With A Legacy Of Fine Knowledge, India On Way To Become A Global Education Hub?

The long shadow cast by Covid, perhaps because it forces us to look anew at everything we would otherwise take for granted, also allows us to see our landscape in a kind of different light: the gloom can actually sharpen our perception. Just think of higher education, and what the pandemic has wrought on that sector. The disruption of schedules is the first thing that crosses our minds, and then online learning. But think harder. Covid-19 has also created a crisis of mobility. A simple act such as travelling between cities is now fraught with a sense of uncertainty—not to speak of moving between countries. Now think back on higher education. As so often happens these days, a university is somewhere else. It no longer remains a question such as, ‘Will it open?’—one must also seek answers to other doubts. Is it safe to travel back to that city? What if there’s a lockdown and I have to return? Staying on that thought, let’s take another step back, and ask: Why are universities elsewhere? Why do Indian students have to go abroad for a respectable course? And then, inverting that—Why do other students not come here? Why is the world structured in such a way that the cream of young India is seen as a departing wave? And why can it not be the other way around?

India, as a country with a fine knowledge legacy stretching back over millennia, not just centuries, should have aimed to be a global knowledge hub. A place that has truly world-class university spaces, capable of attracting the best in the world. Where are the Taxilas and Nalandas of today? We simply do not have them. That’s why you see such a skewed ratio if you map the average arrivals and departures from our country. If you leave aside the previous year, where the pandemic created an abnormal situation, around 8-10 lakh students go abroad to pursue higher education. The number of foreign students opting to study in India, on the other hand, is just around 45,000-50,000.

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In recent years, the scramble for seats in a college, in one’s subject of choice, has been getting inordinately tougher—even with a score of over 90 per cent. So, one has seen a rising number of students opting for admission in an overseas institution even at the undergraduate level. In the past, that was restricted to students at the post-graduate or doctoral level. Yes, finances are a problem, but they are desperate enough. If scholarships are not available, then students resorted to bank loans and part-time jobs. “In India, there are very few institutions of the calibre of IITs and IIMs,” says Dr Pankaj Mittal, secretary general, Association of Indian Universities (AIU). “Then there’s the craze for foreign degrees.” AIU represents over 800 of the 1,043 universities, 42,343 colleges and 11,779 standalone institutions in the country.

Corridors Buzz Again

Foreign students on an Indian campus after resumption of in-person classes

Photograph by Tribhuvan Tiwari

Right now, many of them are consumed by a desperate rush to complete admissions in time to start the new academic session—whether in online, offline or blended mode—by October 1. Admissions this year were tougher: school-leaving exams were not held for the most part and universities had to step in with internal evaluations and exams to adjudicate on admissions—besides the usual common entrance exams. But amid this hurly-burly in the neighbourhood, people may have missed the larger crisis involving the global traffic of students and scholars. During the long Covid season, many Indian students had to come back from various universities abroad—and often could not return. Indeed, many sought permission for a credit transfer so they could complete their education in India. That’s when the government came up with the motto: ‘Stay in India, Study in India’. Perhaps an unimaginative coinage, given that there’s already a ‘Study in India’ programme under which a lot of fellowships and scholarships are given to attract Indians to return and pursue further studies here.

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Under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the government had also proposed the ABC (Academic Bank of Credit) scheme which has created expectations of a lot of flexibility in the education system with a student-centric approach, explains Mittal, who was on its drafting committee. Currently, a student of physics who’s keen to switch to economics, history, engineering or maths is unable to do so. But ABC would make it possible: it allows academic credit transfer from one university to another. Indeed, it aims to enable a ‘digital store’ of the academic credits earned from various recognised higher educational institutions (HEIs). Under the UGC (credit framework for online learning courses through Swayam) Regulation 2016 too, universities were urged to identify courses where credits from Swayam online courses could be transferred—40 per cent of the credit can be taken into the normal degree programme. In reality, not many take advantage of the Swayam facility (Covid season offering an exception because of the attraction of online courses).

