India’s Absence In Top 200 Universities Raises A Question-- What Goes Into The Making Of A World-Class Varsity?

Glaring absence of any Indian University in various World Rankings has been a matter of concern amongst the Ministries, educationists and also the anxious Indian parents. While the government has been tossing with the idea of creating 20 world-class universities, the Prime Minister has also announced a grant of Rs10000 Cr for the upliftment of select varsities.

Ironically, the government has come out with a draft education policy, which it claims is intended to liberate Indian higher education from the “colonial mindset” leaving every one guessing, what that means and how does that bring in excellence.  More worrisome is the fact that the new draft policy has missed to recognise the ever changing dynamics and concept of higher education globally, which the entire world is keeping pace with. Even smaller nations like Hon Kong, Singapore and Saudi Arabia have at least one entry in top 100. Then where is India lacking?

If India has to create excellent universities, it needs to first decipher the basic characteristics common in these top ranking universities and incorporate these in any policy draft as a first step to make Indian higher education system globally competitive. A dynamic system that meets the changing global employment pattern, matches the pace of the international institutions in research and knowledge creation, innovation and invention.

I had a major role in writing of the XII plan document for UGC and MHRD and was a part of study to identify the critical characteristic features, which are common in the top 100 Universities in the world. To my utter surprise, I found most of these features missing not only in Indian universities; almost all our education policies lacked them. Of these, I list out five, which are most crucial as far as our colleges are concerned.

The first feature is the critical mass of students and faculty. Indian Institutions have been notoriously resisting expansion-- restricting the number of students and faculty on the campus-- ignoring the fact that talent hunt needs a much larger base. A simple analogy would be throwing fishing net in ponds and rivers only to yield smaller fishes and crabs. While a net in a vast expanse as an ocean not only ensures larger catch but opens up a chance to catch whales, sharks.

 These are the Nobel laureates and inventors who cannot be produced if the institutions lack critical mass. The top ranking universities of the world have average campus strengths of 20000 to 25000, with faculty- student ratio of 1:10 while the average student strength of Indian universities is 3500 with student-faculty-student ratio of 15 to 20.

Coming on to the second character which is the diversity of students and faculty, Indian institutions are on a back foot here. Many of these universities have it as written as well as unwritten policy. The average national diversity of students is 30% while the internal diversity of students ranges between 20 to 40 %. A similar diversity is maintained for the faculty. Indian universities, however, have been typically local in character for both students and faculty, working like potential pots for inbreeding.  The philosophy behind diversity is that it invokes cross breeding of ideas, interaction leading to innovation and inventions. Just increasing mass and diversity show immediate results in the quality of teaching and research as well as publications.  I experimented in Pondicherry University in a limited way with 30% diversity of students and faculty and increasing student strength from 1900 to 6500.  The university jumped in its national ranking and emerged as top 10^th of MHRD ranking.

The third factor that has been hampering quality of university education is the disintegration of undergraduate and post-graduate studies with system of affiliating standalone colleges.  All universities in the world have the undergraduate and graduate studies on the campus which not only provide seamless learning but high standards of academic ambience.

 Next characteristic of world-class universities is the enormous thrust laid on collaboration, openness and sharing and very thin or no impermeable hard boundaries between the various disciplines. Contrary to this Indian education, system and Institutions nurtured a rigid culture of secretive and isolated work and too hard boundaries between different institutions and even between disciplines in the same Institution. Sharing resources, open laboratories to all is yet to be seen even in premier institutions and by well-known scientists and professors. This is major handicap preventing Indian Institutions from making headway in innovations and inventions.

 The fifth critical characteristic feature of any world-class university is the total academic, administrative and financial freedom with trust.  Contrary to this, the Indian education institutions are bogged up into intertwined regulations and levels of controls that always end up at the doors of bureaucracy who could do no better than delay, suspect and go with the rulebook. Academic growth should have a liberal mechanism to update and amend rules and regulations without the controls of bureaucracy to meet the demands of changing global dynamics of higher education.

 These five characteristic features of world-class universities are not exhaustive, but very crucial at the most. I am discussing the funding in the end deliberately because any amount of funding will not yield results unless these five basic characteristics are brought-in in order to create world-class universities.

Prime ministers announcement of Rs 10000 crores to create 20 world class universities at an average of 500 crores each is peanuts compared to the allocation of funds during XI plan, which was over Rs 44000 crores for higher education inall central institutions with grants ranging between 300 to 1500 crores for 5 years. But at the end of the plan, it was proved beyond doubt that funding without the mandated policy of above five factors and few more, was just futile.  It not even succeeds in reaching the targeted GER of 30% in the country.

Over 50% of allocated grant lapsed as unutilised, except the Pondicherry University. It was a misplaced argument by some great scientists that increasing the spending to 6% of GDP will create world-class universities, and produce Nobel laureates and Field Medallists.  Has the new education policy prepared by the government addresses any of the above characteristic to bring in excellence, make institutions globally competitive and produce students and researchers who are innovative and who are inventors? Or is our new policy again an old wine in new bottle with little more colour change more bogged up with Indian ethos and liberation from the ambiguous and so called  “colonial mind set” stated by the MoS ?

The author was the Vice Chancellor to Kashmir University, Pondicherry Central University and B S Abdur Rahman University. He also served as member of UGC and was involved in the writing of XII plan document for MHRD. Recipient of Padma shri in Education in 2009.