By David Arnold Institute of International Education
Prepared for Roundtable on Internationalization of Higher Education in India
Association of Indian Universities Mysore, Karnataka
February 26-28, 2001

Globalization of Higher Education: What it Means for India

Globalization - Threat or Opportunity

The phenomenon of globalization, which transformed world trade, communications and economic relations in the latter part of the 20th Century, is having a similarly profound effect on education at the start of the 21st. Student options for higher (tertiary) education, in particular, are no longer constrained by national boundaries. Innovative forms of transnational education - Internet-based distance learning, branch campuses, educational "franchising" -- have greatly expanded opportunities for students to study and learn outside their country of origin. In addition, there is now increasing global competition for the "best and brightest" students, as more and more countries recognize the economic potential of higher education as a service export sector. For the first time in history, large segments of the world's student population truly have access to a "global marketplace" of higher education.

For higher education leaders in India, this new environment holds both threats and opportunities. The threats are obvious: as more and more Indian students look to Australia, Britain and the U.S. for both undergraduate and post-graduate studies, the quality of Indian universities will continue to suffer. Lacking computer facilities and Internet access, many of India's resource-starved institutions - such as mofusil colleges in remote rural districts - will be on the wrong side of the "digital divide." Even India's elite institutions - the IITs and IIMs - will find it increasingly difficult to attract and retain world class faculty members in the face of attractive offers from foreign universities, research institutes and multi-national corporations. So, there is a substantial risk that Indian universities and their students could end up as serious losers in the global higher education "game".

But there are also real opportunities for India to benefit significantly from the global revolution in higher education. To do so will require major policy reforms in the way Indian universities are structured, funded and regulated. It will also require closer links between Indian industry, especially the growing technology-based sector, and Indian universities. And, it will require a new, globally oriented, entrepreneurial style of leadership by Indian Vice Chancellors and other top-level administrators. With these ingredients, India has the potential to capture the "up-side" benefits of globalization, emerging with a stronger, better, more globally competitive higher education system, and greater opportunities for Indian students.

Which path will India take? That is the question to be discussed at this Roundtable, and there are certain to be differences of opinion about the mixed blessings of globalization among leading Indian educators and policymakers. The purpose of this paper is to suggest some pathways by which India can achieve tangible gains from current global trends in higher education, without sacrificing its national goals for higher education development or abandoning its commitment to Indian cultural values.

Looking Back - International Influences in Indian Higher Education

If one scans the horizon of Indian higher education institutions today, the legacy of prior waves of international, if not global, influence can be seen in virtually every field. The impact of British higher education is felt not only in the basic structure of Indian higher education - the system of examinations, structure of post-secondary education, scheme of universities and affiliating colleges - but also in the range of colonial era institutions that are still among the most elite in India today. St. Stephens College in Delhi and Presidency College, Calcutta, are but two examples of prestigious undergraduate institutions that still bear the distinct imprint of their British heritage.

Similarly, India hosts a wide variety of pre-Independence missionary institutions - colleges founded in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries by foreign missionaries of different faiths. St. Joseph's College in Trichy, St. Xavier's in Chennai, and Christian Medical College, Vellore, are notable examples. Some of these, such as CMC Vellore (founded in 1900 by a Cornell-trained American woman physician to train women nurses and doctors) and Isabella Thoburn College (founded by an American social worker to provide educational opportunities for young women in Lucknow), intertwined social reform agendas with their religious philosophies.

In the post-Independence era, the Indian Institutes of Technology, consciously patterned after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the U.S., received substantial overseas help right from the outset. With support from four donor nations, the five IITs benefited from guest faculty from outside of India, the ability to send Indian faculty for training abroad, and contributions of modern laboratory equipment and facilities. Similar international links were established by the Indian Institutes of Management: IIM/Ahmenabad, for example, still maintains strong connections with the Harvard Business School. Perhaps the most recent innovation in Indian higher education, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (together with similar, state-sponsored Open Universities), drew heavily on the UK experience with distance education and the Open University concept.

Even the most genuinely "Indian" of Indian institutions, Santiniketan, kept its windows wide open to international ideas, influences and experience. Conceived by its founder, Rabindrinath Tagore, as an international center for humanistic and cultural studies, Santiniketan captured the ancient Sanskrit notion of a "world in one nest." In inaugurating Visva-Bharati in 1921, Tagore spoke of India's "wealth of mind which is for all." In creating a center where East meets West, Tagore acknowledged both "India's obligation to offer to others the hospitality of her best culture and India's right to accept from others their best."

