DrEducation: Indian Education Blog, Rahul Choudaha

Guru Mantra: Dan LeClair, Vice President, AACSB International

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:40:00 +0000

Dr. Dan LeClair
Vice President and Chief Knowledge Officer
AACSB International

As vice president and chief knowledge officer of AACSB International (AACSB), Dan LeClair is responsible for AACSB’s efforts to advance quality management education worldwide through thought leadership. He was the principal architect of Knowledge Services, which assists business school leaders to plan and make decisions using comparable data and information about trends and effective practices. Dan leads the research teams of AACSB and the Global Foundation for Management Education, a think tank joint venture of AACSB and the European Foundation for Management Development. He has served on numerous industry-wide committees and task forces (for organizations such as GMAC®, EMBA Council, and Aspen Institute Business & Society Program) and is an internationally recognized expert, author, and frequent presenter on business education topics. Prior to joining AACSB, Dan was an associate professor in The University of Tampa’s business school, where he also served as associate dean. He earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Florida.

Rahul- What are the top two trends in you are witnessing in the field of accreditation for management education?
Dan- First, more schools have been aiming for higher quality for many reasons, including mounting awareness that better management education can be an engine of development and innovation. Second, participants (students, faculty, and staff) in management education are becoming more internationally mobile, while the information available to them about the quality of schools has been rather limited. Because accreditation provides a framework and mechanism for quality improvement and is a signal to stakeholders that the school will deliver on its promises, it is easy to understand why the demand for international accreditation, such as that offered by AACSB, has been rising.

Rahul- Indian management education has expanded very fast over last decade and has nearly 2,000 management institutions. However, this expansion has come at the expense of quality. What are your views on how accreditation approach and AACSB could help infuse quality in Indian management education?
Dan- Intellectual capital is the foundation for excellent management education, but is often hardest to develop in emerging economies such as India’s where qualified faculty are in extremely short supply. So for AACSB to achieve its mission to advance quality management education worldwide, it must not only offer transparent standards that challenge schools to achieve higher levels of quality, it must also find innovative ways to help schools develop faculty talent and scholarly cultures. AACSB must help schools to collaborate internationally on doctoral education and explore how intellectual capital also can be created through deep engagement with management practice and meaningful interaction with students—and not just through refereed journal articles.

Rahul- What advice do you have for Indian management institutions who may be exploring to apply for AACSB accreditation in next couple of years, so that they are better prepared and make the best use of their resources for accreditation process?
Dan- Begin with a visioning exercise and deep strategic assessment. Among other things, this exercise will help to determine whether it makes sense for the school to pursue AACSB accreditation. The point is to decide on a set of long term goals, and then determine whether AACSB accreditation can help the school to achieve those goals. Next, get involved with the global management education community. One route is to join AACSB’s network, which is the world’s largest, consisting of nearly 1,200 schools across more than 70 countries. But don’t just join; participate in the events, conversations, and governance of AACSB. Finally, start the formal Pre-Accreditation process, which is designed to assist the schools in a journey of quality improvement that leads to accreditation.

Crisis of Professionalism in Indian Higher Education

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 01:49:00 +0000

Indian higher education is facing a serious crisis of professionalism. We have already heard stories of corruption at regulatory bodies and institutional misrepresentation. More recently, trends of expansion without the emphasis on quality and transparency is resulting in unhealthy and unprofessional competition among institution.

This competition is intense among new and bottom-half of the institution in career-oriented fields like medicine, engineering and management. Inspired by other institutions, many new institutions have started in last five years with the expectation of making significant surplus. However, since they were late entrants, many of them are struggling to achieve full enrollment. Also, these recent entrants do not have huge investment capacities and hence they are trying to find short-cuts by engaging in unscruplous recruitment activities.

In the last couple of months, at least three reports of unprofessional recruitment activities emerged:

First, AajTak television channel exposed a "buying a seat" into one of the most respected medical colleges in India--the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)--at a price of Rs.40 Lakhs (~US$ 90,000).

Last month, Business Standard highlighted that many new management schools are struggling to achieve their enrollment numbers and are "buying students". A consultant cited in the article says “I am willing to supply students to your institute for anywhere between Rs 15,000 and Rs 60,000 a student. I could reduce this if your institute accepts students in bulk."

This month, Telegraph covered a story on killing of an student in recruitment rivalry between groups from two engineering colleges. The article states that MGR and Satyabhama were among the institutes that paid their current and former students to recruit freshers, who would shell out hefty capitation fees for management quota seats. The rivalry among these groups of recruiters, they said, sometimes led to gang fights over the kidnapping of each other’s freshers."

Concern for international partnerships
There is significant optimism which has been generated by the introduction of the foreign universities bill in the parliament. However, the big concern for foreign universities interested in recruiting students or building partnerships is--how to find the best fit partner and how to ensure that they are not partnering with an institute with a histroy of unprofessional practices? This means that even if the bill passes there will be several execution challenges and one has to tread cautiously. Foreign univesities need to probe about the degree of professionalism adopted in the administration and teaching at the partner institution. Likewise, for Indian institutions who are really serious in internationalizing their offerings and seek global parterns should focus on integrating and communicating professionalism in their practices. Of course, having an effective regulatory mechanism would create some checks and balances and Prohibition of Unfair Practices Bill, 2010 is one important bill to look forward to.

In 1938, Dean FC Smith in his article entitled "Education as a profession" noted that two factors which are limiting potential of education sector as a full profession--inability to attract high caliber talent, and lack of adequate moral and financial support. More than seventy years later, it applies as well to Indian higher education. Indian education has to develop a profession of education by attracting top talent, inducing financial investments and establishing high ethical standards.

- Dr. Rahul Choudaha

Guru Mantra: Anthony Marsella, Lancaster University

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:41:00 +0000

Dr. Anthony Marsella
Director of Marketing and External Affairs
Lancaster University, UK

Dr. Anthony Marsella is the Director of Marketing and External Affairs at Lancaster University. He is responsible for marketing, communications, admissions, recruitment, alumni relations and leading international business income growth. He is also Chairman of IdealRuby.com and a Council Member of the Gerson Lehrman Group. Previously, Mr. Marsella was the Chief Marketing Officer and General Manager, B2B Sales at Samsung Electronics UK & Ireland where he was responsible for marketing of Consumer Electronics, Mobile Telecommunication devices and IT. While at Samsung he achieved brand leadership and an annual sales growth of 26% in the recession. Prior to that, he was at Marketing Director at IBM, where he had wide-ranging responsibilities from defining leading IBM Global Services marketing and building direct channel capabilities (ibm.com).

Anthony Marsella is a graduate of Strasbourg, Imperial College London and Kingston Universities, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and Liveryman of the City of London. He speaks regularly and has published many articles. His recent book Marketing Revolution: The Radical New Approach to Transforming the Business, the Brand and the Bottom Line made top ten best seller marketing publications in 2006.

Rahul- What were your drivers for expanding Lancaster's presence in India? How easy or difficult was it to get the approval at Lancaster given that the regulatory scenario in India is still fuzzy?
Anthony- Lancaster is a leading international university and was recently ranked among the top 6 UK elite institutions (The Guardian). At home, one third of our academic staff are non British and one in five of Lancaster’s students come from a country outside the UK. There are approximately 100 nationalities resident on campus, including many students from India.

Lancaster University has also been actively pursuing the setting up of significant collaborative teaching partnerships in key countries around the world such as India. This forms part of Lancaster's commitment to bringing quality education to the locality. In New Delhl, Lancaster University is partnering with GD Goenka, a high quality education provider. Working in partnership with Goenka, Lancaster University will be contributing to education development in the country and this will bring a different learning style to India. The education provision through Goenka, an Indian company, ensures that the local market benefits from this initiative. Lancaster is networked into India through its partner at Goenka and around 50 major companies are also linked in, offering placements and Summer internships to students.

Obviously, the new legislation will lead to a full mix across the market. Lancaster welcomes the HE reforms, as it would welcome any development which creates opportunities for students in India to benefit from quality Higher Education. Certainly early indications are that the reforms will lead to a more robust and committed private sector. University quality will need to be ensured so that this sector remains complimentary to public provision. There will be more clarification expected over the next few months and GD Goenka together with Lancaster University are committed to working together to ensure alignment with local requirements.

