Teacher Education under Attack

According to the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), there are 11880 recognized Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) in India. NCTE is the nodal agency for recognizing, regulating and monitoring teacher education. It was constituted by an act of Parliament. There are several courses ranging from Diploma in Teacher Education (D.T.Ed) to Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) to Master of Education (M.Ed) to Master of Philosophy in Education (M.Phil) to Doctor of Philosophy in Education (Ph.D) under the ambit of NCTE. Diploma to Doctoral degree in Physical Education are also offered by NCTE recognized TEIs.  There are educational courses for special children offered by the NCTE. Currently there are over 10 lakh students enrolled in several courses offered by the NCTE recognized TEIs in the country.

NCTE is headquartered in New Delhi and its regional centres are in Jaipur, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar and Bengaluru. In a sudden stroke of pen, NCTE has made the regional centres null and void. From now on, the entire teacher education of India will be governed from the national headquarters. In the age of decentralized governance, NCTE opts for totally centralized governance. What an anti-development attitude of NCTE? There are reasons for making regional centres redundant. Corruption creeping to the grass root governance of NCTE regional centres has compelled the judiciary to direct the NCTE to clean up the system. Taking advantage of the Court directions, NCTE has completely centralized its job.

First of all, NCTE must introspect, why it created regional centres? Is it possible to monitor such a huge number of TEIs from the national capital? If corruption is the core issue then the NCTE headquarter must crack down corrupt elements in its regional centres through flying squads, anti-corruption bureaus and vigilance departments. It is popularly said now, instead of decentralized corruption now there will be a centralized corruption. If government and judiciary are keen on eliminating corruption then nobody can stop it. But the mere lip service on removal of corruption won’t remove corruption in the country especially in the NCTE and TEIs.

Apart from neutralizing regional centres, NCTE has outsourced its work to a private agency called Quality Council of India (QCI) for inspection and ranking TEIs. This will pay way for commercializing teacher education further. Earlier QCI was given the task of monitoring TEI websites for an annual payment of Rs.3000/- Even TEIs don’t spend this amount to create their websites. Just to monitor TEI websites, QCI was paid Rs.3000 by nearly 10000 TEIs. Why to collect Rs.3 crores for monitoring websites?

By pressurizing TEIs to either follow the overnight diktats or getting it shut down, NCTE has been killing the teacher education system very fast. After emboldened by this blackmailing technique, now NCTE has devised devastating rules.

One, TEIs should share the interests from the fixed deposit amount of Rs.15 lakhs with the NCTE. The fixed deposit amount belongs to the TEIs which has been put in the joint account with NCTE, so that the amount is not withdrawn abruptly. This safe route has been taken advantage by the NCTE and threatening to demand its cut from the interest income of fixed deposits of NCTE.

Two, NCTE has made QCI as the inspecting agency. A private agency with no academic expertise to check the quality of teacher education has been given this extraordinary work is really appalling. The inspection fee for each TEI is Rs.1.5 lakh. With nearly 12000 TEIs in the country the inspection fee alone will come Rs.200 crore per annum. What is the government intend to do? By commercializing the teacher education, government is sending wrong signals for the future growth of the country.

India’s steady progress is due to the education sector. Nobody should forget that our difficult education system has produced some wonderful minds for the world. Despite several bottlenecks, Indian education has been providing its service. If the Government wants to make it to the international standards it should help the private sector to offer high quality education at lower costs. A commercialized education setup will completely ruin the country. All the advantages India accumulated all these years with the education will vanish in the air in no time. NCTE must put down its habit of washing away its responsibility and handing over a major area of national development – teacher education to a private enterprise. It is now or never! 

