Sunday Posts

I recently spoke in an event discussing world economies 'beyond China': My topic was Africa and I reported what I spoke about in an earlier post on this blog (Read Beyond China: Why Africa Matters ). I was, however, not speaking about India's prospects in this changed world. It is only fitting for me to supplement my earlier post with what I think of India's prospects. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- China's prosperity and ascendancy present both a great opportunity and a grim challenge to India. China's economic growth, and consequent rise in Military Power, dwarf India's position in its immediate neighbourhood, where it faces many challenges anyway. Its relative loss of significance will both impact its domestic polity, where a particular firebrand nationalism is on the rise, and its resource economies, which is far more interdependent with its neighbou...

I wish to return to India and I am trying to chronicle my preparations for return here. This is not an immediate plan, indeed this journey is as consequential as the one of leaving India and hence need preparation, but this is one thing I would like to do. I have always stated this to be my intention, but let the life take its course, not forcing the agenda in any way. But, now, a break point of sorts, I am inclined to make a deliberate attempt, even over a period of a few years (as it must be), and intend to keep a record of this journey on this blog, so that it helps me to get into a conversation with others planning a similar journey. I have indeed written about both about Reverse Migration in general (see here, Reverse Migration: India's Chance , and later, Reverse Migration: Is India Ready Yet? ) and my particular desire to return (for example, Reverse Migration: A Personal Note , The Question of Return , The Never-ending Question of Return and in Being Non-Resident ) o...

For-Profit Education stands, more often than not, for poor education. At a time when big claims are being made for the potential of For-Profit Education to change entire economies and alleviate poverty ( See Parag Khanna and Karan Khemka in HBR ), one must seek to understand why For-Profit education under-delivers.  Because, it is impossible to turn a decent profit in education, claim some. Alan Ryan claims that minus the public subsidies going into For-Profit education, "outside technical training in IT, law, finance and medicine, there’s not a lot of money to be made out of higher education" (Alan Ryan in Times Higher Education, see here ) This observation may empirically bear out as most For-Profit activities happen in areas with immediate employability, and where cost of delivery is low (For-Profits in medicine have often come up short, and For-Profit Engineering Education has usually been a disaster). There is more. The history of For-Profits has so far been th...

Raphael's painting of Plato teaching is a popular PowerPoint item for Higher Education conferences these days. This is to be seen in the context of today's classroom, somewhat like the MIT's in the other picture here. The point is not the architectural contrast and the drab predictability of today's windowless classrooms, but rather the similarities between the two - indeed, the speakers use these pictures to emphasise that education has changed very little - and the fact that it is still the students in conversation with each other and with the teacher that make education. That, announces the PowerPoint crusaders armed with incontrovertible visual evidence, needs to change. However, one may indeed be able to point out several differences in the two spaces, which directly points to the changes happening in education. To start with, the humble table must not be overlooked, as well as the pen and paper, all pointing to a writing culture to replace the Oral traditi...

The US Government's decision to stop Coursera (and presumably other MOOCs) from delivering the courses in Syria, Iran, Cuba and Sudan is astonishing, if not outright misdirected. Indeed, I come to know of this as I am doing a course 'Constitutional Struggles in The Islamic World' from University of Copenhagen, and the notification tells me that the students taking the course from the above-mentioned countries will be stopped from taking the course. The act of sanction, therefore, appears completely counter-productive in the context. The mail from Prof. Dr. Ebrahim Afsah that bore the notification states: "Let me reiterate that I am appalled at this decision. Please note that no-one at Coursera likely had a choice in this matter! At any rate, rest assured that these are not the values of the University of Copenhagen, of its Faculty of Law, and most assuredly not mine!" The point made in the notification, appended to Professor Afsah's mail, is th...

Vocational Training is supposed to be a big thing. This is heralded as the answer to the problems of productivity, particularly in countries in Asia and Africa with rapidly growing population. The idea is simple: Get the poor people in a classroom for a few months and make them learn something useful and then get them to work in a factory or profession. Once it is done on large scale - India says it wants to train 500 million people in next 10 years or so - the whole economy can change. The trouble is that it does not work. I have articulated my complaints about the Indian vocational training system earlier, and hence I shall not repeat it here. I usually receive a stock answer when I talk about the short-comings of vocational training as it is done in India, that it is all down to poor execution. So, when outdated skills are taught, students do not engage or the trained students do not find a job, it bears down to the flaws of execution. I shall contend that these failures have ...

Yesterday I was speaking at a 'Beyond China' event, arranged by Asia Pacific Technology Network in London. The idea was to look at the reconfiguration of the global economy at the wake of the end of 'cheap' China. There were different presentations, one from CBBC on the changing Chinese economy, followed by presentations on South-East Asia, India, Africa and US. Pratik Dattani, a friend and the current UK Director of FICCI, was speaking about India, though on a personal capacity. I was speaking about Africa, though my exposure to the continent is only through the African academics I speak to and African students that I teach. My case was that the end of Cheap China is only an opportunity for Africa, and that Africa is mainly looking to do things with China rather than moving beyond it. However, as China becomes a more difficult place to invest in - for operational reasons rather than costs - Africa will emerge as an exciting, perhaps the most exciting, place for g...