Rahul- Lancaster has partnered with Goenka to offer one of the most comprehensive portfolio of programs at undergraduate and postgraduate levels . More recently, you have also launched the one-year global MBA program. Please take us through Lancaster's experiences in finding the potential partner in India. What were the criteria for Lancaster in choosing?
Anthony- Foreign universities have to have the right partnerships in place to ensure quality control. The academic reputation of the foreign university is crucial to credibility and the ability to attract high quality staff.

It was Lancaster's excellent academic reputation that attracted the GD Goenka Group to us, and the Group's knowledge of India together with their strong brand and superb facilities in India which made the partnership a very good fit. Lancaster University Management School's world ranking is rising faster than almost any business school in the world; now 4th in the UK and 24th in the world for the MBA and Lancaster is highly ranked for both research and student satisfaction. This is one of the university's flagship products and we have a very high demand for the MBA from India at our UK location. This is why we need to increase local access to the course.

We believe that this partnership is providing people in India with a major new type of higher education opportunity. Lancaster will be the first and only university to deliver higher educational qualifications at the GD Education City site.

Rahul- Many universities, both in India and abroad, are eagerly looking forward to the evolution of this partnership model between Lancaster and Goenka. What are the key priorities and goals you have set for next 3-years?
Anthony- Lancaster fully intends to develop its provision in India with Goenka and to offer degrees across its 4 faculties, including science and technology , health and design. The new 1 year global MBA has begun and we look forward to the first cohort graduating. The next couple of years will see the creation of a school of Engineering with state-of-the-art teaching facilities such as never been offered before in India.

We will continue to develop and build on the partnership to give students locally a truly world class experience.

Guru Mantra: Maggie Johnson, Education & University Relations, Google

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:23:00 +0000

Successful models of university-industry relations are very important in aligning competencies, fostering innovation and funding research. This week Dr. Maggie Johnson shares some of the initiatives at Google. Also see earlier interviews with Dr. Jim Spohrer, Director, University Relations, IBM and Dr. Ganesh Natarajan, CEO, Zensar.
- Dr. Rahul Choudaha

Dr. Maggie Johnson
Director of Education and University Relations
Google

Maggie Johnson is Director of Education and University Relations for Google. She manages all technical training and leadership development programs for Google engineers and operations staff, as well as Google’s educational outreach efforts. She also manages the university relations area, building strategic partnerships with faculty and labs globally. Prior to Google, Maggie was a faculty member and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University.

Rahul- What excites you about your role as the Director of Education and University Relations, Google? Please share a couple of projects/initiatives you are most proud of?
Maggie- Google has a number of exciting initiatives in education. Some are described here.

In general, we have four focus areas:

* Increase access to and quality of computing curriculum
* Implement new education technologies and tools that scale
* Influence positive changes in education through policy and community engagement
* Use Google's tools, technologies and infrastructure to support teaching and learning

One interesting project is our App Inventor visual programming interface for Android. Mobile is the next gateway to get educators and students excited about computing. App Inventor is aimed at empowering K-12 and undergraduate students to build useful Android applications without any programming experience.

Rahul- You have extensive experiences both as an academician at Stanford and as a corporate professional leading university relations at Google. Based on your experiences, what are the critical success factors in building sustainable university-industry collaborations/programs?
Maggie- One important factor is finding areas of mutual interest. Our most successful research collaborations are those where we have a strong interest internally in the results of the research, and we are working with academic researchers who are experts in these areas. The collaboration works because both parties bring essential experience and expertise to the table, and the results are beneficial to both.

Rahul- You are also responsible for technical training and leadership development programs for Google engineers and operations staff. Please share what are the top competencies which engineers have not gained from their college education and how do you bridge this gap?
Maggie- Our hiring practices are very successful in assessing technical skills and potential. What our new graduates find most challenging is not typically in the technical area, but more in the "soft skill" area. Things like being able to communicate and present their work effectively, managing their time and workload, working on a team, etc. We address these areas directly by providing mentors, courses and online resources to help them make the transition from college to industry.

Guru Mantra: Rajeev Shorey, NIIT University

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 16:09:00 +0000

Prof. Rajeev Shorey
President, NIIT University

Dr. Shorey received his Ph.D and MS (Engg) in Electrical Communication Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India in 1997 and 1991 respectively. He received his B.E degree in Computer Science and Engineering from IISc, Bangalore in 1987.

Prior to joining NIIT University, Dr. Shorey was in General Motors India Science Laboratory (ISL), Bangalore. He was the Lab Group Manager of the Vehicle Communications and Information Management Group at GM ISL. Prior to joining GM Research, Dr. Shorey was a Research Staff Member at the IBM Research Laboratory, New Delhi from 1998 to 2005. From 1996 to 1998, Dr. Shorey was at SASKEN Technologies, Bangalore as a Project Lead of the Wireless Systems group. Dr. Shorey was an adjunct faculty in the Computer Science Dept at IIT, Delhi from 1998 to 2005. He was a faculty in the Computer Science Dept at the National University of Singapore from 2003 to 2004, while on leave from IBM Research Labs in New Delhi.

Rahul: NIIT University formally started last year and has already gained prominence. Now the University has also launched the MBA program. What is your assessment of the University so far and what are the key priorities for next three years?

Rajeev: NIIT University (NU) is based upon the four core principles of Industry-Linked, Research-Driven, Technology-Based and Seamlessness. It is these 4 core principles that define the ethos of NU and in everything we do, from faculty hiring to admitting the students, we keep the core principles in mind.

The Key priorities for next three years at NIIT University are to continue to recruit reputed faculty members from all over the world, to build strong ties with Industry and R&D labs in India and abroad, to inculcate a culture of research at all levels in the university.

Rahul: Warren Bennis, chairman of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California notes that "...running a major research university today is far more complex and demanding than running any large, global corporation." You are also building a higher education institution of eminence, what are the key challenges you faced or are facing in institution building process?

Rajeev: Some of the Key challenges faced by any *quality* driven institutions are:
(i) Attracting world-class and global faculty to the university. This is particularly challenging in India since salaries in Industry and R&D labs are typically higher than that in educational institutions. Thus, only the highly motivated people join a university environment.

(ii) Ensuring *self sustainability* of the university. This means that in the long run, the university should ideally be generating funds from private companies and government sources. This again will only happen when the faculty are research oriented and driven by excellence.

(iii) Ensuring a Global nature of the university. This is a huge challenge since attracting foreign nationals with excellent credentials needs a lot of work and convincing on the part of the university.

(iv) Adaptability: in curriculum, policies and practices. The curriculum needs to adapt to ever changing knowledge/technologies.

Rahul: Based on your experiences, what are the top two competencies required to lead a higher education institution?

Rajeev:(i) Outstanding leadership skills in addition to being highly focused, energetic and goal oriented.

(ii) Being Research Driven and Industry-Linked. These two are so essential for any university that wants to make a mark in today's Knowledge Society.

Update on Foreign Universities Bill 2010

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 01:49:00 +0000

InsideHigherEd ran a story on the developments with foreign universities bill in India. I was quoted in the story about the co-existence of both poor and good quality foreign collaborations outside regulatory system. I believe that the intention and timing of the bill is good as it attempts to clarify the country’s policy about foreign higher education. However, the last mile problem is with the approach of the bill. Creating some barriers for entry is good, but creating them so high that nobody can jump over them is unrealistic. Full story on All Eyes on India.

Pawan Agarwal also shared his persepctives on the bill. He argues that "the key to the success of Sibal’s landmark initiative lies in allowing partnerships between the foreign universities and the Indian public and private universities and the Indian private sector to flourish and prosper. There is a need for unambiguous provision in the law to make it happen; otherwise this law may in fact be a step backwards.