The Other Side of JNU

In a less than decade of its existence Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi has managed to catch the eyeballs of India regularly. Controversies are a common feature of the university as much its contributions to the nation building process.   Peter D'Souza writes in The Hindu A diverse nation needs a diverse iconography. Let us not fall into a trap of narrow-mindedness and sectarianism while scripting our nation’s autobiography and commemorating important events and cultural icons A map of central Paris can be read as a proud display of the iconography of the French nation. There are roads named after writers such as Voltaire, Andre Malraux, Victor Hugo and Emile Zola. Catholic saints such as St. Michel have public squares to honour them as does the Republic. The site where King Louis XVI and Robespierre was guillotined, Concorde, is a major memorial, and the Pantheon, where the great figures of French intellectual, cultural and political life are interred, is a special attraction. Art has a special place in this iconographic display with many museums devoted to it across the city. There is even a cemetery where Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison are buried. A country needs an iconography of its own, to imagine itself and build into that imagination great events, figures, artefacts and memories. A people need such memorialisation to believe in their nation. It makes a nation’s autobiography. Peter Ronald deSouza   After Independence we took to this task with some earnestness. Every major city got a Mahatma Gandhi road. In the early decades after Independence, Delhi announced itself as a leading city of the new politics of humanism in a decolonising world when it named many of its roads after political leaders such as Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Josip Broz Tito, and Olof Palme. Having locations such as an Africa Avenue and a Max Mueller Marg, as well as a Lodhi Garden and a Bengali Market, showed the cosmopolitanism of the new nation. Forgotten struggles There were many more events to be celebrated, leaders to be honoured, struggles to be remembered, and sites to be named as we set about this urgent task of crafting an iconography for the new nation. An inspired leadership and a philosophy of broad-mindedness were what were needed. In the last ten years, unfortunately, that has been found sorely wanting. A kind of smallness has dominated our iconographic imagination. For example, there can be nothing more arrogant than renaming Escola Médico-Cirúrgica de (Nova) college in Goa — set up in 1842 and one of the oldest medical colleges in Asia — as Rajiv Gandhi Memorial Medical College and hospital. It could have instead been named after Dr. Francisco Luis Gomes — an illustrious son of Goa and an alumnus of the college. Dr. Gomes was a physician, a writer, an economist and a polyglot who became the institution’s chief surgeon in 1860. However, sycophancy and arrogance led to its being named after Rajiv Gandhi. An airport, an education city, a zoological park, roads and buildings, apart from a host of welfare schemes, have been given Rajiv Gandhi’s name and it is not necessary to rename a medical college after him. Surely we have many other icons who deserve to be remembered? However, the last ten years have been marked by a certain level of narrow-mindedness when one family was given preference and hence disservice was done to our plural nation. This must not be repeated. The new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-era, I fear, will see as much narrow-mindedness. We will have to live with an uninspiring iconography that gives importance to ‘heroes’ of Hindutva like Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Deendayal Upadhyaya and M.S. GolwalkarThere will be no space for Chandra Shekhar Azad or the Ali brothers — Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali. Neither will there be any presence of heroes like the Goan nationalist T.B. Cunha and the Marathi writer and Dalit activist Namdeo Dhasal. An example concerning Goa serves as an illustration of this form of disrespect for an entire people and their history. Goa is a geographically small place with an unusual history, one that bears the marks of a different colonialism. Francisco Luis Gomes’s life was testimony to that. Yet, he has been completely overlooked. Instead, the National Institute of Watersports (NIWS), set up in Goa in 1990, has been renamed after Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, a development many seem to have forgotten as the Institute’s website does not mention it, nor does that of the Ministry of Tourism. Only a dilapidated signboard at the entrance serves as a reminder.   “This is not merely about the neglect shown to our memorials but about the philosophy behind our memorialisation practices. ”   For a maritime society such as Goa, a more inspiring name would have been that of Gopakapattana, an ancient seaport that serves as a glowing reminder of Goa’s centuries-old maritime tradition. Mukherjee, in contrast, has no connection to Goa though he seems to have had something to do with watersports as there is a swimming pool in Delhi named after him. Rename, rethink To avoid such sectarianism and return to a more-inclusive humanism, to be sensitive both to the memory of regions and that of social groups, let us seek a new iconography for this plural nation. Let us begin by considering renaming the Nehru Park, where all the great music concerts in Delhi take place, as the Amir Khusro Park, after the great musician and poet. Nehru, I am sure, would have not have objected to ceding memorial space to someone like Amir Khusro. Further, let us decide to rename Race Course Road as Birsa Munda Marg so that the Prime Minister’s official residence is called 7, Birsa Munda Marg. It will remind not just the Indian PM but all the foreign dignitaries visiting him of the tribal leader. We can rename the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) as Mother Teresa AIIMS, a reminder to the nation of what the ethic of caring really means. We can also consider renaming New Delhi Railway station after Xuanzang (also known as Hiuen Tsang), the Chinese traveller; the science museum after Aryabhata; and the Mandi locality, where all the arts academies are located, after Abhinavagupta. Let us build a grand natural history museum, in place of the pathetic one at FICCI, and name it after the great mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. I could go on dreaming of such possibilities, of naming and renaming, to give Delhi a cultural memory map that would rival that of Paris, but it would be very arbitrary. To avoid such whimsicality, therefore, let me propose a framework of both an inclusive and an imaginative policy. We need to prepare lists at three levels. The first is at the national level where we honour and remember national events, icons, struggles, and their creative contributions. So a Gandhi Smriti, a Jawaharlal Nehru University, a Dhyan Chand Stadium, a Lodhi Garden or a Deendayal Upadhyaya Marg make sense but not an S.P. Mukherjee Swimming Pool, an Ambedkar Bus Terminal, or even a Mother Teresa crescent. When we have memorials, let them befit the stature of the person being honoured — we can have Music Academy named after M.S. Subbulakshmi and the Chief Justice of India’s chamber after Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. The second level is the regional one. Here, we can build memorials commemorating important events and movements like the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and the Self-respect Movement. We also need memorials for important struggles against injustice like the Narmada Bachao Andolan. The third level is local. Honouring a local sportsperson, a musician or a social justice campaigner will help us create an iconography for the region. Let us involve the public in making these lists. This will serve the dual purpose of making them inclusive and initiating a public debate . It would also do justice to India’s plurality. We need to go deep into our collective memory and identify both the good and the bad as we build our memory map. Let the government not be narrow-minded while zeroing in on the contours of the map. Plural India requires it. A diverse nation needs a diverse iconography. Remember amnesia is a debilitating ailment for a nation. Modi's mates, made in JNU - People the govt would've missed

