Globalisation of Tech Edu
The CEO and managing director of Aptech Ltd., Pramod Khera, participating in ASSOCHAM's Symposium on Globalisation of Technical Education, recently in New Delhi, has said that technical education in India needs funding and incentives from the industry.
The following are his other views on the subject, 'Globalisation of Technical Education'.
"At the outset let me attempt to elaborate on the concept of
globalisation.
Globalisation is a phenomenon. While many have attempted definitions, let me highlight two contrarian views.
Anthony Giddens, a sociologist, and Director at the London School of Economics, defines globalisation as a decoupling of space and time, stressing that with instantaneous communications; knowledge and culture can be shared around the world simultaneously.
More aggressive Left critics speak of globalisation as a worldwide drive toward a globalised economic system dominated by supranational corporate trade and banking institutions that are not accountable to democratic processes or national governments.
Fortunately, in the world of education, I can steer clear of controversies.
I would hazard a summing-up rather than a ‘definition’ of globalisation. It is the welcome death of geographical distance, replaced by a seamless sharing of information, enabled by technology.
The idea is to move towards a society based on ‘knowledge’ rather than nationality, creed, colour or religion. Whereas Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese navigator, needed a worthy sea-faring vessel to circumnavigate the world in 1519, we can now afford the luxury of technology to circumnavigate.
It has been well documented that one of the driving forces of globalisation is the advance of telecommunications in general and the Internet in particular.
Marshall McLuhan, a pioneer thinker about the media, coined the term ‘global village’ in the 1960s to express his belief that electronic communication would unite the world. As was observed by UNESCO at Geneva as far back as December 2003, "the delivery of education is increasingly online, with e-Learning greatly facilitated by wide access to the Internet and connectivity".
We are moving from an industrial age, in which wealth was created by manufacturing, to an information age in which wealth is created by the development of information goods and services, ranging from media, to education and software.
Globalisation of ICT is inevitable.
What are the general problems plaguing ICT today?
Broadly speaking, the problems relate to infrastructure and telecommunications development, language difficulties, disparity in the accessibility of ICT between rural and urban areas, lack of motivation and techno-phobia among teachers, shortage of trained teachers and the like.
Closer to home, what should India’s role be in the larger context of Asia, the Pacific, Africa and the Middle East in particular and the rest of the world in general?
What is the responsibility we should, as front-runners in ICT, take on ourselves?
A resilient system should aim to achieve some 'typical' features; three features highlighted are:
1. Raising the quality of technical education to a level comparable with the best in the world so that our technical institutes are able to attract students from all over the world. The IITs are ranked as high as in the ‘top 40’ in the world.
2. Graduates of our technical education systems become the preferred talent for global assignments.
3. Further, fine-tuning a delivery system so that education cuts across borders.
My predictions? Looking into the future is for ‘seers’ not techno professionals, but some predictions can be safely made.
Our ability to throw up consistently world-class & technically proficient products (students) is not in doubt; India has the potential to become the benchmark for several regions. What is needed is a consistent scaling up to keep it on par with foreign standards / institutions / universities.
Private sector participation in technical and higher education will increase. This trend is evident elsewhere. The private sector has begun to facilitate or spur the use of ICT in education. In some countries Intel, IBM, Microsoft & Coca Cola have made considerable efforts. In India, there is considerable room for ‘improvement’ on this score. Consider a rather startling fact: in India, for a billion Indians, we have around 320 Universities; the United States, on the other hand, has some 4000 degree-granting institutes for a ‘market’ of just 270 million.
There will be more industry & academic interaction; technical education needs funding and incentives from the industry; once an ‘environment’ is evident, amounts being spent in educating young Indians abroad will at least in part, be invested in India.
Talented teaching staff will be attracted to education.
There are signs of foreign Universities setting up shop in India and Indian Institutes abroad; this is a good thing in that the ultimate customer (student) has a wider choice, but India needs to ready itself to be on par with world-class standards in various other facets of marketing: product-offerings, delivery-mechanisms and customer-retention.
One customer-friendly sign would be less bureaucracy in student-exchange programmes, which in India tend to be rigid thereby discouraging easy access.
Foremost among many regulatory issues that need attention are: flexibility in common admission entrance procedures, flexible, differential fee-structures, teacher-appointment procedures, teacher-salaries, teacher-retention, globally relevant curriculum and student-related issues like student visas and work permits.
These are realities of a dynamic, enterprising, worldwide scenario that a sheltered system like India’s may not as yet have been exposed to, but as long as one is open to learning and evolving, the journey will not be as difficult as some might suggest.
