Why They Won't Come to Teach You From Harvard
The education crisis in India is much more serious than can be solved by calling in foreign universities
There is a story about how Cassius Clay changed his name to Mohammed Ali. There is an equally interesting anecdote about how Jagran Integrated Business School changed its name to Leeds Metropolitan University. Abhishek Mohan Gupta, director (marketing and strategic development) of Jagran Social Welfare Society, which runs Jagran Integrated, wanted to get his alma mater Leeds Met into the country. For five years, he waded through the maze of government approvals. No luck. Leeds remained out. And Gupta remained stuck.
He then used his last trick. He told the government that he wanted to change Jagran Integrated’s affiliation from Barkatullah University to Leeds Met. Nobody had made a request like that before. The absence of precedent befuddled the mandarins who govern higher education and they ended up giving it a go ahead. Overnight, the soul of Leeds Met entered the body of Jagran Integrated. Last year, 70 students were studying there in four programmes. This year, Gupta is ramping this up to 13 programmes. In a few years, Gupta wants to enroll 1,000 students.
That’s not all; Gupta thinks he can use the 36-acre campus even more efficiently. He plans to add two more universities, make student accommodation and food court common to all three and dub the whole thing an “education city”. He has been talking to Nanyang University, Singapore, and New York University for different programmes. He plans to use the same change-of-affiliation route, though things have now gotten easier. Thank you Kapil Sibal, Gupta must surely be saying.
The Foreign Hand that Won’t Work
Now that the Cabinet has approved the entry of foreign universities into India, expect education to go the way of the dotcom and the real estate boom that happened in the last decade. Shocking, no? Totally. This in spite of both the minister — Sibal — and the entrepreneur — Gupta — wanting to do the right thing.
If the minister thinks that by allowing foreign universities he can help significantly more Indians to graduate then that’s not going to happen. If Gupta thinks that by rapidly scaling up his campuses he can deliver education of a quality that makes students employable, then that too is bit of a stretch.
Since the bill was approved, all of six universities have shown an inclination to enter India. Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Schulich School of Business, Boston University, Middlesex University and
Duke University.
But what about the big names: Harvard, Cambridge, Yale, Stanford? Don’t hold your breath. They won’t be coming. Not any time soon. That’s ugly reality #1.
Philip Altbach, director, Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, has been studying the foreign university phenomenon for a while. He says, “With the experience of some other countries, the ones who come in will be low-end, not the Harvards, Stanfords or the Oxfords. They may come in a small way: Just to build their brand or recruit students to come back to the main campus.” These storied institutions have built themselves over hundreds of years. They will not risk cutting down on quality. And add to that the danger of brand dilution. “Our world-class research programmes and our culture of multidisciplinary collaboration, which relies on having a critical mass of expertise in a variety of disciplines, cannot be easily replicated and transplanted elsewhere,” says John Hennessey, president, Stanford University. “We are loath to consider creating a satellite campus that would offer a degree programme that did not live up to the quality that we can offer on our home campus.”
Law of Large Numbers
Here is ugly reality #2. The number of students that India needs to graduate is so huge that foreign universities just can’t deliver those numbers. “Given the globally observed historical path that developed and more developed countries have gone through in order to increase their GDP levels, India needs to send 22 million people to college in 2014, an increase of 8 million from the 14 million that it currently sends. These students will become high-skilled labour force that will be required in order to support India’s growth trajectory,” says Karan Khemka, partner, The Parthenon Group, an education consulting firm.
Think Parthenon’s numbers are out of whack? Listen to Anand Sudarshan, CEO, Manipal Universal Learning. According to him, the minister has spoken about how he wants to send 30 percent of India’s college-going-age kids to college. Sudarshan’s estimate is that we need 30 million people going into college and higher education. The National Knowledge Commission set up by the government talks about the need for 1,500 universities — India has 350 now — to meet the human resources challenge.
People have always thought India’s biggest challenge was building ports, roads and power plants. The need to have more college educated kids will be a bigger challenge. In 2008, India had approximately 340 million people in the age group 25-50 year olds who did not have a college degree. According to data from Parthenon, if we don’t speed up adding seats to our college system, this gap will increase to 380 million by 2014. India’s demographic dividend would turn into a deficit instead.
Since foreign universities can’t fill up these numbers, can the government do it? The knowledge commission thinks that at least 50 world class universities can be set over the “medium term”. Here is a reality check. Less than 10 universities have gained global acceptance as world class universities in the last 20-30 years. And it costs at least Rs. 3 lakh per student just to set up a world class university. If each of these 50 universities enrolls 10,000 students, the government would need to put down Rs. 15,000 crore as capital expenditure and the country will only have extra half a million kids in college; way short of the eight million needed.
Coming Out of the Profit Closet
Here is a thought. Drop the pretense and let people make money off the sector. Allow for-profit institutions to work. Let government institutions (and hallowed abbreviations) like IITs, AIIMS or IIM continue to do the fine job that they are doing. Don’t dilute their brand and stretch them with scaling up targets. They should remain islands of excellence. But allow for-profits to exist alongside. Indians trust for-profits for their health by admitting themselves into an Apollo or Wockhardt hospital. They ride with their families in cars made by for-profits like Tata Motors or Maruti. They fly in airlines run by Indigo and Kingfisher. They drive on roads and bridges built by profit-seeking companies. Why is education, higher or otherwise, in the hands of profit-makers such a dangerous idea?
Countries like US and China have used the for-profits to put large numbers of people through college. The for-profits came up in the 1950s-1960s when students went straight to work after high school and thus, needed continuing education. Universities like University of Phoenix, ITT Technical Institute, DeVry University, Capella Education and Laureate Universities International all have a completely market-driven model based on demand. Research suggests that in the US, for-profits educate 7 percent of the total enrollments in degree-granting institutions each year. University of Phoenix has about 455,000 students today. Both Phoenix and Devry were profitable right through the economic meltdown!
