India must look at exporting education

Philip G Attbach sounds a note of caution with the article titled BEWARE OF THE TROJAN HORSE in the Hindu dated 18.07.08. The article encapsulates very interesting insights of the ‘education markets’, ‘education products’ and the motives. I pray that our policy makers make studied decisions and preserve our academic sovereignty. The honorable stakeholders in India should also abstain from selling products in demand and invest in sustaining research, seminal work and view academics as preparation for citizenship. While Goldman Sachs and the McKinsey Global Institute predict India’s future prospects with optimism predicting that by 2050 India’s GDP would surpass that of the US. India should look at building its own system of higher education by collaborating with global players and not selling out and look at aggressively exporting education in the years to come. Indian education must participate actively in open source curriculum offered online by companies like Curriki, MIT and benefit from such opportunities. NIIT, foray into China and other countries, is truly a harbinger of sorts to export high quality Indian education. We need to engage our minds in devising very stiff quality parameters for import and export of education.