Friday, Apr 25, 2003
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Karnataka-Bangalore
By Our Special Correspondent
Inaugurating a two-day national seminar on "Internationalisation of Indian higher education — Quality dimensions," he said Indians could not be mere recipients of Western type of education. They should be donors of India's distinct education to the other parts of the world. The seminar has been organised by Bangalore University, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), the Confederation of Indian Industry, and the VSS Trust. Dr. Joshi said India was providing to the West integrated education, which contained solutions to the "fractured personality, the troubled soul of the West denoted by sex crimes, and sleeping tablets". Taking a dig at the U.S. and its invasion of Iraq, the Union minister said India had solutions to the West which eyed the natural resources of the world. He also referred to the "Eagle on the White House with its capricious eyes". Quality education meant finding solutions to the problems of the country and solving its problems. The country should guard itself against its quality of education being dovetailed to the standards of some foreign countries. Foreigners should not be allowed to say that they would come here and improve quality. It was true the country was not in a position to start 200 institutions of the standing of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Harvard University. Hardly 20 institutions in the country might measure up to them, and there might be a large number of poor quality colleges.
`Not a commodity'
Dr. Joshi expressed himself against market forces governing education and it being treated as a commodity. He said the student was being treated as a product, and the quality of education was being related to the marketability of the student. For instance, the standards of the Indian Institutes of Technology for some meant acceptability of its product to the U.S. market. The question was being raised whether an IIT product could be absorbed in India and paid high salaries. Mere mimicking of the West would not improve the quality of education. It was a distorted view of education to emulate the universities in the U.S., U.K., or Japan. Every society had a cultural and geographical ambience. He hit out at "McDonaldisation of India's education" and related it to the consumption of pizzas and hamburgers. If that happened, it was not desirable, he added.
Indian concept
Dr. Joshi said the ancient Indian concept of education was "more than valid". A former professor of Physics at Allahabad University, Dr. Joshi said understanding the self was becoming important in fields such as physics and psychology. He quoted approvingly what Jawaharlal Nehru said in Allahabad in 1947 — that education was the search for truth and adventure. It was the nature of the human race to attain higher objectives, and education should generate ideas and ideals, he added. He said that while dealing with internationalisation of education, the objectives of Indian education should not be lost sight of. Mere academic pursuits were not as important for universities as generating ideas and ideals. The captains of education should remember that the mere establishment of some large schools on Western lines would not improve quality, he added.
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