Charu Sudan Kasturi

New Delhi, Feb. 15: When BJP MP Maheish Girri labelled Jawaharlal Nehru University a "hub of treason" on Saturday amid the police crackdown on the campus, he was unwittingly belittling not just rivals but also key political, diplomatic, bureaucratic and education leaders of his own party's government. Many supporters of the arrest of JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar and the imposition of sedition charges on multiple students from the university have over the past three days blamed the institution's intense student politics, frequently dominated by the Left. Some, especially on social media, have even questioned why the government is funding a university churning out what they insist are "anti-national elements." But without JNU graduates, the Narendra Modi government would stand bereft of several among its most recognisable and eminent figures - just as many of its predecessors would have struggled without some of the university's alumni.   Commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman and department of industrial policy and promotion secretary Amitabh Kant - the force behind Prime Minister Modi's "Make in India" campaign -are both JNU graduates. Foreign secretary S. Jaishankar and deputy national security adviser Arvind Gupta, both handpicked by Modi, earned their PhDs at JNU. The university is alma mater to Syed Asif Ibrahim, the former Intelligence Bureau chief who was appointed by Modi last year as his special envoy on counter-terrorism, with a focus on West Asia. And at least 15 Indian ambassadors currently serving abroad, and three division heads in the ministry of external affairs - tasked with protecting India's strategic and diplomatic interests - studied at JNU. They are only keeping up a tradition as old as the institution, with JNU supplying yearly cadets to the civil services since its inception in 1969 - and in some cases, even earlier. "If anti-India slogans were raised, that is unfortunate and not something I'm okay with - but a campus-wide crackdown, arrests and charges of sedition like what we're seeing appears totally disproportionate," former foreign secretary Lalit Mansingh, who studied at an institute on strategic affairs that was merged with JNU, told The Telegraph. "The intense debates JNU is known for are rooted in what we had in my time, though the sharpness of ideological biases has increased." Girri had in a series of posts on Twitter on Saturday suggested that JNU had turned into a playground for terrorists. "Terrorists, traitors and terrorist sympathizers have been invited on regular intervals to toxify minds [sic]," Giri said. "Sad, a central university has been reduced to a hub of treason." The Left's domination over student politics in JNU isn't new, though RSS student union Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and groups like the Free Thinkers, which shunned ideological tags, have led the students body, too. But independent of the dominant student group at any time, the university has produced some of the country's top civil servants, apart from political leaders of all hues. Former cabinet secretary Ajit Seth - who was India's top bureaucrat for four years from June 2011 to June 2015, a period spanning the UPA and NDA governments - pursued his MPhil in life sciences from JNU. BJP president Amit Shah today blamed a "Leftist ideological inspiration" for the slogans students allegedly raised last week. But Sitharaman, who was a member of the Free Thinkers group during her time in JNU, had in a 2009 interview to the university alumni wing lavished credit on the university for inspiring "anything I am today." "JNU most certainly provided me the best opportunity to participate in all sorts of debates and to think in a different way," Sitharaman told the alumni newsletter. "I must say that JNUites do things differently, wherever they are, and that's how they stand out." Senior IAS officer Ali Raza Rizvi, currently a joint secretary in the central ministry of health and family welfare, credited the intellectual atmosphere at JNU with expanding his worldview. He studied history there from 1985 to 1987. "Simple things like not remaining self-contained and looking beyond oneself, to observe and learn from society with a sense of humility, having a certain commitment towards the needs of the common citizen," Rizvi had told the alumni magazine in an interview last year. "The deep intellectual pursuit which the campus offered - that sort of pursuit, with its challenges - is extremely fulfilling." JNU's allure has also brought many retired diplomats and bureaucrats to the university in the role of teachers. Former foreign secretary Muchkund Dubey taught international relations for several years. Prodipto Ghosh, a former environment secretary, was a visiting faculty member at the university. Alumnus at DU helm The Modi government itself quietly doffed its hat at JNU today, appointing a former professor from the institution, Yogesh Tyagi, the new vice-chancellor of Delhi University. The Union HRD ministry announced the appointment of Tyagi, who did his PhD in legal studies at JNU. He also holds an LLM degree from Columbia University. The DU top post had been vacant since October when Dinesh Singh's term came to an end. The Congress-backed Indian National Teachers Congress and Academics for Action and Development welcomed Tyagi's appointment.

Scams & Shames of Medical Education in India

(Representative image)EEducation in India

Education in India is going from bad to worse. Large-scale commercialisation is leading to the erosion of standards and ethics in education. Vice in higher educational institutions are bought and sold. How will they maintain the sanctity of the insitutions if they come after heavy bribing and palm greasing the politicians? Times of India reports that" you would never find advertisements for "confirmed admission" to any IIT or AIIMS or one asking you to book a seat in advance in any of these premier institutes. Neither are there advertisements promising you selection for the civil services or placement in an all-India service of your choice. Yet, the media is full of ads for MBBS seats in colleges across the country.

How, if the system is merit-based, can anyone promise "direct admission"?

Behind this promise is a black market in medical seats in private colleges. With agents and college managements colluding to sell many of the 30,000-plus MBBS and over 9,600 postgraduation seats in private medical colleges, back-of-the-envelope calculations by TOI suggests that about Rs 12,000 crore in hard cash changes hands in this black market every year.

HIGHLIGHTS

Of the 422 medical colleges in India, 224 are private, accounting for 53% of MBBS seats. Many of these colleges are running with little or no facilities, no patients and fake faculty. The going price for an MBBS seat could range from Rs 1 crore in colleges in Bangalore to Rs 25-35 lakh in some in UP. Seats in MD in radiology and dermatology cost up to Rs 3 crore.

 Seats in MD in radiology and dermatology cost up to Rs 3 crore.book a seat in advance in any of these premier institutes. Neither are there advertisements promising you selection for the civil services or placement in an all-India service of your choice. Yet, the media is full of ads for MBBS seats in colleges across the country.

