| |
|
The Indian Private Sector's Contribution to Higher Education and Research In recent years, with the advent of liberalization, and the growing fascination with all things American, there has been a concerted attempt to discount the role of enlightened state intervention in the economy. Certain idealogues - particularly those affiliated with the BJP, and other neoliberal have been slamming Nehruvian "socialism" as the single main cause for India's poverty and under-development. They have been contending that had the Indian government left everything to the Private Sector after independence, India would have grown much faster, and would have been like a "developed" nation today. Although such an argument is entirely untenable when one looks at the concrete experience of most other developed and developing nations - particularly the Asian nations that have developed the most (such as S. Korea and Japan), this argument has been repeated so often, that it has now been accepted as gospel truth by many younger Indians - especially young software engineers and technology managers. Unfamiliar with how both the Japanese and S. Korean governments have invested enormous sums of money in both higher education and cutting-edge research, they cling to the naive and misinformed belief that privatization is the magic wand for all of India's ills. In fact, most advanced nations in the world have developed thanks to much higher levels of state intervention in higher education and scientific and technological research than India. For instance, it might be worth mentioning, that to this day, Moscow - with its plethora of Soviet era educational institutes and scientific labs remains a world leader in cutting edge research. In many areas of modern Physics and other physical sciences, the research output from Moscow exceeds that of long-established US centres of privately-funded higher education such as Stanford or Yale. So prolific are Moscow's scientists that even GM has now decided that it stands to gain more from building its newest research centre in Moscow rather than in the US. In fact, a scan of the leading on-line scientific journals reveals that many former Eastern-Bloc capitals (with state-funded universities and Science Academies modeled along Soviet lines) such as Budapest, Warsaw or Prague - are all significant contributors when it comes to cutting-edge research. In both S. Korea and Japan (Asia's technologically most advanced nations), scientific and technological research at publicly funded universities generally outstrips research at privately funded institutions. And it cannot be emphasized enough that in the past half-century, Korea has grown much faster than the US. In Korea, there has been greater state intervention in the economy - not less. This is not to discount the leading role played by US universities in the world of scientific and technological research. But it is often forgotten that many of them are state-funded. In any case, Indians ought to know that US universities are at best mediocre when it comes to undergraduate education, and half of all PhDs in the Natural sciences and Engineering are awarded to scholars who were not born and educated in the US. Although in the 19th century, the US became a world leader in science and technology largely on its own merits, in the past half century, the reputation of its universities has been maintained as much or more by immigrants than US-born citizens. Soon after World War II, US universities became a magnet for Japanese, Korean and European scientists since the war had greatly diminished opportunities at home. Now that Western Europe, Japan and Korea have developed (or re-developed) their economies, US universities are enjoying the benefit of the best minds from India, China, Eastern Europe, Iran, the Middle East, and many other nations. But even in the case of the US, it should be pointed out that when it comes to fundamental research in the physical sciences, it is the government labs and state universities such as UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, Minnesota or Ohio State - along with a hundred other state universities, that make up the backbone of basic scientific research in the physical sciences. Private universities, who are better known for their management, architecture and engineering programs complement state investment in higher education and research - but even in the US, they do not play the leading role. In any case, no sustained engineering innovation is possible without a strong foundation in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Geology. If it weren't for all the basic research emanating from state-funded universities and government labs, even private universities such as Stanford would be hard pressed to achieve what they have so far. However, regardless of the situation prevailing abroad, the greatest indictment of India's Private Sector comes from a perusal of data pertaining to scientific and technological research. Facts always speak louder than ideological speculations and opinions, and when it comes to research output - whether in refereed internationally indexed journals, or domestic journals, or presentations at international or national conferences, India's Private Sector institutions simply don't make it anywhere near the top. According to a search on Google Scholar (which appears to have access to about 70-80% of Japanese and Western scientific journals, as well as all internationally-recognized Chinese, ASIAN and some Indian journals), the research output in the last 5 years in the Physical Sciences and Engineering from all the BITS institutions combined (in Pilani, Goa and Mesra) was about 510. Compare that to IISc