While, few foreign universities may set up their full-fledged branch campuses, but much of the action would be through creative partnerships between the foreign universities and the Indian partners. It is through such partnerships; he [Kapil sibal] can shake the system and enhance choice, increase competition and bring in internationally benchmarked quality to the Indian shores." Full Story at India's New Law on Foreign Providers

Global Accreditation for Indian Business Schools

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 11:45:00 +0000

My article on global accreditation options for Indian B-schools was published in EDU magazine. Accreditation is a clear recognition of a school’s ability to match global standards and communicates a commitment to quality and excellence. In India, SP Jain and MDI are accredited by AMBA and IIM-A and IIM-B are accredited by EQUIS. Currently, no Indian B-school is accredited by AACSB but at least three business schools are working towards it. In contrast, there are nine Chinese B-schools accredited by AACSB.

Guru Mantra: Jason Katcher, Google

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:08:00 +0000

Jason Katcher
Head of Education & Recruitment Advertising
Google

Jason has spent the last 3 years helping drive the for-profit education sector within Google’s North American advertising division. His team oversees relationships with the majority of the marquee players in the private sector education, helping customers and agencies navigate the Google ecosystem to connect with potential students in a cost-effective, transparent manner. Through direct response and brand marketing channels, his team continues to serve as both media partner and advisor to schools in the dynamic world of digital marketing. Joining Google in January 2005, Jason helped to establish the inside sales focus around Google's Local business practice mainly to real estate, automotive and employment business models. Before joining Google, Jason spent 3 years in the traditional media business publishing a government recruitment trade magazine which helped to connect large defense contractors and federal agencies with military personnel transitioning back to civilian life. He also spent 5 years in the financial services industry with Investec Ernst, a South African based investment bank after graduating in 1996 from The University of Michigan, with a B.S. in Psychology.

Rahul- Please share more about your work as the Head of Education & Recruitment Advertising at Google. What are your strategic priorities for next three years?
Jason- Several years back, we made a conscious effort to start connecting more with ad agencies in the recruitment advertising space to help them understand how platforms like search could help their customers compliment their digital job board strategies. As more companies saw the value of direct marketing channels like Google we saw increased traction across the sector. However, as the economic conditions took hold in late 2008 and corporations began controlling expenses more tightly, our team focus shifted to helping educators connect with the large numbers of people re-entering that ecosystem after being laid off. After analyzing the education landscape our division we turned our primary focus to the pure private sector players. As a result we were one of the few bright industries in media over the last 2 years as more people looked to furthering their education with a bleak employment picture.

Due to these conditions, our customers have aggressive growth plans which has kept us very busy keeping them on the cutting edge of how they can better tailor their marketing strategies. We anticipate over the next few years that we will continue to deeper our ties with private sector schools where they not only continue to leverage our advertising platforms, but move more of their needs to Google. This includes moving business to the "cloud" via Google Apps, tapping Local aspects and becoming evermore involved with mobile technologies. In the end it's all about more efficient marketing and overall partnerships with our customers producing a better end user experience that helps those looking to enhance their personal franchise by pushing their education forward. With Obama's hope of every American completing one year post-hs education, we hope Google can continue to play a role in helping those who want to pursue that path.

Rahul- What are the top two trends you are witnessing in online advertising in education domain?

Jason- As many people know the predominant marketing model in this sector is the reliance on lead generators to drive potential applicants. This has been the model for quite some time. However, over the last few years these schools become much savvier with respect to driving qualified traffic with the realization that quality always trumps quantity. As a result they have come to truly realize the power of platforms like search, display and video. More importantly that these channels do not work in a vacuum, but rather are all complimentary and very transparent. The question then becomes what is the optimal media mix which can help them reduce their dependence on more opaque models that do not provide the same insights. We expect this trend to continue as these schools reduce their dependency on more traditional methods.

Importance of brand competition to get stiffer. More players in the space are emerging with non-profits, traditional schools and community colleges pushing more offerings online and getting involved with distance learning. This trend is not slowing down and our customers understand that their brands will continue to play a larger role in who decided to attend their offerings over another's. Due to this, we are actively engaged with our clients and ad agencies on understanding how they can put their brand voice out to the world through digital media. Search is the core component of direct response, but display advertising and video are how they can tell their story in a visual setting. You have already seen this with brands like Kaplan University challenging the state of traditional learning by launching mass TV, print and digital campaigns. That lifted awareness for them in a large scale but also raised awareness of the entire sector. I imagine you will see more of that over the coming year.

Rahul- In general, for-profit education sector had been more open to the concept of online advertising. Please share your experiences with traditional not-for-profit educational institutions and what opportunities and challenges you see there?
Jason- The private sector has certainly been the early adopters in the space. However, this was mainly due to the nature of their business models. If you are trying to promote or market an online offering you need to be using that medium to showcase it. But there are many good examples of non-profits taking advantage of online marketing. Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia and others have been building strong digital presences for a while now. Keep in mind that the barrier to entry has also been lowered significantly by new technologies, especially YouTube and other video sharing sites. When you see someone like Salman Khan create the Khan academy in under 5 years namely due to the availability of YouTube, it makes the argument of needing a well known brand or deep pockets to build your online following hold less water. To put it in perspective, the largest active school system is the University of Phoenix with over 400,000 students at any given point and Khan academy gets nearly the same amount of monthly unique visitors. It's simply incredible. I would summarize it the following way. For those looking to get more deeply integrated with digital marketing you need to experiment, measure, implement and scale. Follow those 4 tactics and I think you will be ahead of the game.

Guest Entry: Tim Gore on Foreign Universities Bill

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:32:00 +0000

This is the guest entry by Tim Gore, Director of the Centre for Indian Business at The University of Greenwich. He shares his perspectives on the Foreign Universities Bill 2010. Also see his earlier interview on this blog.

The progress of this Bill has been regarded with great interest over the last few years as it could significantly affect the dynamic between India and her foreign educational partners. The recent impetus and direction given to the development of the Bill by the current HRD Minister Shri Kapil Sibal is laudable. Although the bill was opposed by one member of Parliament when it was tabled for Parliament there is evidence of substantial shifts in perceptions since the last time it was introduced. Part of this is an increasing sense of purpose in Indian Higher Education with the stated ambition of increasing the gross enrolment ration to 30% by 2020 as well as increasing the quantity and quality of higher education institutions in parallel. There is a recognition that this cannot be done on public funds alone and therefore there is interest in a developing private sector provision as well as foreign education providers playing a role. In online discussions with various stakeholders most have been very positive about the development and look forward to an increasingly vitalised and globally connected higher education sector in India.

The Bill (Foreign Education Bill 2010) is more positive than its predecessor avoiding emotive terminology on ‘fraud and cheating’ and ‘commercialisation’ as well as ‘fly-by-night operators’ (Lawton 2010). It is clear that the spirit of the Bill is to attract genuine higher education institutions to work in partnership with India. Over and above this positive tone, there are many changes that have been made that I see as very welcome developments. Firstly, there is a commitment to transparent and time-bound processes for the regulatory processes. Secondly quality is to be ‘comparable’ with similar programmes taught in the home institution rather than the old requirement of being ‘identical’. This allows for ‘foreign’ programmes to be enriched with local context and contributions from Indian partners or academics.

However, there are still aspects that foreign institutions will want to see clarified before they make the type of long-term investments and commitments needed to establish sustainable partnerships in India. The main ones of these are the financial requirements. The Bill is positive in establishing mechanisms to repatriate appropriate expenses to the home institution: 5.3 No part of the surplus in revenue generated in India by such Foreign Education Provider, after meeting all expenditure in regard to its operations in India, shall be invested for any purpose other than for the growth and development of the educational institutions established by it in India.
Institutions will want to know if the 'all expenditure' is to be expenditure at full costs (FEC in the UK) and will want to feel confident that there will not be tax complications. Then there is the issue of the 50 Crore (£7 million) corpus fund that needs to be deposited. Apparently, the intention is to levy this only on full campuses rather than on other types of partnership. My Centre's research indicates that there are currently a few hundred small scale collaborative programmes in India where programmes are taught that end with a foreign or dual qualification. These normally register a small number of students - a few hundred at the most. A 50 Crorecorpus fund imposed on these would immediately lead to the vast majority of these programmes withdrawing from India. Many universities use these small scale collaborations to gain experience and would be happy to scale up over the longer term but this investment would be a powerful disincentive to follow this route. Finally, if the corpus fund is to be imposed on campuses but can be waived for institutions of 'reputation and international standing' by the Advisory Board set up by the Government, what then are the conditions under which this requirement will be waived? Indeed, all reputable higher education institutions already have mechanisms in place to protect their students wherever they may be so if the Bill only allows reputable institutions to enter India then they will have their own mechanisms for student protection which will render the corpus unnecessary.

