Tharoor flags India’s slipping university rankings

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday flagged India’s slipping global standing in university rankings and cautioned that “unrealistic global aspirations” cannot substitute for basic investments in schools and higher learning institutes.

Tharoor, also a renowned author, was speaking during an interactive session on literature with Prof Sachin Chaturvedi at the ongoing Nalanda Literature Festival in Bihar. “India no longer hosts any of the world’s leading universities... While a few universities have now entered the top 200, none figure among the top 10 or even the top 50 worldwide,” the Thiruvananthapuram MP said.

He welcomed the revival of Nalanda University as a symbol of India’s civilisational legacy.

The Nalanda Mahavihara site comprises the archaeological remains of a monastic and scholastic institution dating from the third century BCE to the 13th century CE. The ruins of the centre of learning is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a coveted tag it earned in 2016.

Tharoor said the ancient university was a leading institution of the world, “not just because there was no competition, but also because it was an extraordinary institution.”

He called it a matter of “great, great satisfaction” that Nalanda University has been re-established after nearly 800 years of its “third and lasting” destruction by Bakhtyar Khilji in around 1200 AD. Tharoor pointed out that Nalanda once attracted students from as far as Turkiye and Persia in the west to Thailand in the east and Japan in the north. In contrast, the Congress leader said, the proportion of foreign students in Indian universities is actually declining.

“I think we have a long way to go in terms of whether the NEP can help Indian universities become a major force in the world,” he said, adding that “aspirations are important, but we need to walk before we run. There is a need to get the basics right.”

On the role of National Education Policy (NEP), Tharoor said its formation involved extensive consultation, though “not in the form of a structured process.”

He recalled that when the draft was finalised, it was shared with select members of parliament, and several of his recommendations and objections were incorporated. However, he cautioned against overestimating the NEP’s immediate impact on India’s global academic standing.

Tharoor was more critical of the policy’s outcomes at the school level.

He highlighted that it has been less successful primarily due to lack of resources.

The author pointed out that India has long spoken of spending 3.6 per cent of the GDP on education, an ambition dating back to the 1960s, but it currently spends only a little over 2 per cent.

Tharoor said India accounts for 17 per cent of the world’s intellectual talent but produces only 2.7 per cent of global research output. “Part of the problem, again, is resources,” he said.

Referring to the members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Tharoor said, “In OECD countries, 75-80 per cent of research funding comes from private entities. In India, the private sector won’t spend a penny on research.”

OECD members are advanced economies committed to democracy.