Current Realities - India's Position in Today's Global Marketplace

Would that Tagore's notion of cultural reciprocity characterized patterns of educational exchange in today's "global marketplace." Regrettably, the current realities of globalization reflect a highly skewed relationship between East and West. Of the 514,000 foreign students currently studying in the United States, more than 54 percent are from Asia. Seven of the top ten "sending countries" of international foreign students in the U.S. are Asian, while not a single Asian country is represented among the top ten destinations for American students studying abroad. India alone accounts for more than 42,000 students in the U.S., compared to only 707 Americans who studied in India during the 1998/99 academic year. Worldwide student mobility data, compiled annually by UNESCO confirm similar imbalances in student exchange between India and other industrialized countries.

The liberalization of the Indian economy, a process that began in 1991, is certainly a major factor behind the large and growing numbers of Indian students seeking education abroad. Prior to the 1990s, only a privileged few Indian families could afford to send their children to universities outside of India. With the dramatic rise of a new Indian middle class (and increased wealth of the Indian upper class), the numbers of students able to pursue foreign education has skyrocketed. For example, the number of Indian students studying in the U.S. grew by more than 46 percent from 1990 to 1999.

In contrast to many other Asian students surveyed recently by EduWorld, an Australian research firm, Indian students were not forced to look outside of their home country to find their desired course of study, at least at the undergraduate level. Instead, the quality of education and the perceived value of an overseas degree appear to be the most significant factors influencing student decisions to study outside of India. It is also noteworthy that, for more than one-third of such students, a major motivation was their desire to broaden their experience by living and working in another country.

While the in-country availability of desired courses at the undergraduate level may not be a major factor in the student mobility equation, the limited capacity of India's institutions to meet the demand for post-graduate education in particular fields may be a more serious problem. More than 70 percent of Indian students studying in the U.S. are pursuing post-graduate degrees; only 22 percent are undergraduate students. Business/management, engineering, math and computer sciences account for more than 75 percent of all Indian students in the U.S.

It is also well known that the demand for "seats" at India's apex institutions for Indian students in highly competitive fields such as engineering and management vastly exceeds the supply. Reservation policies, designed to ensure educational opportunities for disadvantaged groups within Indian society, further limit the in-country slots available for students from forward caste backgrounds. To a certain extent then, foreign universities provide a safety valve for talented, well-off Indian students who cannot find seats in their chosen fields within Indian institutions.

A final factor worth noting is the active and growing competition for the best Indian students among foreign universities. While the UK and (more recently) the USA are well-established destinations for Indian students, Australia and Canada are rapidly gaining in "market share". In recent years, Australia, the UK and France have all launched aggressive student outreach/recruitment efforts in Asia. Stung by declining enrollments from East and Southeast Asian countries affected by the Asian currency crisis of the late 1990s, American universities have also intensified their marketing efforts to students in South Asia.

While all of these factors help explain the large number of Indian students studying outside their home country, what accounts for the small number of foreign students studying in India? In large measure, the answer lies in some of the same factors motivating Indian student to study overseas -- i.e., the lower perceived quality and "marketability" of qualifications from Indian institutions. But other, more easily controlled factors also play a role. Significant among these is the relative paucity of structured and accredited college "study abroad" programs for foreign students in India.

The Institute of International Education annually publishes a directory of study abroad programs for U.S. students seeking a semester or academic year of study in another country. The 2000/2001 edition of IIE's Academic Year Abroad directory lists just 21 such programs for American students in India. This number compares with 242 programs in France, 214 in Australia, 97 in Japan and 26 in Thailand. Given the wide availability of English-medium courses in India, the subcontinent's rich cultural, historical and ecological resources, and its well-developed higher education infrastructure, India should be a much more popular destination for Western students than it currently is. There is clearly a large, untapped potential to attract increased numbers of foreign students to experience India's "wealth of mind."

Looking Ahead - Pathways to a Global Future

Even an extreme optimist cannot help but be disheartened by the myriad problems confronting the Indian higher education system - a vast and unwieldy system comprised of some 300 universities and deemed universities, more than 10,000 colleges and some 6.5 million students. Massification of higher education has overwhelmed large parts of this system, resource constraints are severe, and the quality of education available to most Indian students has deteriorated markedly in recent years. The situation is further complicated by the rigidities of India's centralized higher education bureaucracy, the political pressures on higher education institutions from regional, religious and caste-based groups, and the growing problem of corruption in various aspects of university life (e.g., admissions, examinations, promotions). In such a beleaguered system, how can internationalization efforts possibly be effective?