Tim Gore
25th June 2010

References
(Foreign Education Bill 2010). The Indian Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operation) Bill 2010. Government of India
Lawton, W. (2010). The FEP Bill: a brief analysis International Focus. London. 58.

Is India ready for "for-profit" higher education?

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 23:38:00 +0000

Current policy requirements in general, including foreign universities bill, expect that education should continue to be a not-for-profit activity. Kapil Sibal had also clarified along these lines. On the other hand, corporate houses, education consulting firms and industry associations like FICCI and CII have been advocating for opening up education sector for for-profit channel.

The big question remains--is India ready for for-profit higher education? I believe yes it is, but with a cautiously optimistic note. The reasons are:

- India needs huge investments to achieve its goal of achieving GER of 30% by 2020. This could not be achieved by philanthropy or government investment alone. This means, private capital is required to expand the higher education sector.

- The menace of pseudo not-for-profit: The stipulations of not-for-profit character in higher education have resulted in many private institutions to fudge their accounting books to siphon off profits. Few others have created innovate structure where a for-profit education services arm provides auxiliary services to the not-for-profit college. Overall, this has created a unprofessional, unaccountable and corrupt system.

- Not-for-profit status does not implies quality: There are many "not-for-profit" institutions which provide poor quality of education. This is evident from the high rate of unemployability among students from these institutions.

However, we also need to be cautious on how for-profit players engage with higher education sector. For-profit does not ensures efficiency, as for-profit businesses fail too. The opportunity cost for a student enrolled in a failing institution or the one who is misled by the information provided by an institution, is very high. Even in the US, where nearly 1.3 million students are enrolled in more than 3,000 for-profit postsecondary institutions, the model is under government scrutiny. Recently, PBS ran an excellent, detailed story on the state of for-profit education in the US.

Overall, for-profit higher education in India is a necessity, which has to operate in a policy framework enabling innovation and expansion without the dilution of the quality of education or risk to students' interests.

What are your thoughts/comments?

Dr. Rahul Choudaha

International Mobility Trends of Indian Students - 2

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 23:17:00 +0000

Based on the last week's posting of mobility trends of Indian students, I received several comments and questions. Thank you readers. Here is my response to a couple of overarching themes of the questions:

Q. Does that mean that Indian students who are planning to go abroad will not be academically prepared and will be graduates of poor institutions only?
Rahul- No. There are three important aspects to understand. First, demand for international education will also come from graduates of top-tier institutions, however, since the number of graduates from these institutions is relatively small as compared to graduates from poor quality, the direction of overall demand for international education will be driven by students from poor quality institutions. Second, graduates from better quality institutions find more options for employment after college as compared to graduates from poor quality institutions, who try to seek out further graduate education abroad. Third, I am referring to the poor quality of institutions and not necessarily quality and academic potential of students from these institutions. Hence many students from the bottom of the pyramid of institutions may still have high potential to be recruited by many foreign institutions.

Q. How does mobility of Indian students affects larger Indian society? Is it harmful to India because of the effects of "brain drain"?
Rahul- International student mobility has overall positive impact for India. Given the changing nature of the economy ("flattening of the world") and emergence of new sectors and improved quality of life in bigger cities, talent which used to emigrate from India with no intention of returning is becoming open to experiment and return to India. This is the concept of brain circulation and suggests that the talent is now globally mobile and many are returning and contributing in an even more impactful manner. In addition, the foreign remittances received from Indians who emigrate abroad has a positive influence on the investments and development of Indian economy. According to the World Bank, India was the top recipient of remittances of US$52 billion in 2008. Thus, while direct opportunities to study abroad remain limited to select few (less than 1% of Indian students are enrolled in foreign universities--150,000 Indian students enrolled abroad/15million total enrollment in Indian universities), the overall impact of brain circulation and remittances is creates a larger positive impact.

- Dr. Rahul Choudaha

Why Indian Students Will Continue to Study Abroad?

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 11:03:00 +0000

There has been recent report suggesting that "Foreign university campuses to help India save $7.5 billion outflow." Even if the bill passes and becomes attractive to foreign universities, I believe that number of Indian students going abroad will not decrease at least for next five years. Here I am not factoring in decrease which is caused by unfortunate external factors like attacks on Indian students in Australia or impact of 9/11. So, two primary factors supporting outward mobility are:

1. Expansion at the expense of quality: Number of students graduating from poor and average quality institutions is growing at a much faster rate than the capacity of the industry to provide for jobs. Even if the jobs are available the number of students graduating from these institutions is quite high which restricts their employability. For many educated unemployed youth, higher education serves as a channel to get a second chance for employment and social prestige. Thus, this segment will continue to fuel demand for international education.

2. Increasing prosperity and aspirations: At the other end of the spectrum, Indian middle class is expanding and getting richer. In the last 10-15 years, growth of new sectors like IT, telecom, insurance and mutual funds have created many new high paying jobs. These upper-middle class families will be spending on high quality education for their children as it is evident from the increasing demand for International Baccalaureate schools in India. This increasing prosperity will create demand for even undergraduate programs abroad. Currently, 70% of all Indian students in the US enroll at graduate level (master's and PhD).

This is not to discount the influence of foreign universities in India. There will be a segment of students who would be willing to pay for foreign credential at a lesser price in India. However, there will a segment which would continue to go abroad for several reasons including ability to pay, quality of education, social prestige or experience. Given the scale and pace of expansion of the system, without the emphasis on quality, the number of students going abroad will not be swayed by the entry of foreign universities in next five years.

Dr. Rahul Choudaha

NAFSA conference 2010: Quoted in InsideHigherEd

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:21:00 +0000

This week more than 7,000 international education professionals attended one of the largest professional conferences in higher education--NAFSA: Association of International Educators in Kansas City. Tracks for sessions included international education leadership; teaching, learning and scholarship in international education; and recruitment and admissions.

I presented four separate sessions at NAFSA conference:

- "Shifting Trends in Global Student Mobility: Who’s Going Where" with Jen Nielsen, Australian Education International (AEI); Robert Guttierez, Institute of International Education and Thomas M. Buntru, Universidad de Monterrey.
I was also quoted in the InsideHigherEd article from this session.

- "Measuring Return on Investment in International Student Recruitment" with Cheryl Darrup-Boychuck, USjournal.com: U.S. Journal of Academics and Randall W. Martin, British Columbia Council for International Education.

- "International Recruitment: Bridging Research and Practice" with Pamela Barrett, I-Graduate; Uwe Brandenburg, CHE Consult and Dan Chatham, Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences.

- ‘India: The Talent, Immigration and Competition’, Annual ICG Thought Leader Session with Prof. Eva Åkesson, Lund University Sweden; Jean-Philippe Tachdjian, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Canada and Daniel J. Guhr, ICG (Private event hosted by Illuminate Consulting Group).

Published in EDU on international collaboration

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Sun, 30 May 2010 22:57:00 +0000

Published an article in EDU magazine on the approaches for identifying international higher education partners.

Is India ahead in industrialization of education?

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Thu, 27 May 2010 01:55:00 +0000

Here are two very interesting videos highlighting the need for an education system that builds on the strengths of a student and not necessarily mass produces them through a factory line. First, Sir Ken Robinson urges to break the industrial model of education and move to agricultural model. Industrial model pursues "linearity" and "conformity" while agricultural model accepts diversity of talent and creates enabling environment for growth.

Second, video from a New York Times story, is about what every college aspiring Indian student knows--how competitive it is to get into top professional colleges. This directly proves how Indian education system is truly "industrialized" and how middle-class children are tunnel-visioned in terms of career options. It seems India is definitely more industrialized at least by the definition of Sir Robinson as linearity and conformity are very deeply ingrained throughout the educational pipeline.

What are the solutions? What new learning models exist or should exist for education innovation?

