Fix it for Viksit Bharat @2047
Objects fall from higher to lower levels due to natural gravitational pull which is irreversible. Talent moves from places of low recognition to higher recognition due to aspirational push which is reversible. Countries that realise the importance of home-grown talent are the ones that can transform domestic policies of global impact.
In my last article, I had shared the global hunt for Indian talent and the need for indigenous mechanisms to retain and enrich India’s demographic dividend. Understanding global student mobility in university campuses is a good place to start certain reforms in university governance and action.
The US, UK, Canada, France and Australia continue their domination as thee top five host nations to foreign students seeking higher education with a combined share of 50 per cent for the year 2023, US leading the pack with a whopping 17 per cent share.
Of these, Canada, Australia and the UK depend on international students for their overall higher education enrolment with the share being 30 per cent, 24 per cent and 22 per cent respectively. Realising the socio-economic backlash due to dominant presence of foreign students in local enrolment, all the three have shown signs of push-back.
Australia’s decreasing enrolment when compared to 2022 due to a policy cap, and Canada’s tightening visa norms for Indian students are cases in point. The case of the UK is interesting. Hounding memories of the student riots of 2010 against tuition fee increase by the Conservatives may still haunt the Labour Party.
The 2012 increased cap of UK Pounds 9,000 (adjusted for inflation is 6,500 today) is insufficient to prevent the crumbling fall of many UK universities. The Office for Students of the UK Government estimates that 40 per cent of universities and colleges are expected to be in deficit by the end of the 2023-24 financial year and may reach 80 per cent in the next three years.
The foreign student enrolment peak in the UK has started seeing its decline due to local policies. In short, the UK, Canada and Australia may become tough destinations for foreign students, especially for Indians who contribute a significant share of world’s foreign student population. If the US increases its international student enrolment marginally from its current six per cent of its total students in university and college campuses by one per cent, the drift from India will be huge. So what?
The World Competitiveness Ranking and World Talent Ranking are two important indices that the World Competitiveness Centre of the Swiss-based International Institute of Management Development releases every year. In the 2024 ranking, India has jumped one spot above to secure the 39th rank and in talent ranking fell two positions to secure the 58th rank.
Closer look at the data reveals that the jump and fall are mutually exclusive but the rankings are dependent. While the competitiveness improvement has been due to economic performance and business efficiency, the talent fall has been due to a mixed bag. While there is positive contribution from university education, there is drag from talent attraction and retention metric. This is an area that was highlighted in my previous article.
The government’s recent decision to allow foreign universities to open campuses in India may not be the only solution to reverse student mobility. In fact, the Deakin campus in GIFT city offers only two post-graduate programmes (at high fees) and it’s a diminutively small peck in the ocean of higher education demand in India.
The university campuses of Wollongong and Southampton in India have a long road to reach despite being in the fast-track path. Indian universities need to undertake reforms in a fast-track road than in toll-bound roads to attract and retain talent in India.
There is a strong inter-relationship between university experience and talent attraction and retention. The main reasons that Indian students go abroad are its new culture, geography, flexible forms of curriculum, creative pedagogy, career prospects, etc. While foreign university campuses in India cannot give the culture and geography experience in India, Indian universities can give the flexible and creative student experience in India along with promising careers in growing India.
This requires more academic autonomy and freedom which is currently limited to few. For a country like India, we need 100 Institutions of Eminence and more autonomy to other deserving institutions. This shall uncork the hidden potential of Indian universities that have the capacity and resources to attract and retain Indian talent for national and global benefit.
At a time when many universities are focussing on attracting and retaining premier talent in their own campuses, the Indian time to fix this has come. In short: Fix it for Viksit Bharat @2047.
S Vaidhyasubramaniam
Vice-Chancellor, SASTRA Deemed University
vaidhya@sastra.edu