Bangalore's 4500, or IIT Delhi's 2700, or TIFR Bombay's 2670. In fact, BITS' combined research output not only trails the IITs in Bombay, Kanpur, Kharagpur, and Chennai (2700-2200) - but also lags Jadavpur University (1250), Delhi University (1100), ISI (1100), BHU Varanasi(900), Madras University (800), Calcutta University (740), Anna University (740), Pune University (740) and Hyderabad University (700. The situation for other private institutions is even less impressive. Thapar's TIET Patiala logs in at 70, Manipal at 55, SASTRA (Thanjavur) and MEPCO Schlenck (Sivakasi) at 25 and Ahmedabad's NIRMA at 15. Thapar's TIET equals little known state-funded SLIET (Longowal, Sangrur), but is behind Punjab's Amritsar University and Patiala University as well as NIT Kurukshetra or Kurukshetra University. In fact, CUSAT Cochin, Allahabad University, Mysore University, Jaipur University - all do as well or better than BITS Pilani (or any other privately funded deemed university or autonomous engineering college). If BITS Pilani is excluded from the list, even state universities in smaller cities and towns such as in Tirupati, Kottayam, Burdwan, Jodhpur, Shillong, Jabalpur, Gorakhpur, Karaikudi, Sambalpur, Berhampur, Jalgaon, or Rajkot do better in terms of research activities. In fairness to India's Private Engineering Colleges, it may be pointed out that Google Scholar generally fails to pick up on papers published in most Indian (or African) journals or those presented at Indian conferences. In addition, only a very small fraction of Indian PhD theses get indexed in international scientific databases, so Google Scholar tends to significantly under-report India's research output. This is particularly the case with research relating to Chemistry, and all branches of Engineering. At the private engineering colleges, papers presented at national or regional conferences can exceed journal papers by a factor of 4 or 5.(In the case of NIST, Berhampur, only 10% of its research output is picked up by Google Scholar). This is not a bad thing, because national conferences have become an important venue for Indian scientists and engineers to get to know one another and to become quickly familar with the latest research. It is especially useful for small colleges and universities to link up with larger and more established institutions. But even after making appropriate adjustments to include papers published in Indian journals or presented at domestic conferences, the results will not be dramatically different. This is because Google's coverage of international engineering journals is also somewhat spotty. As a result, the data for the IITs and the NITs is also under-reported (by a factor of about 1.5 for the IITs, and by a factor of 2-2.5 for the NITs). For government-funded SLIET Sangrur, the Google results are just a third of the actual research output. Even in Tamil Nadu - where the private colleges are most engaged with national engineering conferences, no unaided private engineering college would be able to match the overall research output of Anna University's Constituent Colleges or NIT Trichy (4-500), let alone IIT Madras. This is not to entirely write off the Private Engineering colleges. The best private engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra or Orissa - all do slightly better than the weak government engineering colleges who aren't especially well-staffed or well-funded. With the retreat of the state, private engineering colleges have begun to play a decisive role in undergraduate education. But so far, fewer than 10% of the private engineering colleges are equipped to offer post-graduate programs; less than half offer post-graduate courses in more than one or two disciplines; and several are government-aided colleges. Moreover, almost all of these post-graduate colleges are concentrated in just a few states: Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Punjab and Haryana. Besides, at many of these Post Graduate colleges, only a few departments are well-developed; most departments have only a few active researchers. Whereas the Google-indexed research output from all of Delhi's government-funded institutions (at about 8-9000) puts Delhi on par with Japan's number three city, Nagoya, (and several European capitals), BITS Pilani's output of about 450-500 puts it in the same league as Indonesia's Bandung, and somewhat behind Malaysia's Penang. TIET logs in with Accra, Ghana, (or Peshawar, Pakistan), but behind Lagos, Nigeria. Had Nehru left India's higher education entirely to the mercy of India's private trading companies and industrialists, it is much more likely, that today, India would look more like a struggling African country than a Singapore or South Korea as claimed by the detractors of Nehruvian socialism. It is thanks almost entirely to Nehruvian planning that India has a scientific and technological infrastructure in its metros that can match what is available in the European capitals. (While it may be legitimate to criticize the 'License Raj' - and its negative effect on industrial growth, such criticism needs to be balanced with an appreciation for the many positive aspects of Nehru's broad civilizational vision) In fact, contrary to the canard that CSIR (and all other government labs) are simply white elephants that ought to be disbanded, the data shows that government labs are playing an indispensable role in the country. While it may well be true that structural rigidities, bureaucratic conservatism and inadequate interaction with PhD students and Post-Docs may be hampering their productivity, the research output of the government labs continues to exceed that of the private sector. For instance, IICT