Sunday Posts

I feel happy that I have now been able to replace my teaching commitments with other kind of work, because I didn't think the teaching I was doing was moving me forward. I am hoping that the work I shall be taking on will do this - and allow me to move towards my goal of returning to India/ Asia and eventually settling there. Once I transition into this life starting 1st of August, this will truly be the next big thing in my life. As always for me, I am preparing for this now. I believe this new phase will require a new living ethic, learning ethic and relationship ethic, radically different from how I have lived my life in the last ten years.  For a start, this is a time for to stop waiting, which was the predominant theme of what I have done for the last ten years, a patient build-up for some undefined future, and start doing things. I wanted an education and experience of travel, which I have got: It is time now to get doing things that I thought I would do after I hav...

The idea of India is a contested one, and one can not take it for granted. The British colonialists saw India as a hodgepodge, not a nation but just a geographical entity ('the land beyond the Indus'), and Churchill famously observed "India is no more a country than the Equator". Overlooking common cultural heritage of India, once one of the richest country of the world and a source of philosophy and culture, was not just a cynical colonial ploy, but it was fought over from within as well. In this context, the pragmatic cosmopolitan conception of Modern India was a stroke of genius, which rejected the British concern of non-existence of India and laid a claim to certain aspects of the Indian heritage while obscuring others. This is indeed the usual tools of trade for modern nation building, and in a sense, this was mostly successful. Despite many premonitions of its demise, India just held on and somewhat solidified as an idea, perhaps because of the wider partici...

Day 3 of my hundred days was rather indifferent, partly because this is part of the teaching week and once I have spent three hours teaching, and another two travelling to and fro, most of my time is gone. But I did manage to catch up with one old colleague with whom I have done some work for U-Aspire, towards getting some conversations going in Bangalore. I wanted to tell him about the change in our plans - the fact that we may not pursue engagements the way we originally envisaged in India. For me, this was important, though slightly painful, a sort of a retreat; however, at the same time, we could talk about Indian education and various opportunities. Now that I have decided to disengage from education delivery in India, I suddenly see a number of possibilities opening up that I decided to ignore before. Setting up a college in London, which we did explore in the past, isn't one of them though. And, this is not just because of my background and interests in Asia, but more fo...

The second day in my 100 day plan in transition went better than I expected. I would sometimes have these 'productive' days, when I accomplish quite a bit, some of it just because of things coming together, and some of it because I feel motivated, and this was one of those. I did feel good in the end: I had two interviews, though for the same job, which I had to complete before I can have the next round of conversations; completed paperwork for another position; started working through the mountains of assessments that I must complete before I move to my next life; and completed a lengthy piece of content for the marketing course that I am delivering currently. Between the interviews and a few other conversations, I spent about four hours on Skype, which is not what I want to do for an ideal day, but it was good to connect with so many people in the space of a day too. I also started reading Michael Roth's Beyond the University, a spirited defense of Liberal Arts educ...

Half year gone - should I repeat the cliche that time's flying - and I am on the threshold of a new thing. A new 100 days plan will be handy, and I intend to set this in motion from tomorrow. Let things change and fast. So, here is the last six months: Our plan to get the business off the ground with a strategy that we decided upon late last year has failed. Focusing on one territory and a couple of partners was a risky plan - I did foresee this bit but didn't win the argument - and rather predictably, when this under-delivered, we were out of time. I spent a great amount of time as an Adjunct Tutor, feeling claustrophobic and waiting for a miracle, but kept my already overdrawn bank account on a life-support. And, towards the end of a rather tentative, but boring, six months, things started coming together in the form of interesting ideas and interesting projects. I am just on time to make a fresh start. It is not that I have not achieved much in the last six months....

I am in the midst of a change: After teaching in a public institution for two years, I am looking to give up teaching and get back to other kind of work. Indeed, teaching was primarily to cover me during the bootstrap years so that I can pay my bills. However, there was more to it: I chose to take up teaching responsibilities, dating back to 2010, in order to learn the practice of teaching, concurrently with my Masters in Education. This was part of my commitment to get into education and a demonstration of my deeply held belief that education is an art by itself and to get into it, one must understand the domain. That may seem obvious, but it is not. Because education touches almost everyone, everyone has a view about it, which is good. However, what's problematic is that everyone seems to think that they have a definitive view what education should be. So, the technologist thinks that education is all about neat technology, the business person thinks that it is about capaci...

How much should one pay heed to cultural issues when planning to deliver education globally? This question has assumed renewed significance as global education is now a reality. Technology has made it possible, financial liberalisation made it desirable. Now, even the last barriers, which were there for mostly political and cultural reasons, are also coming down. Even a country like Bangladesh, which is forever at war with Western influence at home, has now allowed overseas universities to set up shop ( see story ). With a broad global consensus slowly emerging about a regulatory easing of Higher Education, the global online providers never had it better. The technology of delivery has reached a tipping point, the access to computing, through cheap tablets and smartphones, have reached even the remotest parts of the world, and the groundswell of middle class aspirations have far outstripped the traditional modes of supply.  Indeed, there are big hurdles to cross. Chin...

The Immigration Minister, James Brokenshire, made a statement in the parliament yesterday regarding the government's response to the widespread visa fraud uncovered by BBC Panorama earlier this year. ( See post ) The measures are rather extraordinary in scope, though those who have seen the BBC Panorama programme would agree that the brazenness of the scam was mind-boggling. If anyone thought that the issue of student visas are now settled, after thousands of private colleges, bogus and legitimate, have been shut down, they have been proved wrong. Several universities, including London Metropolitan University, have been scarred by the experience ( see story here ). The aim of the government was to close down every college except the Highly Trusted ones (a category of sponsors defined by the new immigration rules) by 2012, but this has obviously failed. The fact that this issue keeps coming back indicate that a serious rethinking, rather than rhetoric, is needed.  The d...

Yesterday evening, I was at the Royal Academy of Engineers to attend an event arranged by UK India Business Council, around an Indian Business delegation from Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FICCI). Chaired by Rt Honourable Patricia Hewitt, the former Secretary of State for Health and current UKIBC Chair, this was an interesting conversation between British Asian businesses and the representatives of Indian businesses. The theme of the evening was focused on what the election victory of Narendra Modi led BJP means to business, and everyone was quite upbeat. The conversations focused on decisiveness, on things happening, and the fact that this is the first one party government in India after 25 years (Rajiv Gandhi's government, which had a massive majority, lasted till 1989). Rather than actual policy changes, the message given out was that the things that were stalled will now happen. In audience were Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja, who confirmed...

As I wrote about a tipping point may be coming to Indian Education ( see here ), when a rollback of regulation may open up the space for experimentation and innovation, and allow the Indian institutions to take advantage of the domestic demand, something was playing out in Delhi indicating just the opposite was happening. A friend and correspondent was quick to point out that my optimistic musings may be off the mark, particularly on a day when an ugly example of political interference on academic decisions was playing out. This is about Delhi University (DU) wanting to introduce the Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) instead of the usual three years. There was nothing in the University Statutes that disallows the university from doing it, and the university laid out the explanations for changing the system. Initially, the regulators, University Grants Commission (UGC) was backing the decision, so much so that the university admissions started as usual. This was an unpo...