THERE ARE several aspects to a university becoming world class. The most important aspects of these are—faculty, students and the research and learning that occur as a result of the interaction between the two. The university facilitates interaction between teachers and students resulting in research and higher learning with active involvement and support of the industry, community and the government. Thus, the quality of faculty and students that a university has is crucial in making it excel. Conduct socially relevant research and make students socially conscious. It is the quality faculty and students that ensure quality research, which is an extremely important component for a university to be classified as world class. Today education and research go hand in hand, as textbooks become obsolete even before they are printed. Excellence in research comes from establishing practices like a strong performance incentive in the form of grants from both industry and government for the faculty. These incentives however, must be tied up with accountability. The societal relevance of the research and students that a university produces is being recognised as more important criteria than the kind of jobs that the students land. Universities around the world are recognising that they need to be committed to carrying out research, projects and higher learning that benefits society. Billions of dollars may be poured into research, but if that research is not helping our society to prosper, then it is really not worth it.
The second point is to give autonomy and support to visionary founders. Universities in India are relatively young compared to universities in the West. So, in a way we are still trying to figure out our path. Universities require visionary founders and management who must have autonomy to chalk out the course for the university. This is how many top universities in the US were founded. If you look at corporations in India, this is how they have found a place in the international arena. Just 20 years ago, there were no Indian companies big enough to figure in the international reckonings even in the field of information technology. But today many top IT companies in the world are from India, thanks to their visionary founders, resources and freedom to compete in the market. Similarly, if some of the Indian universities with visionary founders get the right opportunity, they have the potential to emerge as the best in the world. Increase appetite for risk.
Indian institutions must increase their appetite for risk in order reach an international stature. This risk-taking percolates to different levels. It means encouraging entrepreneurial initiatives, putting in place some sort of a tenure system with performance linked promotion and tying up faculty compensation to grants. These are some of the standard practices that US universities employ to ensure they have dedicated faculty. At a vision level, I would like to quote our Chancellor Amma: “Learning and research should be important for life and not only for earning a living. It is very important to give a wholesome, holistic, well-rounded training to students so that when they graduate, they have the right perspective which brings them a lot of fulfilment in life.” What we also need is social vision. Sensitisation of students towards societal problems and the community around them is important. They have to realise that money is not the only factor that makes a difference in life. Getting involved in the problems of society and looking at ways to improve the situation at the grass roots and solve reallife situations is important. It is these students who will develop affordable healthcare for people who cannot pay high medical costs and address problems of environment, energy and water. The thought process that needs to go into such innovation comes only from interaction of the university with society. Hence it is one of those issues that should be given top priority.
My advice to the students would be to work as a team; in the modern context, working as a sort of a team is important. Our students take action in the face of uncertainties and don’t approach a project or a problem with maturity. The whole approach of the education system seems to create only students who can sit in front of computers as glorified typists, and textbooks become obsolete even before they hit the stands.
Teachers and students look for world-class content through open source as an alternative. Rural internships, implementing theoretical knowledge into practical situations and risk-taking abilities through innovative projects as suggestions to overcome the problem of making our graduates employable. Computer languages, algorithms...they constantly change.
Students need to keep pace with changes and develop an attitude to learn continuously. They should not be apprehensive of new situations that need innovative solutions. Also a problem to lament is the fact that creativity has made a silent exit from the educational system and so has the concept of entrepreneurship. The current educational system focuses on how efficiently to solve an old problem rather than finding out creative ways to solve new problems. Human beings are endowed with creative intelligence, which they should put to good use.
Once a student completes his or her education, the employment field is no longer segmented into mechanical, chemical, electrical or information technology. All that matters us whether he or she could solve problems and, problem solving becomes much easier when it is approached in multidisciplinary teams. People of different capacities should work together as a team to solve common work problems. A country like India needs to develop the culture of working together. We should not become a mediocre nation. Attend as many workshops and meetings and present papers and participate in debates.
Such conferences act as platforms, which gave birth to new ideas. Students should also get into the culture of research. For Western universities, our country offers opportunities for finding out solutions. The nature of the country’s problems is something countries in the West had not yet experienced. Indians should wake up to the need of finding out solutions for their problems and not wait for others to give them solutions.
The question now is can private universities help? It makes perfect sense for private universities to be teaching factories.
First, there is an ever-growing demand for higher education. Around five million Indians enter the 15-to-24 age group each year. Many more of them are interested in a college degree today than in the past. Public universities are in no position to absorb such large numbers of college-ready young women and men. Private institutions have inevitably stepped in to meet this growing demand.
Second, there is little teaching at most public institutions making students spending a fortune on private tuitions.
It perhaps makes more sense for students to pay higher tuition at private institutions with the expectation that they will actually get to attend lectures on a regular basis and perhapsacquire the necessary knowledge and skills to be meaningfully employed.
Third, appearances do matter. Step into the campuses of public institutions and then visit their private counterparts. Public institutions don’t have the feel and sense of modern educational institutions. Spider webs in classrooms and passages, broken furniture, empty laboratories and stinking toilets can hardly inspire the new generation of students.
Fourth, except for a few, there is no exit option for the majority of Indian students. More than 1 lakh students do head abroad for higher education but this number is quite small as a share of the total number of students entering college each year. Most of them have nowhere to “run” and must choose between crumbling public universities and shining private ones. Sixth, many students entering college, as well as their parents, do not have any real idea about what college education is all about. They are only too relieved and happy that some sort of foeducation is available. Private institutions can get away with providing bread crumbs to the less-informed and starved.