En Route To Rank Peak

The new education policy aims to bring systemic change to India’s education sector and make it globally competitive

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I was in Kiev last year as part of my European tour to attend the International Yoga Day celebrations organised by the Indian embassy. At the dinner hosted by the Indian ambassador, I was told that around 15,000 Indian medical students were studying in Ukraine. I was curious about the teachers and to my surprise, I found that maximum faculty members came from India. I had observed a similar scenario in Mauritius, where both students and faculty of the local medical college were from India. I have closely observed prestigious business and technical schools around the world and have found that besides the top leadership, there i s a substantial number of Indian students and faculty in almost all Ivy League schools. I must admit that I have been deeply impressed by the quality of research conducted by Indian students and faculty in international institutions.

It was a mere coincidence that after our European tour, I visited the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad. The Wall Street Journal/ Times Higher Education Global Rankings have ranked ISB Hyderabad at No. 2 globally for the one­year MBA course. Hong Kong University (HKU) is ranked No. 1. I was wondering in what dimensions ISB lagged. To my surprise, ISB performed far better in every aspect—resources (faculty, students and their qualifications; student career support), engagement (learning, real­world relevance, research), outcomes (salary increase, network, opportunities). But ISB was behind HKU in environment—foreign students, female students and staff (including international staff ). One thing is clear that as far as the quality of our teachers and students is concerned, we are second to none. I strongly believe we have the capacity to lead the world. However, our institutions are comparatively far behind international institutions.