Talking Shop: Waning charisma

"If you don't have a great

higher education system,

you're not going to have

big ideas, start-ups. Not only

California, America is going

to fall behind the new context

which is India and China..."

— Meg Whitman, November 2009

The above quote was made less than 13 years ago. Things have changed, as we shall discuss below.

I remember our old Hindi movies from the 1960s and 1970s, where many a time the protagonist from an obviously affluent family would arrive back to an Indian airport after grabbing (buying?) a higher education degree from some or the other varsity in London or the United States. He/she would be warmly welcomed by doting parents on the runway itself, with a turbo-prop passenger aircraft serving as the perfect backdrop, as did their long, convertible Impalas, Studebakers and Bel Airs waiting to whisk them away—all tailored to remind those watching that this is how the 'other' part of the world lives.

In just a few decades, though, the 'lesser' people (if I may call them that and please do note that I am very much one of them) had the last laugh. India, a recently independent nation, progressed on all fronts—intellectual, industrial and agrarian—and our education system kept pace as well. Reputed and massive universities of higher education were set up across the country, with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) being the crowning glory. All lived true to India's historically rich culture in education, having started with Gurus and Prabhus and tellingly graduating to professors, chancellors and deans.

What began centuries back as Heterodox Buddhist and Jain monastic orders in Takshila and Nalanda, teaching grammar, medicine, philosophy, logic, metaphysics, arts and crafts, were rightly replaced by institutes of true international repute and standing. Universities from overseas suddenly lined up to set up shop in India and foreign students from the US and Europe were antsying up to find a spot in our universities. What a comeback and a proud moment for every Indian. But it was too good to last, or so it seems.

The monkey wrench

Given this rich history and indescribable progress in our education system through the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the news and numbers we find confronting us today are quite irksome. I am no naysayer or cynic to dish out a sassy tale without sharing with you credible facts and substance, so here's a bit of both for us to chew on and then consider while the cud works its way into our innards, both physical and intellectual.

Let's begin with international universities planning to set up campuses in India. In the New Education Policy of 2019, it was announced that 100 of the world's best varsities would set up shop in India. In the three years since (and, admittedly, the COVID-19 pandemic played its part on this front), that number first dropped to 60, then to 50, then 30, on to seven and is now at two—these are the Indian chapter of a renowned fashion institute from Milan, Italy and a Japanese varsity.

What is more worrisome than the crashing numbers is the reason given for the pullout by those that have revised their India plans—they "do not find the situation in the country to be conducive to providing higher education". If online reports are to be believed and taken at face value, seven prominent international institutions have scrapped their India plans—Tokyo University, University of Michigan, University of Chicago, University of California, Amsterdam University, Copenhagen University and Melbourne University. Emotionally, as a proud Indian, I am peeved by the reason they provide. But intellectually, I hear them. Typically, private educational institutions are businesses run to generate profits for stakeholders and India's changing social and cultural fabric is making them wary of making long-term investments in the country.

What of the students?

Having spoken of institutions, let us now shift to individuals, students from overseas. A majority of them still coming to India for higher studies from foreign lands are not from economically-developed and richer geographies such as North America and Europe, but from countries such as Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Senegal. And that number is fast depleting too, citing lack of infrastructure and the availability of skilled teachers for higher education.

What of Indian students? Well, those numbers are worrisome too—it has been reported by various agencies that around 8 lakh Indian students are going abroad for higher studies. What is quite spectacular and mind-boggling (for want of better terminology) is the amount of money these 'India abroad' students are spending on tuition fees; Rs 45,000 crore. Ironically, that number is eerily close to our country's annual budget allocation for higher education.

Before you arch your eyebrows and frown at me, the actual spend of these 8 lakh Indian students abroad, including boarding, lodging and other expenses, is allegedly over Rs 2.15 lakh crore (USD 28 billion), almost five times our annual budget number stated above. Finally, here's the kicker—given the runaway number of Indian students clamouring to study overseas, the total spend by them is expected to increase to over Rs 6 lakh crore over the next two years alone. Worst of all, few of them are returning to India after completing their studies, preferring to stay and earn there. Who am I to pretend to be an evangelist? The two young ones in my own family and that in that of my two oldest friends are finishing their studies abroad and have no intention of returning home.

What lies ahead?

I do not know, especially at a time when sentiment and curriculum are both being whipped up and undergoing a sea-change. A hard-to-digest figure is one shared in the Upper House of Parliament during the Winter Session, that over 10,000 faculty positions are vacant across central universities, IITs and IIMs. The exact number of vacancies shared was 10,814, with 6,535 of them in central universities, including Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), 403 in IIMs and 3,876 in IITs.

Perhaps these vacancies are partly leading to the student drain out of India. According to a report by the Bureau of Migration, 2,59,655 Indian students left the country for higher studies overseas in 2020; the following year, that number climbed to 4,44,000; the number for 2022 is already 1,37,000 students who have flown away. Remember the recent panic amongst Indian students in Ukraine? In that small country alone, tens of thousands of Indian-origin medical students were stranded and had to be subsequently airlifted by the Government. What awaits them in their personal future could be the topic of another tale.

To sum things up, let's revisit what Infosys Technologies' founder Nandan Nilekani once said: "Indian higher education is (completely) regulated. It's (very) difficult to start a private university. It's (very) difficult for a foreign university to come to India. As a result, our education is simply not keeping pace with demand. That is leading to problems which we need to address."

Somehow, paradoxically and lamentably, despite such strong views being expressed by top achievers such as Nilekani, the on-ground education scenario has only become bleaker. The numbers shared above should make us all think. And think hard. The time to act is now.

The writer is a veteran journalist and communications specialist. Views expressed are personal. narayanrajeev2006@gmail.com