focus on global competitiveness and international outlook backed by a well formulated strategic plan and a larger vision that correlated economic development to transformation in the education sector, in particular higher education and research, to earn for their countries world repute and high global rankings for their universities.

For India to achieve the goal of placing at least ten universities in the top 100 of the world rankings, the universities need more than money, the easy flow of talent in faculty and an environment to foster creativity and excellence. With only locally available faculty talent and local students world class universities are not built, let alone succeed in achieving global esteem, Prof Sharma asserted.

In late fifties when IITs were being configured, the founding fathers had thought it fit to place in position the initial genes that had the experience and exposure to international arena of higher education.

    Further, both in the design as well as in implementation, international collaboration formed a strong pillar of strength for the IITs in India. IIT Delhi where he had worked, had its collaboration right from its formative years with Imperial College London, University of Birmingham and University of Manchester and also Glasgow. Likewise IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay and IIT Madras were established in collaboration with US, USSR and Germany respectively, he said.

   As such both in the design as well as operation, the international outlook and spirit of global competitiveness was built in the IITs. Even today, international collaboration and global connect forms a strong pillar of strength of the IIT system.

The finest example of international research lies in the success of India’s First Green Revolution. But with the internationalization came advanced features such as increasing use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. These were initially considered necessary to boost the agriculture productivity, but their uncontrolled usage created severe problems of ground water pollution, soil pollution and even loss of soil fertility.

  “This happened largely because of lack of local initiatives and ineffective national policy perspective to drive the agenda of food security. We could have avoided these problems provided along side with internationalisation we could have taken up advanced levels of organic farming on the strength of internationalisation of research with local relevance.”

India has to rediscover the value and worth of internationalization of higher education in India and work consciously to shape India’s higher education landscape  to focus on Global competiveness and Nation building by fostering “Relevance Driven Excellence” and a “Strong connect with Society and Industry”, says Prof SSharma.

     

He recommended a litany of actions: Tenure tracked Faculty- putting pressure of performance; Solution Research for the Industry- assuring relevance of research;. Assessment of faculty by students and peers; Focus on developing capabilities, competence and character; International collaboration and industry integration; Fostering Creativity and Innovations;Innovation incubation, patenting and startup development within the university campus; Student and Faculty diversity- talent flowing from across the globe; Zero tolerance policy on defined personal integrity, professional morality and work ethics.

Universities and Institutions of higher learning are to be the lifeline of the local industries and drivers for change both at national and global levels to cause technology revolution and innovative new product development. This requires a paradigm shift in the way research is carried out in the universities and in institutions of higher learning.

The country needs  to devise mechanisms which supports the growth of Solution Research and with the active participation of the industries engages the innovative minds of the faculty and students in developing technology, know how and innovations that shall give rise to the growth of new enterprises.

The new structure of the Higher Education need to rejuvenate the universities to create the desired ecosystem for Solution Research, Technology Incubation and supportive environment for i2IP, ideas to innovated products and commercialization.

In short it call for a major departure in our approach from “Universities as centers of learning and scholarship” to “Universities as Global Knowledge Enterprises” ie. Centers of learning and scholarship, technology incubation, innovation and enterprise development. Universities then shall adopt the mantra “Knowledge to Prosperity” and become the propulsive thrust for accelerating the Socio- Economic development of the society.

The conference at SIU was sponsored by AIU and was addressed by HRD Minister  Prakash Javdekar through video conferencing . other prominent speakers included Dr Francisco Marmolejo, Global Lead World Bank India, Prof Hans de Wit, Director Centre for International Higher Education, Boston College US, Dr  Jos Beelen, Professor of Global Learning, Hague University Germany,  Dr Prince Augustin Exe.Vice President, Mahindra Group, Dr SV Bhave, Director HR, Bharat Forge Ltd,   Dr Vidhya Yeravdekar, Pro Chancellor SIU and Dr Anita Patankar, Dean SIU and  55 Vice Chancellors from various Indian Universities, large number of faculty and international  students.