Dr. Rahul Choudaha

NCHER Bill India 2010- Need of transparency, not control

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Wed, 19 May 2010 11:16:00 +0000

Here is a copy of the draft National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) Bill 2010 . The bill is being hotly debated on several levels and current discourse looks more like power struggle rather than attempt for quality assurance.

State governments are arguing that this is leading towards centralization of power and is taking away their autonomy of approving institutions through legislation and appointment of Vice-chancellors. Other debates are focusing on should professional field like medicine would be under the NCHER umbrella or not? There is also a discussion to delink the funding mechanism with the regulatory powers where NCHER will focus on regulation and there will be a separate body overseeing funding process for institutions.

Image Source: CS Kasturi, Telegraph (May 19, 2010)

The primary purpose for NCHER bill is to ensure quality and accountability in higher education. However, in this power struggle, the purpose is getting lost. My most important critique of the bill is that it has not leveraged the power of transparency in bringing accountability and improving quality. For example, the bill states vaguely that the Commission would "monitor, through a national database, all matters concerning the development of emerging fields of knowledge, balanced growth of higher educational institutions in all spheres and academic quality in higher education and research" [24(ab)]. Although it does not clarify the form and function very well, one of the highlights of the bill should have been the establishment of a national database of institutional performance as compared to the whole section devoted to establishment of a database of VCs [26].

Let us consider the case of regulation in financial system. How is transparency ensured in publicly traded companies? Apart from the regulator (SEBI) there is easy availability of audited financial reports of organizations. But there is no availability of parallel information of institutional performance in higher education. Further, the primary role of SEBI is to "...to protect the interests of investors in securities" while protecting the interests of students does not seems to be on the priority for NCHER. This is one of the most important functions NCHER should pursue i.e. to protect the interests of students by ensuring correct data reporting by institutions, aggregating it in a standard format and disseminating it to the public.

For example, in the US, "The National Center for Education Statistics fulfills a Congressional mandate to collect, collate, analyze, and report complete statistics on the condition of American education; conduct and publish reports; and review and report on education activities internationally." Currently, AICTE has the mandatory disclosure requirement however, it has serious limitations in terms of the kind of information collected and presented. It is very hard to compare several institutions in a easy to use format and hence students cannot use it for informed decision-making. Many other times, institutions continue to fudge information, hide these pages or other times do not update them.

Imagine a scenario where, anyone can see all the approved institutions and their programs with their performance on various parameters of quality. When students start using this information for decision-making or regulators for funding decisions or policymakers for future policy directions, institutions will have no option other than working towards improving those metrics.

This raises another question, wouldn't institutions fudge data? This is where the investigative power of NCHER as an enforcer of quality comes into play. It should have the power to audit and investigate financial and academic records of any institution (of course, based on the grounds of sufficient evidence and proper process). For example, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has the powers to demand for "information and record from any bank or any other authority or board or corporation established or constituted by or under any Central, State or Provincial Act in respect of any transaction in securities which is under investigation or inquiry by the Board."

To sum up, NCHER bill is a positive step in reforming higher education, however, it is limited by its political approach of using control as the way of ensuring quality rather than transparency.

What are your thoughts? Share them through the comments link below.

Dr. Rahul Choudaha

Foreign Universities Bill, India 2010

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Tue, 04 May 2010 02:08:00 +0000

Here is a copy of the Foreign Universities Bill 2010 presented in the Indian parliament. Apart from the critique, corpus fund requirement of 50 crore rupees (~US$11m ) has already received, there are two other clauses which I find troublesome:

1. Distant/online learning is not welcome: The bill defines foreign institution as one offering "conventional method...not including distant mode." Given that Indian higher education needs innovation, cost-effectiveness and accessibility and distance/online learning technologies are well placed to address some of the these issues, this restriction seems out of context. Here it is also important to note that quality of distance education in India is very poor and hence introduction of new foreign partners may help improve the quality. Government need to define measures of quality for assessing good online education providers and not necessarily eliminate the whole channel.

2. Intent to limit institutional autonomy: The bill states that foreign institution need to publish information about "the number of seats approved by the statutory authority in respect of each course or programme of study." This is again a regressive way to rationing and regulating enrollments and it directly impacts innovation, growth and feasibility of new projects. Current policy structure with AICTE etc. was also having the similar problem of trying to control the demand instead of creating standards of quality and competitiveness in the system.

The current form of bill is taking a parochial view on two primary aspects
1) diversity of global higher education institutions
2) measures of institutional quality
It is encouraging to see that the bill is moving forward, however it needs to evolve significantly to maximize the benefits for stakeholders.

I have also published an article in EDU magazine on the segments of foreign universities seeking to engage with Indian higher education. There are three primary segments and each has different needs, challenges and opportunities for entering India. Policymakers and institutions interested in partnering with foreign universities need to better understand the landscape and segment of foreign institutions to build effective international academic collaborations.

1. Prestige-enhancing (top-50 research universities)
2. Prestige-seeking (next-tier of 100 universities)
3. Revenue/profit maximizing (universities beyond top 150)

Any thoughts/comments?

- Dr. Rahul Choudaha

Five Strategies for Building International Academic Collaborations

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 01:01:00 +0000

“Foreign universities set to invade India.” If you are thinking that this is a recent news headline, then you are mistaken. This is from India Abroad article of January 18, 2002. Eight years later there is resurgence of the news about foreign universities entering India in big numbers. However, this time it has a more optimistic undertone and has gained greater attention from foreign higher education institutions and also several corporate houses.

In the US, the Department of Education has funded a program at the Institute of International Education which aims at strengthening academic collaborations between US-India. As a part of this program 10 US institutions have been identified which will participate in a range of training, assessment and strategic planning activities to build partnerships with India. [I am serving on the advisory board of the program].

At the institutional level, student exchange programs had been existing between Indian and foreign universities. However, lately, there is increasing interest for more extensive collaborations which extend into program offerings. For example, Leeds MET has partnered with Dainik Jagran group and Virginia Tech has announced its collaboration with MARG group to establish a campus in Chennai. Earlier, Monash University had established joint-PhD program with IIT Mumbai.

Challenges:
There are only a handful of successful and effective partnerships, like ISB and many more institutions are struggling to find right partners and few others partnerships have remained on paper only. Without discounting the challenges posed by lack of resources and regulatory constraints, I argue that institutions also face challenges in building effective and sustainable partnerships due to a lack of strategic approach in identifying the right partners and nurturing the partnership for long term benefits. Some of these challenges are related to strategies and approaches of institutions and could be addressed in an effective manner.

In last three years several high profile delegations visited India to assess the market and partners. Some have found partners, while most have not. Finding the right fit partner is not easy. From foreign university side there is persistent concern about the brand dilution and credibility of Indian partner. From an Indian institution’s perspective there is a lack of understanding of the functioning, needs and segments of foreign institutions. This results in poor identification of potential partners and also loss in opportunities available from partner universities.

Even if the partnership is established, there are challenges in sustaining that relationship. Charles Klasek highlights that “It is not difficult to sign an agreement with universities of all types throughout the world; it is difficult to implement the agreements so that there are mutual academic benefits to the institutions involved.”

Strategies:
Given below are five approaches for building and sustaining international academic collaborations.

1. Clarify the level of commitment for collaboration: This is of utmost importance to articulate the depth and width of commitment from partnering institutions. Institutions may have similar or different reasons for coming together but they should have explicit understanding of the motivators and needs of each other. This helps in setting realistic expectation levels. They should also be able to understand the wide range of collaboration opportunities available from short-term student and faculty exchange to joint-programs to full-fledged campus and that each of them requires different level of commitment level.

2. Integrate with the societal needs: Higher education institutions do not exist in vacuum; they exist in the context of the societal and industrial needs. This is where academic collaborations would find its best fit opportunities. Institutions should not only assess their internal capabilities and resources but also align them with the pressing needs of society and industry. This helps in making a convincing case to prospective foreign institution in collaborating for an area of high impact and need. For example, the inadequate teacher training and supply of talent pool is an area of concern for India and hence focus of Azim Premji University on education is very opportune.

