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As the pre-Vibrant Gujarat International Conference of Academic Institutions (ICAI) got underway Tuesday, some of the world’s top education experts disagreed with a few objectives of the two-day event, including the state government’s push for private-public partnerships (PPP) in higher education via an industry-academia link and signing of MoUs.
The experts — from the World Bank and Canadian, British, American and Indian institutions of higher learning — warned against emphasis on marketing (including MoU signing), private funding, too much stress on physical infrastructure and heavy reliance on foreign partners, especially for faculty.
Instead, they underlined the need for bringing in an ecosystem that is complex and accepting, not just on campus, but in the cities and towns that house such campuses. They also called for a greater international footfall.
“The degree of internationalisation of a university is inversely proportional to the number of MoUs signed,” said Francisco Marmolejo, the World Bank’s Tertiary Education Coordinator. He outlined some “common mistakes” of those trying to set up so-called “world-class universities”, including a focus on physical infrastructure, supporting only capital costs and not operating costs of an institution, and heavy reliance on foreign partners. A foremost focus of ICAI is, in fact, “faculty exchange”.
Meanwhile, the chief executive of the UK’s Higher Education Academy, Craig Mahoney, pointed out that only two of his country’s 126 universities are private ones.
On how the UK “got to where we are”, Mahoney said that roughly 17% of that country’s 2.5 million university students come from abroad, a point that the University of Toronto’s vice-president Judith Wolfson also made in her speech when she said the Canadian city is home to a huge population not born in that country.
IIMA’s Shailendra Mehta, who spent a year studying the governance structures of the US universities, said his findings make a strong case towards public funding of universities as well as the handing over of trusteeship of these universities to alumni — most of the top 20 US universities’ boards were dominated, some even 100%, by alumni.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/icai-experts-warn-against-marketing-of-higher-education/1057238/
The experts — from the World Bank and Canadian, British, American and Indian institutions of higher learning — warned against emphasis on marketing (including MoU signing), private funding, too much stress on physical infrastructure and heavy reliance on foreign partners, especially for faculty.
Instead, they underlined the need for bringing in an ecosystem that is complex and accepting, not just on campus, but in the cities and towns that house such campuses. They also called for a greater international footfall.
“The degree of internationalisation of a university is inversely proportional to the number of MoUs signed,” said Francisco Marmolejo, the World Bank’s Tertiary Education Coordinator. He outlined some “common mistakes” of those trying to set up so-called “world-class universities”, including a focus on physical infrastructure, supporting only capital costs and not operating costs of an institution, and heavy reliance on foreign partners. A foremost focus of ICAI is, in fact, “faculty exchange”.
Meanwhile, the chief executive of the UK’s Higher Education Academy, Craig Mahoney, pointed out that only two of his country’s 126 universities are private ones.
On how the UK “got to where we are”, Mahoney said that roughly 17% of that country’s 2.5 million university students come from abroad, a point that the University of Toronto’s vice-president Judith Wolfson also made in her speech when she said the Canadian city is home to a huge population not born in that country.
IIMA’s Shailendra Mehta, who spent a year studying the governance structures of the US universities, said his findings make a strong case towards public funding of universities as well as the handing over of trusteeship of these universities to alumni — most of the top 20 US universities’ boards were dominated, some even 100%, by alumni.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/icai-experts-warn-against-marketing-of-higher-education/1057238/
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