How, if the system is merit-based, can anyone promise "direct admission"? Behind this promise is a black market in medical seats in private colleges. With agents and college managements colluding to sell many of the 30,000-plus MBBS and over 9,600 postgraduation seats in private medical colleges, back-of-the-envelope calculations by TOI suggests that about Rs 12,000 crore in hard cash changes hands in this black market every year.

The prices could escalate or drop depending on how early you approach a college for a seat. If you book in advance, you could get a discount! However, once the medical entrance results have been announced, the same seats at the private colleges will be sold for almost double the advance booking price. The sale of MBBS seats alone is worth almost Rs 9,000 crore annually.

Consortia of privately managed colleges and deemed universities that run medical colleges claim to conduct their own entrance examinations to take in students strictly on merit. However, in state after state, the exams have been exposed as a farce with students who pay money to buy seats being accommodated whether they appear for the exam or not and no matter what they score, while the so-called merit students are bumped off the list on various pretexts; with many even threatened and bullied into vacating seats.

While the 15% NRI quota seats are allowed to be allotted at the management's discretion in most states, in reality, even the management quota and a chunk of the so-called merit seats are sold off, bringing the proportion of seats sold to over 50%, the proportion rising to 80% or even 100% in some cases depending on how strict the regulation is in each state. The quota set aside for management varies from state to state. For instance, in MP and Maharashtra, the management quota is about 43%. This, plus the NRI quota brings the seats set aside to almost 60%.

With just 23,600 seats available for post graduate medical education, the demand for the same is very high. Thus, there is great demand for the 9,400-plus seats in the private sector, including over 1,300 diploma seats. By a conservative estimate, about 40% of these seats also get sold. All told, the sale of post-graduate seats alone is estimated to be worth about Rs 2,900 crore. Add the highly valued seats for super-specialisation, about 370 in the private sector, of which again at least 40% is sold, and the post-MBBS education black market figure crosses Rs 3,000 crore. Thus, along with the MBBS seat sale, the total amount comes to about Rs 12,000 crore.

The bulk of the money is paid in cash, leaving no trace of the transaction. And despite the advertisements giving the game away, the government has not cracked down on this black market or taken steps to arrest the rot in the medical education system.

India tops in supplying doctors to West LU

BNA KABLY,TNN | Sep 23, 2015, 10.55 PM IST

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Number of migrant doctors and nurses working in OECD countries has risen 60% over the past ten years.

 India continues to retain its position as the world's top supplier of expatriate doctors to 34 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), followed by China. Most new immigrants to OECD countries—taking migration statistics in totality—though, originated from China, with India occupying the fourth slot.

According to OECD's recent report on International Migration Outlook (2015), as many as 86,680 Indian expatriate doctors (statistics relate to 2010-11) worked in OECD countries, which include the US, EU countries and Switzerland, to name a few. The number of expatriate Indian doctors jumped from 56,000 in 2000-01 to nearly 87,000 in 2010-11, but the corresponding expatriation rates have risen only by one-half of a percentage point to 8.6%. The US employs 60% of the expatriate Indian doctors, with the UK being the second leading employer. China, with 26,583 expatriate doctors in 2010-11 occupied the second slot.

Philippines provided the most nurses—around 2.21 lakh—compared with India at 70,471. The number of expat nurses from India, though, has grown over the past ten years, which has seen India move to the second spot in 2010-11 from its sixth position earlier. Expat nurses from India are found primarily in the US (42%), the UK (28%) and Australia (9%).

In total, the number of migrant doctors and nurses working in OECD countries has risen 60% over the past ten years. Expat doctors and nurses constituted 23% and 14% of healthcare professionals in OECD countries.

"The trend mirrors the general increase in immigration to OECD countries, particularly that of skilled workers," states the report. The International Migration Outlook (2015) study points out that a number of OECD countries have fundamentally revised their migration legislation in the past few years. Most changes tend towards restriction. While skilled workers are still wanted, countries are picking them more selectively. Investors and entrepreneurs are sought after, but are increasingly scrutinized.

Several countries have cast a greater onus on the potential employer to ensure that only those expats with the right skills are granted employment—advertising for local employees, payment of a threshold salary for expat employees (to ensure that lower salaries don't become the sole ground for hiring expats) are measures adopted by various countries, especially the European Union (EU) countries.



The total foreign-born population in OECD countries stood at 11.7 crore people in 2013—3.5 crore more than in 2000. Preliminary 2014 data suggests that permanent migration flows to OECD countries reached 4.3 lakh—a 6% increase compared to 2013. In addition, most categories of temporary migration increased too.

Most new immigrants to OECD countries originated from China; it accounted for around one in ten migrants in 2013. Romania and Poland rank second and third with respectively 5.5% and 5.3% of overall inflows to OECD countries. This is largely attributed to intra-EU mobility.

Comparatively, India appeared in fourth position only 4.4% of immigrants to OECD countries were from India. (See graphic).

A country-wise analysis of the statistics drawn from this report shows that the US, Australia, Canada, the UK and Germany were favoured destinations for Indian migrants. In terms of absolute numbers, the largest number of migrants from India are to the US (68,500 in 2013). However, if one compares a period over 10 years, Australia has seen a significant percentage rise. (See graphic).

OECD countries have also seen an increase in the number of foreign students. In 2012, there were nearly 34 lakh foreign students in OECD countries—a slight rise of 3% compared with the previous year. Most international students in the area of higher education originated from Asia. China accounted for 22%, followed by 6% from India and 4% from Korea.

