So, here's the continuation from the previous post on the Foreign University Bill passes by the UPA cabinet.
In the previous post we looked at what is the upside and downside that the foreign universities have with this opportunity.
II) From the Indian university's perspective:
The various factors to be considered here are - student quality, faculty quality, placement companies' quality and the overall system quality.
From the system point of view, enough has been talked about the increase in transparency in the system and the competition will encourage the Indian universities to up the ante on their efforts to increase the level of infrastructure, faculty, etc.
a) Tier I colleges:
In the short run I do not see any problem faced by them in any of the factors. Students will still want to go for these temples of higher education as the brand will not be compromised and anyways I don't think the top tier foreign schools will come into India. The good and senior faculty that is already present in these institutes will not move or be poached over as currently they do get grants, research space, and a name that they have built because of the institute. The companies also will stick to these institutes as the student quality does still remain same.
b) Tier II Colleges:
These colleges are going to be affected. There are students to fill in the vacancies for the current students that move onto the foreign university. But the very good faculty of these colleges will definitely be poached away. The better pay, better infrastructure, better brand name and in some cases better responsibility will play a huge factor in the very good faculty moving to the foreign university.
Now, its not as though India is a faculty generating machine that can compensate for this faculty vacancy, however with the better education system overall, there might be an impetus to faculty as a career option.
The companies coming on these campuses for recruitment will definitely look at going to the foreign university campus also for the same job profile.
III) For the Indian student:
Win Win situation.
Better quality and more quantity,. With the structure of education at the foreign university, Indian students will have lot of flexibility in courses and course structures. Also the availability of better infrastructure hand in hand with a better brand is a huge thumbs up. This is a great opportunity for quality education. It is the students that are the biggest gainers of this policy.
So, on the whole, it is a great opportunity for the receivers of education and hence the country in general. Maybe from the onset we might not get the very huge/big universities to open up their campuses in India, but I do hope that as and when time passes even they will follow suit.
Aaditya echoed some of my scepticism, through his comment on the previous post.
ReplyDeleteMonetary gain, indeed, may be an incentive for these 'set-ups'. However, that is not quite as worrying as it may seem. For, if they seek money, and the upper strata of society pays graciously for the same, no one's worse off, and the Indian educational scenario will not be affected greatly (systemically), save for the drain of faculty from the tier-II colleges. That, may be a worry, given the short-fall of faculty in the nation. Even so, given the already sorry state, i see tier-I colleges facing faculty-losses more than any tier-II college will. And trust me, this sort of a situation will not be incentive enough for more (good) persons in India to take up teaching as a profession. There's much too much going on elsewhere for (enough) capable persons to generously opt for faculty positions in this nation.
The critical issue to consider here, is about the fact that such measures do not come even remotely close to addressing the needs of the educational system of the day. if anything, these are steps that head off in a different direction altogether. here's how:
Let's assume that these set-ups shall seek out quality, and a decent amount of financial remuneration from students. The rich ones will suck-up. But they dont matter, coz they (anyway) never stuck around for the nation. So, this set-up will just become like a white-crime of sorts - the kids who studied at tier-I colleges before, and left for abroad or other corporate jobs, will now study at these set-ups, and leave the Indian mainstream earlier, politely and amicably. In some ways, it will show the Indian educational system it's true state. It will struggle to show up meritorious results, even at the grad/undergrad level, and the loss of faculty from tier-I colleges will hurt it even more.
It may hurt even more if the current educational reforms come into serious play, without being implemented strongly enough. Essentially, these new set-ups will simply become 'yet another part' of the overall drain of quality out of the system. More critically, the Governments will vehemently prophesize as to how they've improved the educational setup, bu citing all the Big-Names, and in the backdrop of deflected media attention, no one'll focus on the fact the aside of the Big-Names, the Indian Education scenario is going nowhere. This point is probably the most important - the Government's grasp on meia glare is something that no "critical analysis of the scenario" can otherwise grasp. Akin to how the Government has already been successfully adopting sensationalisation tactics on general issues of Naxalism, Security reforms, curtainling of rights, et cetera - where it sensationalises one issue via the media (which, sadly, is sold out), to subvert the attention of the public on a more critical issue, silently bludgeons public mobilisation on the latter, and makes it easy for the corporates to creep into the system and systemically exhorts the public into believing that its initiatives are for the good of the land.
I do seem to paint a worse-case scenario (w.c.s.). Sadly though, the w.c.s is often the one that plays out in our (so-called) Democratic setup.
@Shobhan - dude, too long! :P
ReplyDelete@Shobhan - I disagree with the picture you've painted of Sibal & Co. Granted they and their predecessors have done inexplicable media-hungry things (Read 15 IIT's), I still feel this is too early to call this a majorly media campaign for diversion. In my opinion if this does not push up our education reforms/level i don't know what will.
Also, on the white-crimes issue. It has been cleared by the ministry that whatever has been earned through these setups stays put in India. That should evidently mean that these will be research heavy institutes that will be setup, which sort of agrees with what Harsh is saying.
I would however not call it a win-win situation for students unless they lay before me a concrete faculty recruiting plan.
What say?