“What people are overlooking is that, in the last 10-15 years, the enrolment of students seeking higher education has risen sharply. It was just 8 per cent in 2004, out of the 35 lakh passing out of school. Now, out of 1.7 crore students passing out of schools, over 25 per cent go for higher studies. This is a huge expansion in a limited time in a country like India,” says Dr T. Ramasami, former secretary, Department of Science and Technology. Spaces for globally compatible education have to be created, and Ramasami has a feel for the subject. After higher education and a stint overseas, he is credited with turning the Central Leather Research Institute into not just a profitable enterprise, but also a world-class entity. He also helped formulate and steer several government schemes to attract hundreds of Indians to return to pursue research and set up enterprises.

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According to the All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) 2019-20 released earlier this year by the education ministry, the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education in India is 27.1, which is calculated for the 18-23 year age group. There are of course thousands who avail of opportunities to pursue higher studies much later in life. “India is emerging as a global hub of education and going forward will see higher enrolment than present. Besides, even the government is taking measures to improve the required infrastructure and increase professional teachers in the ecosystem to balance the student-teacher ratio,” says Dr Niranjan Hiranandani, provost of the Mumbai-based HSNC University.

Sanitised

Classes resume with Covid protocols

Photograph by Suresh K. Pandey

In 2019-20, the total enrolment in higher education has been estimated to be 38.5 million, with 19.6 million males and 18.9 million females. Distance enrolment constitutes about 11.1% of the total enrolment in higher education, of which 44.5% are female students. About 79.5% of the students are enrolled in undergraduate level programme. Just over two lakh students are enrolled in PhD, which is about 0.5% of the total student enrolment. The maximum number of students are enrolled in BA programme, followed by BSc and BCom programmes. Ten programmes out of approximately 196 cover 79% of the total students enrolled in higher education. At the undergraduate level, 32.7% of students are enrolled in arts/humanities/social sciences courses, followed by science 16%, commerce 14.9% and engineering and technology 12.6%. At the PhD level, the maximum students are enrolled in engineering and technology streams, followed by science.

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Many of the experts share the view that the NEP is a good document as it supports Indian campuses going abroad and also the setting up of foreign campuses in India, foreign credit transfer, and foreign institutions having offices in India. But implementation of the NEP is a big challenge for universities in India. If implemented in letter and spirit, it would change the whole landscape of higher education in the country. As the NEP has defined the timeline of 15-20 years for implementation, it will take time for it to be fully implemented and to show results. That said, so far the implementation has been a bit slow.

Prof Ashutosh Sharma, who recently retired as secretary, Department of Science and Technology, stresses that several initiatives taken by the government have led to many talented Indians coming back to the country after education overseas. “The situation has been improving and is looking much better than seven years ago for several reasons,” states Sharma, who opted to return to India after higher education overseas and is currently back at IIT-Kanpur.

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Ahmed Abdulrahman, 24, from Yemen is pursuing masters in forensic science after completing his BSc at Amity University in Noida. “The degree is valued not just in the Middle East, but also in Europe,” says the youngster who hopes to pursue forensic research. Education in India has become expensive due to the weakening of the Yemeni currency against the rupee, says Abdulrahman, who is happy with life in Noida. He says there are four other Yemenis on the campus.

Till a decade back, there was no national scheme for doing post-doctoral programmes after doing PhD, resulting in a lot of people going abroad for further studies. This was a great loss as the government invests a lot in doctoral studies. Around three-and-a-half years back, the National Post-Doctoral Fellowship Programme was started. This has helped the country to retain around 3,000 of the best talent who would have otherwise gone abroad.

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There are now several cutting-edge science and technology opportunities through three national schemes. First is the Rs 3,600-crore National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems, which includes AI, robotics, Industry 4.0 or the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies, Internet of Things, etc. This mission offers a lot of opportunities for people doing PhD, post-doctoral studies and training in cutting-edge technologies and working in industries.