International students account for an average of 8% of the OECD tertiary-level student population. In Australia, the UK, Switzerland, New Zealand and Austria, one student in six at the university level is from abroad. In the US, though, where they are more numerous than anywhere else, they constitute barely a 3.5% share of university-level students
.

Needed Caution in the Foreign Universities Bill

In a hurry to add achievements to his ministerial performance list, Kapil Sibal had pushed the Foreign Educational Institutions Bill in the Cabinet. India can truly benefit from a foreign university to serve its people with better education. But to difficult to experience such good intended universities from abroad. We can give encouragement to the HRD minister provided he argument for better bargain. Unfortunately the lawyer turned politician has let down his country’s higher education system and the youth. By capping the corpus to be deposited by the foreign university to a peanut of Rs.50 crore he had done a great injustice.

The minister should have fixed a minimum of Rs.200 crore deposit, the fee limit of not more than Rs. 2 lakh and other safeguard mechanisms. Good that the minister had pleaded for the non plying of profit out of the country. Even in this trial and error game of foreign education in India the minister needs to exercise utmost caution. Just to add his namesake achievements the lawyer minister shouldn’t play with the future of the country’s children.

The Times of India writes on 16 March 2010

The country just took a big step for dramatically enhancing the profile of higher education in the country. On Monday, the Union cabinet cleared the Foreign Educational Institutions (regulation of entry and operation) Bill, which aims to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India.

The bill, which was adopted without changes, is expected to be introduced in Parliament after the recess of the budget session. If cleared, it would widen the definition of FDI in higher education and is expected to not only shake up the market but also throw up exciting possibilities for top Indian teachers. An excited HRD minister Kapil Sibal said the bill would lead to a ‘‘larger revolution than even in the telecom sector’’.

While the bill will be opposed by the Left, it shouldn’t face any serious obstacle in Parliament because the BJP is also in favour of the move, even though it might raise some objections on a provision or two of the bill.

Once it is cleared, some of the top foreign universities, said to be waiting in the wings, are expected to set up campuses in India. The Atlanta-based Georgia Tech University has already bought 250 acres in Hyderabad. Although Yale University is interested in having a presence in India, and welcomed the cabinet clearance, its assistant secretary George Joseph told TOI that there were no plans as of now to set up a campus here.

While the foreign universities would follow the national laws, they will not have to give reservation in admission to SC/ST/OBC students. The bill treats them as private universities. Even Indian private universities are free of quota-based admissions.

Similarly, foreign universities will have freedom to fix fees and decide their admission process.

The Foreign Educational Institutions (regulation of entry and operation) Bill makes it mandatory for foreign universities to publish a prospectus. Also, the bill disallows foreign educational providers from repatriating profit made from Indian campus through education.

With foreign direct investment in higher education already allowed since 2002, the bill stipulates that any
foreign university interested in setting up a campus in India will have to deposit a corpus of Rs 50 crore with the body that will register them. The registering body will be the University Grants Commission (UGC).

The bill promises time-bound registration to foreign universities, although they will have to go through a series of registrations at various levels. The registering body after going through the application will advise government whether the foreign university be allowed or not.

Asked what happens in case a foreign education provider sets up a campus in collaboration with private Indian university, ministry source said, ‘‘It is the foreign education provider who will have to come for the registration with details of collaboration.’’

Kapil Sibal was quick to welcome the cabinet approval. He said, ‘‘This is a milestone which will enhance choices, increase competition and benchmark quality. A larger revolution than even in the telecom sector awaits us.’’

AVerage monthly salaries

($ 2008 purchasing power parity)

Saudi Arabia 6611

Canada 6548

United States 5816

Australia 4795

New Zealand 4490

U.K 4343

Germany 4333

Japan 4112

South Africa 4075

India 1547

China 1182

Source: Rumbley, I Pancheco & Philip Altbach

Poor India Bailing Out Rich America

India is a poor country. America is a rich country. This age-old story is taking a beating. Today the "poor India" is bailing out busted out America. With over one lakh students contributing $3 billion to the sick American economy is first aided and looked after by the Indian students on the one hand and the fatty corporate India is acquiring the fallen mega MNCs of United States. Along with the growing clout of India students, corporate and more appointments of NRIs in the American governance, better pastures are ahead.

The Times of India writes on 20 November 2009

The number of students from India enrolled in US universities and colleges crossed 100,000 for the first time ever this year even as international enrollments in America registered the largest percentage increase since 1980, defying broad economic trends.

As the number of international students at colleges and universities in the US increased by 8% to an all-time high of 671,616 in the 2008/09 academic year, students from India made up 103,260 of the overall number, according to the Open Doors report, which is published annually by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in collaboration with the US government.

The Indian numbers went up 9.2 per cent from 94,563 in 2007/2008 to cross 100,000 for the first time to retain its position as the top place of origin for international students in the United States. China remained in second place, although there was a sharp 21 per cent spike in students from China, going up from 81,127 last academic year to 98,235 this year. South Korea (69,000 to 75,000) remained in third place.

This is the eighth consecutive year that India has remained in the top spot. In course of a preview of the forthcoming visit to Washington of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh next week, Indian officials said on Monday that Indian student inflow contributed nearly $ 3 billion to the US economy last year. Overall, international students contribute $17.8 billion to the US economy, through their expenditures on tuition and living expenses, according to the US Department of Commerce.

Authors of the report said the findings do not reflect the full impact of the past year's economic downturn, since decisions to come to the United States to study were made before the financial effects were fully felt in the sending countries.

