Sunday Posts

India is on its way to squander its opportunity to lift itself from poverty to the front bench of the world, its moment to make a mark and a development that could have defined our era. This tragedy is set to happen not because of any worldwide conspiracy, or even acts of nature, but because we, Indians, collectively, failed to imagine. This failure, if it occurs, will be crushing, era-defining in itself, as this will possibly destroy India, and alongside, the ambitions that it represented, of creating a modern democratic nation out of a population long used to subjugation and dependence. Seen that way, it is more than India's economic future that hangs on the balance now: Beyond the grim possibilities of the failure of the India project is the spectre of dissolution of hope, that a subject nation can ever overcome its dependencies, and people, long used to fatalistic ways of life, can be really free and govern themselves fit for the modern world. But, it is not about slowing ...

I recently wrote about my impressions about Indian Higher Education, gathered during a field trip to Indian colleges and universities over the last three weeks. I was quite pessimistic when I wrote this: The sector seemed chaotic, and despite tall claims, lacking substance and order. While this is a completely different reality from that of Western Higher Education and one surely needs to avoid the pitfall of trying to judge the sector against any foreign benchmark, the human waste, because of an education that does not work, was all too obvious for anyone to be complacent. However, despite the pessimism, it would be wrong to be deterministic about the fate of Indian Higher Education. Despite the poverty of ideas, there are some silver linings: Entrepreneurs and Educators trying to create a difference. While these efforts are still marginal, and seen in the context of a general retreat of public investment from the Higher Education sector, quite feeble, it remains possible to crea...

In the last two weeks, my colleagues and I have gone around India, from Mangalore to Meerut, from Mumbai to Kolkata, meeting a cross-section of institutions, understanding the work they are doing and indeed, seeking to establish partnerships to offer our Global/Local programmes. We have visited Central and State institutions, Deemed Universities and State Universities, Technical colleges and Skills training companies, as well as publishers, international schools and corporate training organisations. It was impressive to see the education enterprise in India in action, the massive build up of teaching institutions, the sprawling campuses, libraries, sports facilities and the like. It was educative to understand the nuances of the regulatory system, what these institutions can or can not do, the rhetoric of the policy and the reality of its implementation. We also saw a system in crisis, curriculum that was not changed for many years, a student population focused narrowly on employment ...

We spent most of yesterday meeting Entrepreneurs in Bhubaneswar and then discussing Enterprise training in the top management institution in the City. It sure seemed that the 'Pensioners' Paradise', as Bhubaneswar was previously called, is suddenly abuzz with entrepreneurial activities. Some of the entrepreneurs we met yesterday came back to the city, after having spent years abroad or elsewhere in India, to set up their entrepreneurial ventures, which is indeed a good sign. There are successful medium scale enterprises growing at a fast clip, and plenty of evidence that, at least in among the companies we met, there is healthy collaboration and culture of sharing. These are not world-leading companies yet, and indeed, I observed that most of them are decidedly low-tech, but there may be lessons from Bhubaneswar other Indian cities need to learn, and quickly. India is unlikely to sustain economic growth, and indeed its GDP will need to grow at least by 8% per year, if ...

I am travelling - covering seven cities in three weeks - and this is the reason for relative silence on this blog. It is not the paucity of time, but the excitement of the real work; not the difficulty of Internet connection, but the abundance of real conversations and friendships, that made me write less and talk more in the last few days. But, the journey so far was full of discoveries, insights and indeed excitement, events and opportunities that make me question my assumptions and desires, and stoke my aspirations and encourage me to raise my activities to a wholly different level. When I was in Dubai airport, on my way to Dhaka, transiting as usual, the air-conditioners in Terminal 3 gave away. Water poured down like a huge cloudburst, closing the shops and dispersing the crowd, blocking the main lobby of the airport. I was lucky as I was sitting in a coffee shop at a distance, so the whole affair looked like a surreal rain rather than the wet mess it was for the people caught o...

Management Education in India is in crisis, and that's good news. Students have lost confidence in the mushrooming MBA schools because they do not work. They have stopped enrolling. The banks have become weary of financing these institutions. Every month, a few business schools are closing because their owners come to realize there is no easy money in this. Talking to people who own and run these business schools, one gets the impression that the students are at fault. They are not interested in learning anything, just the job at the end. At the time of admission, there is hardly any discussion about the curriculum, methods of education or even the faculty. The students want to know what is the kind of starting salary they can get after completion. This is indeed true, and this is indeed why there are mushrooming business schools. In fact, it is easy to satisfy students' demand for good jobs in the end, without a good education, as some business schools in India de...

I travel again today, first to Bangladesh for a brief visit and then to India. It is all work, seven cities in about three weeks, with a schedule mostly packed with meetings and early morning or late evening flights. And, like all times, despite the heat, work pressure and slightly haphazard nature of this visit, I am still looking forward to go to India again. Working with Indian Higher Education institutions is incredibly difficult, because most has nothing to do with Higher Education at all. There are two kinds of institutions i commonly come across in India: One, a set of institutions obsessed with their own prestige, so elitist that they would put put Oxford and Cambridge to shame; and, others, mostly private, who are not interested in the process of education at all, and mostly want to confer degrees for a price. To have a proper conversation about things such as curriculum or pedagogic approach is well beyond the interest of the latter; the former do not want to engage in a...