The second is the Rs 4,500-crore National Supercomputing Mission, which offers opportunities to a large number of people, and the third is a Rs 8,000-crore mission, which is about to be launched, on quantum technologies. There are also many other missions in progress in water, clean energy, medical devices, waste processing etc. There are also INSPIRE Faculty Fellowships and Ramanujan Fellowships, which allow people keen to come back to India, but who lack a job to start with, to do so. Over the last decade, a few thousand have availed of these fellowships, which come with very good terms and offer the same salary scale as an assistant professor in an IIT. They are also provided funds for continuing their research. All these people eventually get into faculties, R&D or industry jobs.

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Another important intervention is the start-up ecosystem, which has more than doubled in the last five years. This has helped to attract a lot of talent from the IITs and other institutions. The start-ups and incubators, which were supported by DST in the last six years, according to a third-party assessment, have produced Rs 27,000 crore of new wealth and created more than 60,000 direct jobs, apart from indirect jobs. The impact is expected to be much more once these start-ups scale up beyond the incubators, creating new opportunities for bright people. Additionally, the number of government-supported projects in universities has doubled in the last six years. These provide opportunities for BTech, MTech, PhD and postdoctoral students. “These new opportunities in front-ranking areas will help us retain many more people who would have otherwise gone abroad for study and work, and also attract more to come back and work in India,” says Sharma.

Covid Break is Over

A student returns to her hostel in a Delhi college

Photograph by Tribhuvan Tiwari

Around seven years back, India ranked number seven in the world in terms of the number of research papers published in reputed science and engineering journals or web portals. Today we are number three after the US and China. Also in technology start-ups, over the last six years, we have risen in rank to number three position. Ramasami stresses that the question to be asked is, “Should we go for glamorisation of our education system or improving access to higher education for our children and provide them with a meaningful education?” He, however, admits that academicians want global recognition as scientists are global citizens and want to be measured on global scale.

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The retired scientist, who is currently busy creating a database of research papers of Indian academicians and scientists published and citations from them, strongly feels that education should really be left to the institutional structure rather than the governmental policy and directives as autonomy and creativity go together. “Else the diversity that we desire in our education system will never be achieved,” says Ramasami, citing the case of Nalanda, which was a renowned hub of learning in the fifth century, attracting scholars from all over the world.

Technological advancements changed the scenario, with Europe and later the US emerging as centres of learning. In the current scenario, Indian educational institutions can be said to be a “work in progress”. Hiranandani is optimistic that the adaptation of liberal education via multidisciplinary approach, allowing a learner to pursue multiple subjects of interest at the same time, would help India emerge as a global hub of education. “Going forward it will see higher enrolment than present,” he says, adding that the government’s measures to improve required infrastructure and increase professional teachers in the ecosystem to balance the student-teacher ratio should help.

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Over the years many private universities—like Ashoka, Jindal, Lovely etc—have emerged, but they remain small in size. Barring institutions of “eminence”, which are allowed 20 per cent foreign students, the other institutions are allowed to give only 15 per cent of their total seats, including a supernumerary quota, to overseas students. Currently, very few institutions can claim to have the targeted number of foreign students, despite the incentives.

Dr Balvinder Shukla, vice chancellor of Amity University, says they are targeting to have 20 per cent foreign students over the next five years. Currently, there are 48 foreign students as against their total student strength of around 50,000 students in the various campuses within the state. The students are admitted on merit basis and care is taken to impart them language skills to enable them to blend better with other students.

Where foreign students are concerned, apart from quality issues there are infrastructure and perception issues as the way education is imparted in India is different from what most are used to, such as facilities and flexibility in course choices, credit transfer etc, says Mittal, adding that AIU is in the process of compiling information and setting up a network of international educators.

This is expected to help institutions lacking wherewithal to have reputed educators on their faculty, including as visiting professors. Also, it should help in forging foreign collaborations. Unfortunately, while many institutions claim to have foreign collaborations, they are mostly sleeping collaborations or not meaningful enough to benefit the students, claim experts. AIU is also setting up a collaboration portal for institutions—both Indian and foreign—for more meaningful engagement by highlighting the strengths of each institution. The emerging scenario should bode well for efforts to keep young talents within the country.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Class of the Future")