In India, there is a well-known and critical constraint on the supply side of quality higher education. Not only do our best institutions enjoy, at best, quite a low standing in international university rankings, but there are also only a handful whose quality one can write home about. This is one of the major reasons that hundreds of thousands of students look beyond our borders when it comes to higher education, which is considered a springboard for one's career.
This is also one of the reasons why, with initiatives such as Global Initiative of Academic Network (GIAN), Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration and Study in India, the government of India has been gradually warming up to international institutions. Recognising this gap and opportunity in the sector, some private higher education institutions already collaborate with top international institutions within permissible regulatory norms, in order to offer the best of both worlds. NEP 2020 has taken this openness to a new level, by inviting top global universities to open campuses in India, with the objective of developing India into a Global Knowledge Hub.
For one, many more (though of course still not all) meritorious students who had the ability but not the financial means to spend lakhs and crores on an undergraduate education will now be able to obtain an education of the pedigree they deserve. This will include exposure to top-flight international faculty, and also learning a more cosmopolitan student environment as these campuses will certainly attract students from nearby countries too.
Besides, top foreign universities will bring with them best-in-class practices and resources when it comes to undergraduate education. These include the best virtual learning environments, to back up classroom learning which, in the post pandemic world, is certainly going to be only one part of the blended approach most institutions are likely to take to their educations. They also include cutting-edge experiential learning tools, research opportunities and placement and alumni networks.
Clearly, these campuses would need to recruit at least some of their staff locally, both teaching and non-teaching. This would tantamount to a huge knowledge transfer and upskill the quality of human capital available in our higher education sector, as these staff members move to other domestic institutions over the courses of their careers. Moreover, the top-notch faculty members that these campuses would bring in from their 'home' countries would comprise a 'reverse brain drain', the benefits of which to the 'host' country are well established in literature.
The heat that domestic institutions will inevitably feel from such competition will undoubtedly shake them out of their dormancy and make them take a much more active, conscientious and student-centric approach to decision-making and incentive structures.
This is the role that high-quality private higher education institutions are currently playing in the sector. As top international institutions step in, it will, over a period of time, certainly improve the general quality of higher education in the country, and the quality offered by most surviving domestic institutions also.
This will help students get better placements and add more value at work. This will ring truer as the job market flattens more and more in the post-pandemic world, with erstwhile barriers like geography diminishing in importance in the context of recruitment.
For this reason more than others, and because an undergraduate education is the springboard to one's career, the NEP has just done Indian students a solid.
The writer is Dr Jitin Chadha, Founder-director of Indian School of Business & Finance