Hyderabad's log of 1000, BARC's 840, or PRL Ahmedabad's 625 - all outpace BITS' combined output. In fact, if the research output from the government labs is included in the mix, Kolkata's overall research output is ten times that of Kuala Lumpur or Penang, and easily exceeds that of Bangkok. With the inclusion of the research output from CSIR labs and all other government research institutions, several of India's tier-2 cities (such as Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapurum, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Indore, Kochi and Allahabad) outrank the internationally reputed university towns in Malaysia. If research presented at national conferences were also included, Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore, Madurai, Trichy and Karaikudi, Karnataka's Mysore, and other state capitals such as Jaipur, would also exceed the Malaysian university towns - not only in terms of PhD guidance, but also in terms of papers published or presented. But because India's private media has largely ignored the research activities emanating from the government labs and small town universities, such work has received inadequate recognition and support. Of course, what needs to happen is that a comparable structure needs to be in place in all the state capitals and other second-tier and even third-tier cities and towns. But since 1991, hardly anyone has paid any attention to augmenting the scientific and technological capabilities of the non-metros. The prime entities for this neglect are the Indian media, CII and FICCI, and the BJP - who have done nothing but malign the nation's best state-funded institutions, yet done little to replace or even complement them. Rather than berate the Nehru era for the problems of the present, they ought to be inquiring as to why more recent governments did so little to infuse fresh blood into India's key research institutions, and why no new research institutions were launched in the last two decades. If the older institutions have stagnated, why wasn't anything constructive done to re-energize them? And above all, if India's private sector were the true alternative, why hasn't it been able to step in (in any significant way) in the past decade and a half? The truth of the matter is that India's private sector has been so intoxicated with its rising profits, that it has largely failed to see the reality beyond its blinkered ideological compulsions. Unlike industry associations in Korea and Japan, who have pushed their governments to increase state spending in higher education and research, and who themselves have encouraged the national press and electronic media to promote scientific and technological upgrades and innovations through dedicated columns on science and technology, and sought special media coverage of all major science and technology conferences, symposiums and workshops, India's business leaders have often behaved as petty traders - preferring to market internationally-manufactured goods in India. Others have sought to import off-the-shelf technologies rather than spend any of their own money on R&D or encourage the government spend it for them. Hawkish neo-liberals like Chidambaram have only encouraged such behaviour with their reckless approach to slashing import duties and undercutting tax support for domestic research and capital improvements. Unlike in other aspiring nations (such as Iran, Thailand or Malaysia), organizations like CII or FICCI have taken little interest in championing Indian science and tenchnology. They have instituted few grant schemes for serious researchers, and their funding of academic research has been puny in relation to their rising profits. Nor have they attempted to launch any journals where scientific and technological research performed at the country's government labs and universities could be easily disseminated to industry and concerned professionals. In most developed nations, there are not only industry journals dedicated to specific areas of science and technology but also to niche industries; and it is almost routine for major newspapers to have scientifically-trained professional journalists who regularly report science and technology news. Scientists have a way of communicating with each other in academia. Their work needs to be interpreted for industrial use. Advanced industrial nations have put exactly such an infrastructure in place so that important scientific and technological breakthroughs can be communicated to industry in language that is intelligible to working engineers and technology managers. But the Indian Private Sector has done little to mimic such an apparatus in India. Instead, India's leading English language dailies (such as Times of India, Hindustan Times or the Economic Times) are beginning to look more and more like tabloids than serious newspapers. Only the Hindu devotes some of its coverage to reporting on scientific and technological events, and even the Hindu's reporting tends to be limited to developments in Tamil Nadu or Southern India. India's industrialists often complain that Indian scientists are not in touch with industry - but how often have they ever bothered to keep in touch with India's scientists? The fact of the matter is that a nation's industrialists develop a keen interest in scientific and technological research when they begins to manufacture their own machine tools and capital goods. Some of India's small and medium industries are trying to do just that. But the captains of Indian industry aren't supportive of such moves. Instead, a dominant section of Indian industry merely wants to be an outsourcing agent for the transnationals, and prefers to shop for cheap second-hand