They also reported that the largest growth this year was seen in undergraduate enrollments, which increased by 11%, compared to a 2% increase in graduate enrollments. This growth was driven largely by increases in undergraduate students from China, they said, suggesting that increased affluence is enabling Chinese to send their children to US for undergrad education, where there is typically less scholarship and funding.

According to Open Doors 2009, universities in California hosted the largest number of foreign students with 93,124, up 10%, followed by New York with 74,934, up 7%, and Texas with 58,188, up 12%. The New York City metropolitan area continues to be the leading city for international students, with 59,322 enrolled in area schools, up 8%. The Los Angeles metropolitan area is in second place with 42,897 international students, up 11%.

For the eighth consecutive year, Open Doors reports that the University of Southern California hosted the largest number of international students, this year reporting 7,482. New York University held in second place with 6,761
international students, and Columbia University, also holding steady in third place, hosted 6,685. Rounding out the top five 2008/09 host institutions are University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (6,570 students) and Purdue University (6,136 students). Open Doors reports that 171 US campuses each hosted more than 1,000 students.

The top ten most popular fields of study for international students in the United States in 2008/09 were Business and Management (21% of total), Engineering (18%) and Physical and Life Sciences (9%), Social Sciences (9%), Mathematics and Computer Science (8%), Health Professions (5%), Fine & Applied Arts (5%), Intensive English Language (4%), Humanities (3%), Education (3%), and Agriculture (1%).

There was also a significant 20 per cent uptick in the number of American students studying in India, part of the an overall growth in American students going abroad for academic purpose. The number of Americans studying in India rose from 2627 in 2006/2007 to 3146 in 2007/2008, making India the 17th in the list of countries for US students. The top five spots went to UK, Italy, Spain, France and China, the last of which had more than 13,000 American students.

Abroad Going IIM

The UPA government is reluctant to capitalise on the advantages build up by some of brand images of India. IIM one of the super brand built by India deserves to mint name, fame and money through its effective courses. The long due permission for this brand star in management education was given by the union HRD minister. Now IIM must go hammer and tongs to realise its global image.

The Times of India writes (15 October 2009)

The government on Friday handed twin Diwali gifts to the IIMs. It gave the prestigious management schools the go-ahead to set up
campuses abroad. It also agreed to leave the appointment of the board and director of an IIM to a collegium the composition of which is to be decided by IIMs themselves.

IIMs have been asked to decide the composition of the collegium by January 2010.

Announcing the decisions after his meeting with directors of IIMs, HRD minister Kapil Sibal said that the number of board members in each IIM will also be brought down to 13. "The collegium will suggest the names for appointment of the board members and the directors. The composition of the collegium will be restricted to 13 members," he said .

The greenlight for foreign campuses marks a major shift since the UPA-1. The proposal by IIM-Bangalore to set up a campus in Singapore became a contentious issue during the tenure of former HRD minister Arjun Singh who said that the management schools were mandated to focus on the country.

Sibal justified the significant departure saying IIMs should be a global brand. He also said that though their prime responsibility was national, they could become an international brand. "Both can go hand in hand," he said.

The HRD minister said while it was for IIMs to take the final decision on how they want to set up campuses abroad, he suggested they should come together to do it. In case the proposal of IIMs is accepted, Sibal said, their memorandum of association would be amended.

In the meeting with Sibal, the IIM directors accepted his suggestion on the collegium. This would mean that the Bhargava committee's recommendation of a pan-IIM board would not be implemented. Sibal said the IIMs were not very enthusiastic with the idea of a pan-IIM board but they had accepted it.

The IIM directors expressed satisfaction with the new pay structure and promised to evolve a Performance Related Incentive Scheme. Each IIM has also agreed to come up with a vision document early next year for the next five years. Sibal asked the B-school directors to emphasise on affirmative action and look for ways to give more representation to women.

To bridge the gap between the old IIMs -- all big brands now -- and the new IIMs, Sibal suggested that the new ones be mentored by old ones. Just this year, six new IIMs will be set up. Sibal also felt that IIMs should have a flexible system under which a student can pursue certain credits from any IIM other than the institute he is admitted to.

In the meeting, the IIMs agreed to produce more post-doctoral fellows and give more importance to research. The B-schools would be provided enhanced IT facility as each of them would get one gigabyte connectivity, Sibal said.

Respecting the University Teachers

The academic fraternity is under attack now. Once revered people are looked down today. Who is responsible for the change in status of teachers? Definitely some of the black sheeps in the teaching community are responsible for this bad image about teachers. Due to the high wave consumerism teachers are losing interest in teaching and investing more interest in earning and spending. The world has a responsibility to rescue the teaching community from this mess and give them their original status. Money and other resources should not be a constraint for this. But teachers will respond to the rescue package? Will they do justice to their profession by guiding the students and inspiring them? or will they continue to put their stakes outside their institutions to earn extra pennies to meet their consumer fancies? One needs to wait and watch this serial to unveil although the UGC has proposed fixed time presence for the university teachers.

The Times of India writes (1 October 2009)

If the University Grants Commission (UGC) has its way, then it might become mandatory for university professors and teachers to clock a minimum of
40 hours a week at work. They will have to be physically present for at least five hours a day on campus and earmark six hours a week for research. This move to fix workload for academics in terms of hours spent on site is misplaced. It reflects the bureaucratic mindset of administrators in India. While less bureaucracy is desirable in all spheres of public life, education is one area that desperately needs to be unshackled.