3. Take an interdisciplinary approach: While one has to identify an area of strength, institutions should explore to collaborations at the interfaces of disciples. There are several interdisciplinary programs which may be more open and even more relevant for academic collaborations. For example, if an Indian B-school is looking for a foreign academic collaboration, it does not have to restrict only to a B-school; it could even be explore relationships with college of public administration or international studies at leading universities.

4. Explore beyond the big brands: There is a tendency among institutions to seek partners which have a brand reputation higher than their own in the home country. For example, an institution in India would frantically try to get alliance with an Ivy League institution. While, this adds to halo effect and helps in gaining credibility, it also misses the opportunity presented by foreign institutions which may be more willing to invest and commit to build their brand in India. This also assumes that if the brand is not well-known in India it is not worth pursuing, even though the institution may be of high quality. So there is a need for a deeper understanding of the quality and types of institutions and how they best fit with the overall goals of collaboration.

5. Engage corporate houses: Several corporate houses have expressed their interest in venturing into higher education sector. Some of them intend to build high quality institutions, contribute back to society and leave a legacy for their name. For example, Shiv Nadar University is a not-for-profit project with expected budget of US$600 million. With this level of investment, the university project is not going to generate wealth for Shiv Nadar but definitely it would generate knowledge, reputation and talent. Likewise, there are several others who wish to leave their legacy and could be engaged by government and foreign universities.

Robert Stein and Paula Short conclude that “…collaboration is a complex phenomenon, especially as one considers the array of options and relationships on the menu.” This complexity of building and sustaining effective collaborations could be simplified by leveraging the strategies explained above.

Dr. Rahul Choudaha

Guru Mantra: Dean David Finegold, Rutgers, New Jersey

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 02:29:00 +0000

Prof. David Finegold
Dean, School of Management and Labor Relations
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Prof. David Finegold is Dean of Rutgers’ School of Management and Labor Relations (SMLR). He is a leading expert on skill development systems and their relationship to economic performance and corporate governance. His two main current research projects focus on: 1) Skill Development for the 21st Century Workforce – focusing on the rapidly evolving education and training system of India and China, and 2) Building Sustainable Organizations – focusing on governance of capitalism in the global economy and the emergence of alternative organizational forms to the for-profit public corporation. He is the author of more than 80 journal articles and book chapters and has written or edited six books, including Are Skills the Answer? (with Colin Crouch and Mari Sako), Corporate Boards: Adding Value at the Top (with Jay Conger and Ed Lawler) and BioIndustry Ethics (Elsevier Academic Press, 2005). Prior to joining Rutgers he was a professor at the Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) of Applied Life Sciences in Claremont, CA, where he helped to build the first college devoted specifically to creating a best-in-class professional science masters program. Since arriving at Rutgers in 2006, Dean Finegold has adapted the KGI model to a leading research university, taking the lead in creating the new Master of Business and Science, the first Rutgers-wide degree that is designed to prepare individuals to help bring innovations to market. He has also spearheaded wider efforts to build a workforce development system for New Jersey’s bioscience sector by bringing education and industry together from across the state (www.bio-one.org). He graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Social Studies, from Harvard University in 1985, and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University,where he completed his DPhil in Politics in 1992.

This week I interviewed Prof. David Finegold, Dean of the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He shares some very insightful perspectives on:
- foreign universities bill
- current work and interests in India
- critical success factors for building academic partnerships
- nature of academic leadership

What are your thoughts or comments on Prof. Finegold's perspectives?

- Dr. Rahul Choudaha

World Class Universities in India: Published in EDU

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 10:27:00 +0000

My article on world-class universities was published in the March issue of EDU magazine.

The trend of creating of world-class universities in India has gained momentum from several corporate leaders including, Anil Agarwal, Mukesh Ambani, Azim Premji and Shiv Nadar. While recent initiatives to create world-class universities are in the right direction, they need to be executed by a deeper understanding of the unique challenges and context of building world-class universities. This would aid in efficient prioritization and utilization of resources and help realize the full potential of the initiatives and visions.

- Dr. Rahul Choudaha

Guru Mantra: KB Powar

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:01:00 +0000

Guru Mantra
Professor KB Powar
Higher Education Expert and Scholar

Professor Krishnapratap Bhagwantrao Powar, born on 20th December, 1937, obtained his B.Sc. (1958) and M.Sc. (Applied Geology) (1960) degrees from the Nagpur University and was awarded the J.P. Trivedi Gold Medal and the King Edward Memorial Scholarship. He later secured his Ph.D. degree in Geology, in 1967, from the Banaras Hindu University. He also received Fulbright and Institute of International Education awards for higher study and research in U.S. (1966-67).

Professor Powar has worked as a teacher, research worker and educational administrator in a professional career of 49 years. He was Professor of Geology, Poona University (1977-86) before being appointed as Vice Chancellor, Shivaji University. He was appointed Secretary General, Association of Indian Universities, New Delhi, in February 1993, and reappointed for a second term in February, 1998. He retired from the Association in December 2002 and thereafter worked as the Founder Director of the Amity Foundation for Higher Learning, New Delhi till November 2004. He is presently Advisor to the Vice Chancellor, D.Y. Patil University, Pune.

Professor Powar has published 67 papers, is the author of 6 books and has edited 18 volumes dealing with different aspects of higher education. The books authored by him include, ‘Accreditation in Higher Education: The Indian Perspective’ (1996), Performance Indicators in Distance Higher Education (2000). ‘Indian Higher Education: A Conglomerate of Concepts, Facts and Practices’ (2002), Internationalisation of Higher Education: Focus on India’ (2003) and Quality of Higher Education (2005).

Rahul- You have extensive experiences as a scholar and leader engaged with higher education. What you think are the three most important events in the last decade, which changed the course of higher education in India?
Dr.Powar- The process of change in the Indian higher education system began in the early 1990s and it would be more pragmatic to consider changes over the last two decades. In fact the changes that have taken place during the present decade were all initiated in the 1990s. To my mind the three most important events are:
First, the acceptance that for the Indian higher education system to develop at an accelerated pace, it was necessary for the private sector to contribute in a substantial measure. However with the failure of the government to ensure the passage, through Parliament, of the Private Universities Bill 1995 it became necessary to use the ‘deemed university route’ leading to the present uncertain situation (as regards the deemed universities).
Second, the realization that having a few highly rated institutions was not sufficient and it was necessary to improve quality all-round. This led to the establishment of accreditation agencies and initiation of quality movement in Indian higher education.
Third, the acceptance that it was necessary to internationalize the Indian higher education system through changes in the academic structures (including the adoption of the credit-based semester system with continued internal evaluation and letter grades), addition of an international component in the curricula, development of academic partnerships with foreign universities, and improving physical infrastructure.

Rahul- Mr. Kapil Sibal has proposed several policy changes in Indian higher education. Among these are bills related to foreign universities and centralization of regulatory bodies. What is your assessment of these two bills?
Dr.Powar- It is to be seen how far Mr Kapil Sibal is successful. Personally, I feel that the Foreign University Bill lacks clarity, and includes conditions that the foreign university may consider to be too demanding. The main concern in the Bill seems to be the establishment of international campuses/ sub-centres. The possibilities provided by other modes, such as academic partnerships and cross-border supply (distance education), have not been adequately addressed. The National Commission for Higher Education and Research Bill, 2010 carries forward the idea of an over-arching apex-body, for bringing about greater coordination and integration in the planning and development of the higher education system, already visualized in the National Education Policy, 1986. However, with the exclusion of the agriculture- and medical-education sectors (and possibly law-education sector also) from the ambit of the Commission, the original concept has been grossly distorted. Moreover, vesting of the powers of a Civil Court with the Commission is something that academics and educational managements will not easily accept. The idea of a National Registry of possible Vice Chancellors does not take into account the diversity in the requirements of different universities. Moreover, persons best-suited for the Vice Chancellor’s position may not like the idea of being included in a register of potential vice-chancellors has been lost sight of.

Rahul- Indian professional higher education in general and engineering education in specific is repeatedly questioned for its quality. For example, high rate of unemployability of graduates and more recently, India's bid for full membership to Washington Accord was turned down. What are top two recommendations you have for a) engineering institutions and b) policymakers for improving quality of engineering education in India?
Dr.Powar- The variability in the quality of engineering (and other professional) education has to be accepted. It would be necessary to strictly implement quality norms and promote only those institutions whose programmes are accredited by the National Board of Accreditation and other accreditation bodies. Greater care has to be exercised before the grant of approval to start new institutions.