assembly lines abroad. But that will never provide any real fillip for hard-core technological research in India. For instance, Indian industry appears to be thrilled at the booming demand for airline tickets - but no one is talking about the escalating trade deficit that is a result of the 30% growth in imported capital goods, transportation equipment, tools and machinery. No one is talking about manufacturing civilian aircraft in India. This is ironical, because today, India is graduating 350,000 engineers. In five years, that number will grow to 450,000, and is projected to hit 600,000 in ten years. Within 5-10 years, India will have an experienced pool of engineers that is far greater than either the US or the EU. Where India may lag (if corrective steps aren't taken soon) is in Post Graduates and PhDs capable of engaging in advanced research and capable of designing virtually any assembly line, or any type of complex capital good. With the right leadership, India has the intellectual potential to match any developed nation in producing virtually anything. What is missing is not the scientific or engineering willingness, it is the spirit of patriotism necessary to make it happen - the visionary enterpreneurial spirit that could marshall India's intellectual talents that are too quickly being sold to the highest international bidder. The Infosys strategy of outsourcing Indian intellectual labor does not build anything solid and lasting for India. It brings in quick money with very limited long-term gains. It should be seen as a stop-gap measure, as something to utilize any engineering extras the nation may have. It should never be seen as the primary use of precious Indian talent. India's best scientists and engineers should be designing and building things the country doesn't yet have: such as the latest deep-sea prospecting and drilling equipment. They should be designing and manufacturing a range of capital goods and machine tools, or new corrosion-resistant and energy-efficient materials; they should be experts at managing and developing new (and existing) energy resources; they should be experts at fuel-efficient mass transit; they should be as comfortable building civilian aircraft (or advanced submarines) as they are building the world's most fuel-efficient two-wheelers. They should be capable of developing the latest environmental, sanitation or mass-transit solutions - instead of always seeking technological collaborations from others. There should simply be no holes in India's technological capabilities. A nation of a billion plus people should be able to take pride in its broad-based engineering design and manufacturing acumen, not just its ability to write smart banking software. Companies such as Infosys should be the last place where a good engineer should want to build his or her career - not the first choice. Outsourcing should be a back-up option for the Indian engineer, hardly the only game in town. But for too many Indian business analysts and investors, outsourcing has become the sole or key driving option. Core engineering is treated as a mere adjunct - when, in fact, it should be quite the other way around. The truth is, India's private sector is unduly euphoric over the opportunities presented through outsourcing. A nation as large as India cannot become prosperous through outsourcing alone. In the long run, India should aim to be a Germany, a Japan or a Korea, and let others fight over an exhausted outsourcing pie. Serious scientists and engineers should not be swayed by the hype, and seriously look beyond the Infosys-model of development. Indian businessmen who constantly whine about the government not giving enough concessions for this or that should instead be held accountable by the Indian public and asked as to what they have done for the nation. What is their vision for India's advancement? What sacrifices have they made for India's progress? The truth is, that notwithstanding the barrage of private sector oriented propaganda from the nation's press, the actual contribution of the India's private sector to higher education and scientific and technological research is eight parts hype and only one part substance. Barring the more dedicated amongst India's private colleges who are indeed trying to do their best, the majority aren't even trying. But even the best of them are in no position to replace government efforts in the forseeable future. Whereas India's scientists and engineers have not failed the Private Sector, India's Private Sector has indeed failed the nation - not only by failing to recognize the importance of the scientific and technological foundation that was laid in the very difficult years following freedom from colonial rule, but by doing all too little to augment what was done then. In fact, India's Private Sector has yet to articulate a truly forward-looking vision for India's scientific and technological transformation. While it has profited greatly from India's state-funded institutions (such as the IISc, the IITs, and the NITs), it has yet to give anything significant back. India's concerned citizens should have few illusions in this regard. Related Essays: Human Development and Infrastructure
in the Indian Subcontinent Higher Education in India What Ails Khagaria? Back for other selections from South Asian Voice for other articles on issues confronting India and the region. Also see South Asian History or Topics in Indian History for relevant essays that shed some light on the history of the subcontinent. (If you liked our site, or would like to help with the South Asian Voice project and help us expand our reach, please click here) To send an e-mail, write to india.resource @yahoo.com
|
