Padma Chandrasekaran and R Ravichander
The panel discussion on ‘Can Indian Students Afford Global Education’ on day two of the conclave was kicked off with the question, ‘Which India are we talking about?’ Neharika Vohra, chairperson of the session and a professor of IIM-Ahmedabad, went on to explain that a great chunk of Indian youth amid possessing every intellectual potential to attain a world class education still lag behind in their academic achievements because of the lack of adequate moral and financial backing.
M Narendra, CMD, Indian Overseas Bank, Chennai; Padma Chandrasekaran, consultant; Aman Singh, project lead, International Foundation for Education and Research; R Ravichander, group president, business development, YES Bank, and Balakrishnan Shankar, associate dean, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, formed the rest of the panel.
M Narendra opined that the purpose of a global education should be correlated to the industrial and economic revival of the country. “The global players in the field of education are looking towards India as many students in these institutions are from India. So there is a pressing need for improvement in the areas of global connectivity, ideas and information in India. Along with it, students should be provided with sufficient financial assistance. As a banking institution, IOB is providing `30-40 lakh as loans and even more in some cases. We want India to become stronger in the global world,” he said.
Chandrasekaran opined that the real question was whether we could afford to give Indians a global education. She further said that though the number of higher education institutes increases by the day, the gross enrolment ratio was below the desired figure. “Just four-five million young graduates are being produced by our institutions every year. So one can imagine how less the figure would be if one gets the opportunity to be exposed to global education. We should impart global standards of education in Indian institutions,” she said.
Aman Singh, the youngest panelist in the session, said that it was the responsibility of industrial leaders, politicians and other stake holders in societal affairs to make it possible for potential individuals to attain a high standard of education. “Most of our top institutions such as IITs and IIMs are possessing global standards. The thing is not many students from lower class families are able to end up at these institutions,” Aman added.
Promotion of public- private partnership in higher education sector was the solution suggested by R Ravichander. Balakrishnan said that instead of searching for a standardised education in foreign institutes, India should provide better quality education in its own premier institutes at affordable cost.
greeshma.an@newindianexpress.com
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / Home> Education> Edex / by Greeshma Neelakandan – Chennai / February 18th, 2013