Three "pathways" offer some hope and promise for the future. The first path is labeled policy reform. It includes opening up space for private universities, easing or eliminating research restrictions on foreign scholars and graduate students, and encouraging "foreign collaboration" in the university sector in the same way such joint ventures now exist in private industry. While system-wide higher education reform may not be feasible politically, a targeted and incremental approach to liberalization of higher education is essential in order for India to take advantage of opportunities in the new global environment. Making educational exchange a more central feature of Indian foreign policy could also produce tangible benefits for India's relations with other countries and for Indian universities and students.

A second pathway for Indian internationalists has to do with partnerships. In fields such as engineering, management and computer sciences, for example, industry-university collaborations can yield significant benefits for both sides. The growing presence of multi-national corporations in India, together with India's own emerging high tech industry, holds considerable promise for university partnerships in areas such as curriculum development, equipment donations, faculty training and student scholarships. Global companies such as General Electric and Lucent Technologies have already shown an interest and willingness to support international education initiatives, such as scholarship programs for highly talented Indian students. They join a long list of Indian firms and industrial houses that have seen higher education as a worthwhile investment for both practical and philanthropic reasons.

Stronger partnerships also need to be developed between Indian universities and universities in other countries. In Thailand, IIE has worked with the Ministry of University Affairs to develop an internet-based "match-making service" for Thai and U.S. universities interested in developing linkage projects. Project JUNO (Joint Universities Network Online) enables Thai universities to explore potential opportunities for student or faculty exchanges, develop joint courses, and undertake collaborative research with interested U.S. counterparts. A similar service could easily be developed for Indian universities, and could open up new avenues for Indo-U.S. educational linkages and collaboration. A more systematic focus on institutional partnerships could also become part of India's approach to bi-lateral scholarly exchange programs, such as those sponsored by Fulbright, DAAD, and the British Council. In order to achieve a wider institutional "ripple effect" from individual Fulbright senior scholar exchanges, the U.S. State Department and IIE's Council for International Exchange of Scholars this year established a new Alumni Initiatives Awards program. This program supports collaborative follow-on activities between the home and host universities of recently returned American Fulbright scholars. A relatively modest investment in similar follow-on projects for returned Indian Fulbrighters could help sustain linkages and networks between their home institutions and the universities where they studied or taught while abroad.

The final pathway focuses on innovation and leadership, two qualities in greatest need within Indian higher education today. Innovation can take a variety of forms, ranging from the use of internet technology to develop joint on-line courses between Indian and foreign universities to institutional innovations like the recent initiative by SNDT Women's University to establish an overseas branch campus for women students in the Gulf region. Successful innovation does not take place without leadership, however. The Institute of Rural Management, Anand, would never have come into existence without the personal commitment of its "champion," NDDB Chairman Dr. V. Kurien. The National Law School University of India would not be the premier institution it is today without the leadership of its founding director, Professor Madhava Menon. Wherever one finds excellence and innovation taking place in higher education today, it is directly connected to the efforts of a dynamic, energetic and committed leader or group of leaders. For India to broaden and expand its niche in the global marketplace of higher education will require bold and innovative leadership by university vice chancellors, political leaders, administrators and policymakers at the central and state levels.

Detractors of global higher education raise the specter of Western universities dominating the educational landscape in the way that McDonalds has come to dominate the global fast food industry. With foresight, skill and determination, today's leaders of Indian universities have it within their power to craft a different kind of globalization, one which affirms and values cultural difference and encourages greater mobility for all students. The world of higher education in the 21st century can truly be a border-less world of knowledge and ideas which will yield reciprocal benefits for all nations. There is no single, simple path for reaching this new global future, but instead, multiple pathways that lead toward "a world in one nest."

References

Philip G. Altbach and Patti McGill Peterson, (eds) Higher Education in the 21st Century: Global Challenge and National Response Institute of International Education/Boston College Center for International Higher Education (New York, 1999)

Suma Chitnis and Philip G. Altbach, (eds) Higher Education Reform in India: Experiences and Perspectives, Sage Publications (New Delhi, 1993)

Todd M. Davis, Open Doors/2000: Report on International Educational Exchange, Institute of International Education (New York, 2000)

Mushirul Hasan (ed), Knowledge, Power and Politics: Educational Institutions in India, Roli Books (New Delhi, 1998)

Fred M Hayward, Internationalization of U.S. Higher Education: Preliminary Status Report, American Council on Education (Washington, DC, 2000)

The Asian Student of 2000: Choice Factors and Influences of Asian Undergraduate Students Studying Overseas, EduWorld (Melbourne/Sydney, 2000)