Universities and colleges are no factory floors. The output of teachers cannot be measured merely by the number of hours they are physically present on campus. A lot more goes into the making of an effective educator. A teacher can be present eight hours a day but that does not necessarily make her competent or effective. In assessing the productivity and efficacy of teachers, it's crucial to factor in their research output and student feedback. Neither of these can be gauged from mere attendance.

Top quality universities and colleges in countries where education is of a much higher quality than in India do not lay down such absurd rules. Teachers and professors are expected to take a certain number of classes a week, be available between two to four hours in office per week to interact with students who need advice, and produce original research in their area of specialisation. Much emphasis is placed on how up-to-date they are with developments in their field of study and the quality of their teaching and research, as assessed by students and peers respectively.

Flexible work hours give teachers the freedom to spend constructive time in libraries, seminars, refresher workshops, etc all of which are vital inputs to their knowledge base. It's virtually impossible to enforce and monitor the proposal that the UGC has come up with. Instead of trying to fix input, regulators would do better to measure tangible output.
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The UGC proposal to mandate professors and all teachers in full employment at universities to work 40 hours a week should be welcomed. Higher
education in India, much like primary and secondary school education, suffers hugely from teacher absenteeism. Requiring professors and teachers to come to class and holding them accountable if they don't would be a big step forward in providing quality education to Indian youth.

There is a section that believes that requiring a workload of 40 hours a week from teachers is overkill. But 40 hours is really not very much. All the UGC requires is that professors be physically present on campus for five hours everyday. This doesn't mean that they have to take five hours of classes direct teaching hours are limited to 16 a week for assistant professors and 14 hours for more senior teachers. Professors will be free to spend rest of their time in libraries, conducting research, or meeting with students who wish to discuss problems or ideas with them. With class sizes in India being big, it makes sense to have teachers available for longer periods than is the norm in, say, American or British universities.

It is all very well to suggest that the level of a professor's commitment to teaching be judged through student evaluations and papers published in reputed journals. But we all know how little credence is given to student feedback, particularly when big name professors prove to be unpopular. Incentivising teachers to publish more is a good idea. But this should not come at the cost of teaching which, after all, is the primary responsibility of those in the education business. Universities in Britain and the US are facing criticism for just this; the emphasis placed on research is so high that teaching, particularly undergraduate teaching, suffers as a result. And in India, where there is no practice of professors hiring teaching assistants to share their workload, encouraging teachers to put publishing papers above classroom hours would be a big mistake. Losing a degree of flexibility in how teachers spend their time is a small price to pay to improve the standards of teaching in our universities.

Risky Freedom for Foreign Universities

A section of the business lobby has been advocating full freedom for the foreign universities to enter and setup shops in India. Due to the strong opposition in the past it was shelved. Now the pro liberal HRD minister at helm things seem to be changing. It is risky to allow free entry for any and every foreign institution. I suggest extreme caution in this front.

Philip G. Altbach writes in The Hindu (2 June 2009),

The new Minister of Human Resource Development, Kapil Sibal, has promised to open India’s doors to foreign universities and to promote private investment in higher education. Past policy has been sceptical of foreign involvement in Indian education. As India is about to embark on a new higher education direction, it is worth examining the likely consequences of the open door, based on the experience of other countries.

If Mr. Sibal assumes that foreign involvement will assist India to rapidly improve its lagging higher education system, he is quite wrong. With few exceptions, foreign higher education providers worldwide are engaged in making a quick profit by establishing programmes that attract high student demand and are inexpensive to start and operate. Worldwide, many of the foreign transplants are in information technology, business studies, and related fields. Most foreign providers are not top universities but are rather institutions at the middle or bottom of the hierarchy in their home countries. Some have financial or enrolment problems at home and want to solve them with offshore ventures. And some are “bottom-feeders” who will provide a substandard educational product in India. A truly open door permits pests as well as welcome guests to enter. International experience shows that the “market” is slow to detect low quality — and there seems to be a clientele for poor quality in any case.

A few top universities will be interested in India for a combination of reasons — to earn money and also to introduce long-term relations, in the country, with the best Indian institutions — and to provide a base for recruiting outstanding Indian students and faculty.

Improvement through foreign involvement?


Some have argued that India’s admittedly moribund higher education system will receive a needed dose of reform and upgrade from foreign transplants. This is a quite unlikely diagnosis. Thoughtful Indians know what is wrong with the system, and numerous high-level inquiries, including recently from the Knowledge Commission, have provided road maps for reform. Further, many Indians have experience in the best overseas universities and know how they work. Improvement will inevitably come from the inside and not from a few foreign institutions operating in India. Further, the foreign programmes will not be focussed on reforming Indian higher education but rather on successfully competing with local colleges and universities. Nor will the foreigners bring the full panoply of a complex and highly expensive university to India. Rather, they will bring specific programmes and facilities that will be profitable in India. Only when the host country pays the full cost, such as in the Gulf countries, do foreign universities establish full facilities and expensive programmes such as the Cornell University Medical School in Qatar.