But in India, if you turn into a for-profit, then you can’t award degree or diplomas. Consider the case of Mumbai Business School. The folks there wanted an independent programme because they wanted to deliver high quality programmes that were contemporary and relevant. The University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) are too sluggish to update and modernise their guidelines, says Sunil Rai, CEO, Mumbai Business School. “For instance, take UGC guidelines for the MCA programme. It still mandates that students be taught Pascal and Fortran that are now outdated. They don’t include things like ERP [enterprise resource planning] that are current,” he says.
Mumbai Business School is structured as a company and not a trust that manages an educational institute. What it gains in profit it loses in recognition. “Only a university under UGC or a college under AICTE can award degrees and diplomas. And we don’t offer that but there is always the danger that AICTE can put us in the list of non-recognised institutes on their Web site,” says Rai.
Since profit is not allowed, people who can grease the system are setting up educational institutes. There are sweet-meat sellers who are purveyors of higher education now. India’s higher education regulations are so stifling that, for the most part, it has only discouraged serious players from getting in. The result: The bulk of the private players in higher education are those who want to make a fast buck. Already, everyone connected to an educational institute makes money using the management company model. Just let it be above board.
The for-profit motive will also allow capital to move in to create different models for different needs. Most students that will form the extra eight million will need decent quality education and at prices that can be recovered within four years after graduation. That might sound heretic in a country where most kids aspire to end up in an IIT or a Regional College of Engineering, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, St. Stephens or a National Law School. The reality is that only two percent of aspirants will end up in those hallowed portals. The rest will have to go to a good college, not great, just good. The world over, and even in India if you include some decent private engineering colleges, such colleges have a good reputation and also make money for their investors.
Since very few countries have had to address a challenge that combines such large numbers and quality as India, the government will have to look at higher education approaches taken by many countries rather than just one. But the models in three countries hold a lot of promise: China, Singapore and Malaysia.
The Experience Elsewhere
Several countries have experimented with foreign universities. Israel lifted the barriers on foreign universities 15 years ago. The country did not have enough capacity for its own students and also didn’t want them to go abroad for higher studies. Education providers from the US, UK and Romania rushed into Israel and set up branch campuses but the quality wasn’t up to the mark. Ultimately, the government realised that the whole sector had become a mess and imposed serious regulations. All the fly-by-night operators exited immediately.
But not every experiment is like Israel’s. Over the years, Singapore and then Dubai tried to create regional educational hubs by attracting top-flight foreign universities to set up campus. Singapore’s model was highly regulated and no one was allowed to enter the country unless the Economic Development Board (EDB) of Singapore invited them and scrutinised them under a series of very strict measures. The Singapore government would then dish out generous grants for research or infrastructure, and also keep tabs on progress. Sure enough, the likes of INSEAD, University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and Cornell rushed to Singapore. While some like INSEAD have done very well, there have been spectacular failures too. Like the University of New South Wales that was setting up a 22 hectare, $200-million campus with a capacity of 15,000 students in Singapore. This would have been the biggest offshore campus that the world had ever seen. It wound up its Singapore plans even before the construction was complete. The reasons: Lack of demand to make the whole project viable. Later on, the Singapore government asked John Hopkins University to shut shop because of quality issues. In comparison, Dubai and Qatar haven’t been quite as successful as Singapore mostly because their regulation isn’t tight enough. So for every London Business School or Carnegie Mellon, there are tonnes of B and C rung foreign universities that have established a presence in Dubai.
Truly Asia
Experts reckon that Malaysia is another country to watch. Malaysia’s situation is somewhat like India: Unlike a Singapore or a Dubai that aspired to become regional education hubs, Malaysia initially allowed foreign universities more to serve the local population. It was only recently that it decided to
focus on becoming a regional educational hub. To make this happen, it set up transparent mechanisms and a regulatory authority called the Malaysian Quality Authority. Malaysia allows for-profit institutions as well. In addition they have a well-structured guaranteed student loan and scholarships regime. This makes sure that the individual Malaysian is supported. “One of the key part of education reform
is making sure that the individual is supported — help them make choices and be able to pay for those choices,” says Sudarshan of Manipal Universal Learning. Manipal, incidentally, was the first foreign entity that was allowed to set up a medical college in Malaysia. Malaysia’s efforts at trying to become a regional hub have started to pay off: Five years back, the total number of non-Malaysians studying there was less than 30,000. This year, it is expected to cross 100,000 and will probably end up crossing 85,000.
Dragon Gets into the Act
China is facing a strange problem: A problem of plenty. Kathryn Mohrman, professor of practice, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University, and an observer of China’s higher education system, says, “Because the expansion of the higher education system has been so rapid, there are just not enough suitable jobs for those who graduate.” While that is a problem, considering the fact that China began from a base that was way lower than India’s, what China has achieved in a short span is impressive. Ten years ago, about 50 percent of students who completed 12 years of education, got into universities. Today, China sends 80 percent of 12-pass students to college — three times what India sends.
While Mohrman thinks that China’s attempts at setting things right in the higher education space have only met with mixed success, there sure are things that China has done right. And there might be some lessons there for India.
Take foreign universities themselves. During Deng Xiaoping’s reign some 30 years ago, China decided to allow foreign universities in. China discovered that some of the more aggressive foreign universities were the for-profits. In fact, they were more interested in making money and paid less attention to students. “In the last few years, they restricted new foreign universities because quality was low, students were paying a lot of money but not getting suitable job skills,” says Mohrman. China has stipulated that foreign universities need to have a Chinese partner.
Illustration: Malay Karmakar
WHEN: In 1999.