Foreign Universities in India: A Reality Check

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:16:00 +0000

With the recent approval of the foreign universities bill by the cabinet, many people interested in Indian higher education are riding a wave of optimism and expecting that there will be a number of highly reputed institutions like Harvard and Yale which would be establishing their campuses in India. On the other hand, there are few people who believe that this will open floodgates for poor quality institutions which would enter India to take unfair advantage of students.

Here is the NDTV report on this issue.

Both these views are at the extremes and require a dose of reality. In these times of budget cuts and decreasing endowments for universities, there are very few reputed foreign universities which would be willing and capable of establishing campus in India. Public universities in UK and US are facing severe financial turmoil and private non-profit universities which rely on tuition and endowments are facing worst fall in their endowments since recession.

Apart from increasing constraints on financial resources, building a world-class institution takes significant amount of time and resources. The trend of off-shore international campuses at other destinations like Gulf, gained traction because of the substantial financial incentives provided by the host countries.

Having a global brand name and financial support may be necessary but it is not sufficient. Some of the off-shore campuses of foreign universities in the Gulf are finding it difficult to fill classes. In addition there are other big names who had to shut down their operations in an embarrassing manner. For example, the University of New South Wales, Australia had to close down its Singapore campus and was labeled as "one of the Australian higher education sector's worst business failures" for the reasons of enrollment shortfall.

Thus, reputed universities are now even more cautious about their brands and at the same time look for substantial financial support and autonomy to be present as a off-shore campus. In the Indian context, government is not in a position to provide any financial incentives nor it could ensure complete autonomy from sociopolitical influences. Overall, this makes the case for reputed institutions entering in India quite weak.

Only segment in higher education which had been prospering even in these troubled times is the "for-profit" higher education, which includes University of Phoenix. A recent cover story in the Chronicle of Higher Education states that "At a time when American public higher education is cutting budgets, laying off people, and turning away students, the rise of for-profit universities has been meteoric." This is clearly evident in the financial growth of universities like DeVry whose revenue grew by 34% from 1.09 billion to 1.46 billion in the year ending June 30, 2009. However, government is not interested in inviting this sector to India.

This means that for-profit universities are not allowed by the government and reputed not-for-profit universities are not finding it feasible to start their own campuses. Does that mean that there will be no impact on the interest of foreign universities in India with this bill? No. There is an interest and there will be increasing interest by foreign universities, however, the form and nature of their presence needs to be rationalized. As Alan Ruby rightly pointed out that "The push and pull factors will coalesce in distinct ways for each university as it considers the emerging opportunities in India."

There are three segments of universities interested in coming to India with different needs and objectives:
1) Prestige-enhancing (top-50 research universities): This is the segment of universities which are not interested in India as a source of revenue. They are primarily interested in adding to their existing prestige and relevance by offering access to their faculty and students to the emerging and increasingly important market of India. These universities would not establish their own full-fledged campus in India in next five years. However, they would be very keen to establish partnerships with universities in the form of student exchanges, faculty exchanges and collaborative research projects. For example, Yale has just clarified that they do not see starting a campus in India, instead they are interested in expanding partnerships. They may also establish their own research centers and executive education centers. For example, Harvard Business School established its India Research Center for this purpose.

2) Prestige-seeking (next-tier of 100 universities): These institutions seek internationalization to build their prestige and at the same time seek opportunities of revenue enhancement. They may be open to establish campuses by themselves or in partnership. In addition to activities undertaken by prestige-enhancing universities, this set of universities are open to engage in more extensive arrangement including joint-degrees and twinning programs. For example, National Management School has partnered with Georgia State University to offer joint-MBA program. This also includes universities from UK forming partnerships to offer degrees in India. For example, Lancaster University partnered with GD Goenka to establish GD Goenka World Institute.

Indian universities and potential partners need to understand that even though this segment does not include Harvard or Oxford, it still has very high quality institutions as compared to what is available in India. Bob McKinlay, deputy vice-chancellor of Lancaster University said that "… finding a partner in such markets [India] is not so easy. Lancaster made three trips to India and spoke to more than 50 institutions before it alighted on Goenka - and that only happened because Goenka approached Lancaster." Indian corporate houses or high-achieving alumni could help in contributing towards the investment requirements and address financial concerns. For example, India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani announced his intentions to start a world-class university. Likewise, there are several other corporate houses which have expressed interest in higher education and could be courted for potential partnerships.

3) Revenue/profit maximizing: These institutions are primarily looking for additional sources of revenue/profit by scaling enrollments. In this category, lesser known public universities engage in twinning programs but they do not have resources to start their own off-shore campuses. While the private for-profit institutions are very interested and financially capable to enter India and have a full-fledged presence, they are not welcomed in India under the current policy framework. Kapil Sibal has further clarified that education will remain a not-for-profit sector. Thus, despite having the potential and interest to enter India with full campuses, private for-profit sector may also have to content themselves with partnerships. For example, Educomp-Raffles partnership in the area of design. It is also important to note that this is also the segment which is most susceptible for fly-by-night operations and requires closer monitoring.

Interestingly, despite different needs and objectives, all the above segments of foreign universities are facing challenges in entering in India. These challenges not only exist in the form of unrealistic policy direction but also in terms of institutional expectations mismatch. Government is interested in attracting highly reputed universities and likewise, every Indian institution aspires to collaborate with top brand names only. This overlooks the whole spectrum of quality and diversity available in the global higher education system.

Policymakers should not forget that the financial investment needed for expanding access (~US$25 billion projected by the end of 2012) cannot be met by government alone or even partnerships with a handful of prestigious institutions. Some of this has to come from the profit/revenue maximizing institutions which have the efficiency and incentives to scale the offerings.

The real test of quality assurance system is to differentiate wheat from the chaff. Thus, government should focus on creating effective and robust regulatory mechanism for ensuring that malpractices do not take place in the name of foreign institutions. There is a spectrum of institutional quality and types and they serve different needs of student segments. India needs both the high quality teaching and research provided by the research institutions but also the massification which could be catalyzed by next tier of institutions. Undoubtedly, foreign universities bill is a positive development as it will improve quality and practice of higher education. However, it has to be enacted in the context of the needs of India and deeper understanding of the landscape of global higher education.

-Dr. Rahul Choudaha

Guru Mantra: Shai Reshef, Founder, University of the People

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:59:00 +0000

Shai Reshef
Founder & President
University of the People

Shai Reshef is the Founder & President of the University of the People, the world’s first tuition-free, online academic institution, which he established following 20 years in the international education market. From 1989 to 2005, Reshef served as Chairman of the Kidum Group, the largest for-profit educational services company based in Israel which was sold to Kaplan, Inc. in 2005. Between 2001 and 2004, while continuing as the chairman of Kidum, Reshef lived in the Netherlands where he chaired KIT eLearning, a subsidiary of Kidum, the eLearning partner of the University of Liverpool and the first online university outside of the United States. The company was sold to Laureate in 2004. In 2009, Reshef was named one of Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business,” joined the United Nations’ Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development as a High-level Adviser, and spoke internationally at conferences including DLD: Digital, Life, Design in Munich and the World Economic Forum on the Middle East in Jordan. Reshef holds a B.A., magna cum laude, from Tel Aviv University and an M.A. from the University of Michigan in Chinese Politics.

Rahul- What were the drivers of establishing the University of the People? Please share the concept and how do you plan to sustain the university with no tuition fee?
Shai- My idea for University of the People stemmed from over 20 years in for-profit education, as well as extensive international travel. As the founder of KIT, I realized that the tools for providing accessible higher education were out there, but the price was too high. Then I began working at Cramster.com and discovered the strength of online study communities. Witnessing first-hand the power of technology to advance education, I knew there was the potential to adapt these principles to create a high-quality, low-cost and global pedagogical model—so I did with University of the People.