Problems of sustainability


If Mr. Sibal believes that he will easily get well-functioning, top quality foreign universities to set up shop in India quickly, he is mistaken. It is likely that some of the for-profit providers, such as Laureate and Apollo, will be most interested. These institutions, which have operated successfully in many countries, are not seen as prestigious institutions. University transplants frequently have experienced significant logistical problems. A challenge involves convincing professors and staff from the home campus to teach abroad. Indeed, this ordeal often acts as the Achilles’ heel of foreign providers, for in almost every case, they end up hiring local staff to teach. It may be sufficient for Indians to study in an ostensibly foreign institution in India taught by local professors; the students may end up with a foreign degree but not with much of an international experience. Just as important, if the foreign institution cannot earn a quick profit, it might well pull up stakes and leave or, alternatively, reduce costs by lowering the quality.

International examples


India might study other countries’ experience with foreign branch campuses and international collaborations. A few that have opened their doors wide with little regulation found that most foreign institutions entering the market were substandard. This represents Israel’s experience. Lack of opportunity for access at home led the government to open the country to foreign providers. Most of the foreign institutions performed poorly and were marginal in their home countries. The door was soon closed again. The losers, of course, were the students who paid high prices for bad quality.

Most countries with a relatively positive experience involving foreign providers created a clear regulatory framework to control who could enter the market and the terms and conditions of operation. China, for example, requires foreign institutions to connect with a Chinese institutional partner and to receive government approval. Yet, some of the Chinese provincial and local authorities who approve foreign collaborations have made mistakes.

While Minister Sibal claims that other countries do not maintain strong regulators such as the University Grants Commission or the All India Council of Technical Education, this point of view seems not to be the case. Many countries have been run by strong regulatory regimes that have worked well. Singapore, with a largely successful history of foreign collaboration, stringently regulates foreign providers and has been willing to end the programmes, such as one with the Johns Hopkins University in the United States, which the Singaporeans felt was not living up to its promises. Ministries of education or their equivalents in South Korea, Japan, and some other Asian countries carefully regulate who can enter the local market and monitor performance.

Quality assurance has been a central concern, and few countries have solved that problem. Few countries can effectively monitor standards of their own universities, and foreign institutions do create additional challenges. American branch campuses are monitored by the U.S. accreditors, which have found it difficult to fulfil this task. India’s quality-assurance agencies do not function particularly effectively. Monitoring and evaluating numerous foreign transplants may be beyond the capability of the system.

What can be done?


Minister Sibal is right that India cannot forever keep its academic doors closed. India, after all, constitutes an increasingly central part of a globalised world. However, simply to throw the doors open would be a serious mistake. India, like other developing countries, needs a clear and transparent policy and regulatory framework. What comprises the rationale for participating in global higher education? What institutions — and investments — from abroad are appropriate for India? What are the criteria for selecting, monitoring, and evaluating foreign institutions? Without answers to these questions — and the policy framework to go along with the answers — opening the doors will create long-term problems for India’s academic system.

Regional Educational Imbalance

Regional Educational Imbalance

The southern and western states are in the forefront of educational development in India. Now it is reaching such a flashpoint that higher educational institutes are popping up everywhere. Is this going to create heavy migration of students?


Hemali Chhapla writes in The Times of India “A common wisecrack among engineering aspirants in Andra Pradesh is that every second building in the state is an engineering college. It may cease to be a joke when institutes dishing out management and engineering degrees start mushrooming all over the country.

Global depression may have taken the wind out of campus placements but the rush for starting professional institutions is at an all time high. Data from the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) shows that the dash to start professional colleges is more pronounced when it comes to engineering and management as compared to other streams like pharmacy, hotel management and catering technology or architecture.

AICTE has received 886 applications for starting engineering colleges and 1,084 applications for new anagement institutes. Fie states – Tamil Nadu, Andra Pradesh, Maharastra, Karnataka and Kerala – account for 69% of engineering graduates , implying that they also have most of India’s engineering colleges

Rush year
States Engineering MBA
Existing Fresh Existing Fresh
Maharashtra 239 85 216 160
MP 161 50 63 80
Tamil Nadu 352 144 158 41
AP 527 176 255 209
UP 241 83 213 214
Haryana 116 38 66 47
Across India 2388 886 1516 1084

Source: AICTE. Fresh applications are for colleges from academic year 2009-10

Five Indian sties – Tamil Nadu, Andra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala – account for almost 69% of the country’s engineering graduates, implying that these states also have most of India’s engineering colleges.

This year, too, most applications for starting new institutes have come from these states, making educationists worry about a high regional imbalance creepin in; states like UP, Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Orissa together account for a measly 14% of Indian’s technological colleges.

Colleges that receive a nod by June 30 will be allowed to start classes this academic year itself; so officials expect even more applications to pour in.

Several academicians feel quality is losing out in the race to expand seats. “Can the country boast of even 100 engineering colleges that impart cutting-edge education?” asked a principal of Pune engineering college.
“So what is the point in a thousand new colleges every year? He asked. Part of the problem lies in the fact that most trusts running professional colleges are backed by politicians who pay little attention to quality, he added.

But the AICTE feels that meeting the massive demand for professional education is imperative. Twenty years ago, merely one per cent of a aspiring engineers got a seat.
Now nearly 70% manage to find a place, note AICTE officials, “It may come as a surprise but very few engineering seats wee left vacant last year”. AICTE chairman R.A.Yadav told TOI. “There is also a yawning gap between management aspirants and the number of seats in Indian B-schools.

“But how many management schools boast of full campus placement? And are even 30% of MBA institutes accredited by the NBA (National Board of Accreditation) asked an IIM-Bangalore faculty member.

Increasing the existing number of professional colleges is a must. In a view of the galloping population and raising educational aspirations of people more availability of higher educational institutes are must. But not by compromising the quality of the education offered.