Dr. D. Mukhopadhyay
Indian higher education is not recognized to be excellent on the map of world education though there are many instances where India is the pioneer in producing scientists like Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, Prafulla Chandrra Roy, C V. Raman, Ramnujam and many more. But today’s generation hardly knows them who they were. It is now high time to internationalize Indian higher education in order to secure respectful position in the world map of economy. Government of India should increase its expenditure on education and at least 5% of GDP should be earmarked for reformation of education sector and to encourage and promote research not only in science in technology but other areas such as Economics, Management and Commerce, Humanities and Social Sciences. Science means innovation, science means advancement and science means discovery. But philosophy plays an important role in developing and shaping a inquisitive mind. Economics, Management and Commerce teach as to how to make optimum utilization of scarce economic resources.
Quality of higher education is one of the decisive factors of economic development of a country. People are talking about demographic dividend of India since a lion share of her population belongs to the age group of eighteen years to twenty five years of age. In this context, it is pertinent to mention that demographic dividend is accruable only form employable young people and deserving job seekers and employability both at national and international level depends on quality of education a person receives. If we compare today’s India with India of seventy years back, it can be seen that we have comparatively done something better in every field but could not achieve excellence in any field except in the field of information technology. Information technology is tool that helps in generation and dissemination of information at low cost of production of information. But, core economic activity is production and distribution of want removing goods and services and for that purpose we need innovation, research and discovery of ideas. We need to produce at minimum cost and sell our products in international market at competitive prices and it is achievable only when we can manage our cost with the help of Cost and Management Accountants(CMAs). Thus , one way, India need to have knowledge based youth who are trained in such a way so that they are considered to be at par across the world. China is much ahead of India because of her excellence in education sector. University of Shanghai is one of the best Universities in the world. Our education system is developing but in slow speed.
University of Calcutta, University Mumbai and University of Chennai are the oldest Universities of India and they have contributed a lot in bringing about Indian higher education whatever it is in today’s level with limited resources. Government of India should help these Universities in the same way as it helps other Institutions of national importance since these Universities have reasonably good infrastructure for carrying out world class research activities. Without launching many more Universities, it should develop and upgrade the existing one. The author of this write up is not against opening up of new universities and educational institutions since still there is remarkable dearth of Schools, colleges and universities in India in order to meet her needs and formal education is yet to reach many and uncountable population. Only 70% of people are literate and 30% i. e. remaining are yet to see the schools. It is therefore, in one hand government of India has to establish schools, colleges and universities in every nook and corner where the light of modern education has not yet reached and support the existing Universities in undertaking research and educational development activities so that they can within a given span of time reach the world level benchmark and produce employable graduates both at national and international levels.
Moreover, Universities should be encouraged to have collaboration with the industry. Educated youth are the product of the Universities and they need to be trained in such curricula and pedagogy which can meet the requirements of the industry. In this connection, it may be worthwhile to mention the names of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), the Institute of Cost Accountants of India(ICAI) and the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI). Chartered Accountants(CAs) are the product of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Cost & Management Accountants (CMAs) are the product of the Institute of Cost Accountants of India and Company Secretaries(CSs) are the product of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India and hardly any passed out and alumni from these Institutes are found to be unemployed . This is because they regularly revise the course curricula keeping in view the requirement of the corporate world and they maintain the world standard quality of their products. Universities and other educational institutions should regularly update the course curricula and set target to reach the world standard of best Universities. When University of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, MIT and others can consistently maintain their ranks year after years and the reasons why we cannot be one of first four hundred universities in the world is to be found out. Research receives top priorities in those universities and we target on quantity but not quality.
Majority of Indian Universities do not know what the industries and corporate world is doing and where their graduates shall go after obtaining their Degrees. There is wider gap between theory and practical requirements. We would like to see our country self reliant and self sufficient against international standard but there is hardly any effective effort is put forth. Our education system needs to be linked to the education of those countries who have achieved excellence in this field. Almost all the European , American and Canadian Universities are producers of world class industry captains and that is why perhaps they are developed. They allocate substantially of their budget to education but we allocate on guns and ammunition. In order to maintain sovereignty of the country, there is a need to have guns but it should be our effort to have a rational budget. Education and research should receive the same priority as the gun if not more. Without world class education, our country cannot come out of the chain of third world mark. We have produced economists like Amartya Sen, Jagdish Bhagabati, Kaushik Basu and many more but we need many many more like them so that our county shall attain her objective of self reliance and self sufficiency. Universities performance are to be reviewed periodically and they must be made accountable for the funds government of India allocate. Universities are to be meant for teaching and research.
They should take up the projects from industries and provide solutions to their problems. Most of the companies do not have in-house research centers and they should be made tied up with the universities. Research means answer to problems and the problems whether it is economic, socio-political or of any other characteristics can be solved by the researchers. Cost of production of Indian products is high and as a consequence she cannot compete in the international market and thus suffers from the fever of low extent of market. India takes it as fate accompli but do not seek for scientific solution to such problem. Whereas in China, there is substantial research and development in every sector of the economy and thus she improves in every sector. Quality of life of people can be improved through research and developmental activities. Healthcare and sanitation, green environment, pollution free environment etc. can be the product of research . Universities are to be linked to the world class universities across the world. They must be allowed to function with full autonomy with least government interference. Moreover, university-industry partnership is a must which would generate mutual benefits. Under no circumstances, quality aspect should be given less priority. It is important to negotiate with the top class universities for student and teacher exchange and this would help in bringing about of educational standard and quality of research. In developed countries, bondage between the universities and industry is very high. Majority of the universities receive very high amount of endowment from the corporate sector and they hardly depend on Government budget allocation. In India, that kind of culture is found to be in rare cases.
It is perhaps need of the hour to assess the performance of our universities and they need to be segregated into say tier one, tier two and tier three universities and necessary steps for making their deficiency good have to be taken up. Most of our economic problems shall be solved once we internationalize our education system in general and higher education in particular. India has to establish links with rest of the world and fill the gaps after making an effective gap analysis to find out our weakness . We can also contribute other countries the strength and expertise in which we do have. India is lagging behind many third world countries even in the sphere of quality of research and education delivery system and internationalization is the only answer to such problem.
(The author is the Professor of Management, School of Business, Faculty of Management, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra)
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