Quality of education is not synonymous with its cost. Applied to a tuition-free model, long distance learning has the enormous potential to make education an equalizer by providing the opportunity to those otherwise excluded. By incorporating multiple educational strategies that are virtually free—such as peer-to-peer learning, open courseware and volunteer instructors—UoPeople effectively functions on a limited budget.

Currently, students may attend UoPeople entirely free of charge. As the University expands, the sustainability model requires that nominal admission and examination processing fees ($15-$50 and $10-$100 respectively) will be levied to cover operating expenses. These fees will be adjusted on a sliding scale based on the economic situation in the student’s country of residency. Students will never be charged for applying, taking classes or accessing study materials.

Rahul- What are some of the strategic priorities for the institution and how do you see the university evolving in next 3-5 years?
Shai- In the next 3-5 years, we hope to see our first students graduate from UoPeople, equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to create a better life, community and world. We also hope to expand our reach to serve an even greater number of students. By giving students with diverse backgrounds the opportunity to teach and learn from one another, we hope to bring the world a step closer to peace.

Rahul- You have substantial entrepreneurial experiences in for-profit corporate world. How is institution building and leadership in education domain different or similar with the for-profit world?
Shai- After 20 years in for-profit education, I decided that it’s time to give back by establishing a non-profit, tuition-free university. Nonprofits with the greatest impact are run like businesses—and that is how I’ve built UoPeople. While operating expenses are minimal and the cost to our students is nominal, UoPeople is nonetheless results oriented: we have a clear goal to democratize higher education.

Published in IIE book, EDU magazine

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:31:00 +0000

I have recently published in a book by IIE and EDU magazine.

Institute of International Education (IIE) book is entitled "International India: A Turning Point in Educational Exchange with the U.S." focusing on U.S.-India higher education exchanges. I have co-authored a chapter on background and trends in the U.S.-India academic collaborations. The book is edited by Dr. Rajika Bhandari of IIE and includes chapters from Mr. Sam Pitroda and Dr. Philip Altbach.

EDU is a new magazine which focuses on higher education sector in India. The editor of the magazine is Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha who was founding dean of the ISB. I have authored a chapter entitled "Leading without Leadership?" where I argue that leading higher educational institutions is a complex and challenging role which requires unique competencies. There is a need for developing a profession of educational leadership through systematic education, research and professional development.

I would welcome any thoughts/questions you might have.

- Dr. Rahul Choudaha

Dean Yash Gupta, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School

rahul.choudaha@gmail.com (Dr. Rahul Choudaha) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 06:30:00 +0000

Dr. Yash Gupta
Dean & Professor
The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School

Yash Gupta is dean and professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in Baltimore, Md. He previously served as dean of the business schools of the University of Southern California, the University of Washington, and the University of Colorado at Denver. Dean Gupta’s academic and administrative appointments have also included the Frazier Family Professor in the School of Business at the University of Louisville (1988-1992), professor at the University of Manitoba, and assistant professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland. In 1991, he was awarded the University of Louisville President’s Award for Outstanding Scholarship, Research and Creative Activity, and in 1994 and 1996 he was ranked as the most prolific scholar in the area of operations management in the United States. He currently serves on the governing board of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). Dean Gupta earned a Ph.D. in management sciences from the University of Bradford, England, in 1976. He also holds a M.Tech, production management, from Brunel University of West London, England; a B.Sc.Eng, production engineering, from Panjab University, India; and a P.Eng. from the Association of Professional Engineers of the Province of Manitoba, Canada. In addition, he completed the College Management Program in the Heinz School of Public Affairs at Carnegie Mellon University.

Rahul- The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School is the newest business school at one of the finest research universities in the world. At a time when the approach of business schools is being questioned, how does the Carey Business School plan to differentiate itself and offer value?
Dean Gupta- Traditionally, business schools have preached that the maximization of shareholder value is the primary goal of an organization. Is the stock price up or down? This is a myopic view of success. What’s more, B-schools have taught people on a paradigm that existed a half-century ago, when global understanding was not that important. The United States called the shots. We shipped our products around the world, and people bought them because they had no other alternatives. It was a veritable monopoly, so there was no need for us to take a global outlook, to try to learn much about the ways other people lived.

Now the business dynamic has changed drastically, in part because of the rise of China, India, Brazil, Russia, and other nations. To compete with them, today’s business leaders need a whole new set of tools – tools that reflect what I call “the art of business.” That means we must teach our business students, as we do here at Johns Hopkins, to internalize the ideas of flexibility, adaptability, empathy. Because the marketplace today is spread around the globe, you have to understand people’s cultures, their history, and their geography if you want to do business with them.

This comes fairly naturally here at Johns Hopkins, because we have built a presence in more than 100 countries. Also, we’re the oldest research university in the United States; therefore, fresh and adaptable thinking is second nature to us, as is innovation – the university produces about 350 new discoveries every year. Our business school was created in that same spirit of international engagement, international understanding, and, most important, service to the international community. That’s why we say the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School is the school “where business is taught with humanity in mind.”

Rahul- Your Web site mentions that the Johns Hopkins Global MBA program emphasizes "the application of innovative business concepts to actual business problems." Please share more about the curricular innovations in the program and how they fit your vision for the incoming "charter class" of 80 students.
Dean Gupta- For starters, we take a different approach to the B-school essentials of finance, management, operation, and marketing. Unlike many business schools, we don’t just approach each of these topics as an isolated area of study. We examine them within the dynamics of a modern business. Our students move through a series of integrated modules that reflect the nature and structure of real-world business problems in the areas of financial resources, people and markets, business processes, and managerial decision behavior, particularly as they apply to health- and science-related challenges.

We have the Discovery to Market Project, which uses the vast pool of discoveries made in the health sciences and related fields at Johns Hopkins so that we provide our students with insight into translating a scientific discovery into a product or technology with potential for commercialization.

There’s the Service to Humanity Project, which requires our students to take part in an international experience so that they develop an understanding of how to build sustainable businesses amid the complex challenges of developing markets. They learn how to be successful in places with weak infrastructures, fragmented banking systems, and political instability. Such places are where we’ll find the markets and the workers of the future; and as I often point out, leaders are the ones who get to the future first, so our goal in preparing the business leaders of the future is to give them an understanding of what the future of business will look like.

We have the weekly Thought and Discourse Seminars, conducted by prominent business leaders and policy makers. The idea behind the format is to stimulate analytical thinking, persuasive communication, and creative expression. This is intellectual inquiry and debate about how business people make their decisions and how they communicate their ideas.

Also, in regard to global understanding, we have the great advantage of being here in Baltimore, just 40 miles from all the foreign embassies in Washington, D.C. These are great reservoirs of knowledge about various nations and their cultures, their economics, their politics. We intend to take full advantage of the proximity of all this invaluable knowledge.

Rahul- Before coming to the Carey Business School, you had high-impact leadership experiences at the University of Washington and the University of Southern California. You also write a blog on leadership for the Washington Post. How is leading a research university different or similar to leading a for-profit corporate entity?
Dean Gupta- The two are very different. A for-profit organization’s motivation is just as the title implies – profit. The objective of a university like ours is to disseminate as much knowledge and information as we can. The idea isn’t so much to make a profit as to profit the world and its people.

The late A. Bartlett Giamatti, who was the president of Yale, put it so well when he wrote that “a college or university is an institution where financial incentives to excellence are absent; where the product line is not a unit or an object but rather a value-laden and lifelong process; where the goal of the enterprise is not growth or market share but intellectual excellence; not profit or proprietary rights, but the free good of knowledge; not efficiency of operation but equity of treatment; not increased productivity in economic terms, but increased intensity of thinking about who we are and how we live and about the world around us.”

Links for 2010-02-24 [Digg]

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 PST

Foregin universities partner with Indian institutions
Around 140 Indian institutions and 156 foreign education providers are engaged in academic collaborations in India and offering 635 academic programs. There is increasing interest among foreign universities to establish academic partnerships in India.

Links for 2010-01-28 [Digg]

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:00:00 PST

Quality in Indian higher education (The Telegraph)
Presents challenges of Indian higher education system aggravated by two interrelated forces — over-regulation and lack of resources. This constraints pursuit of quality and innovation at institutional level.