Globalization of Education

ANJALI
M.COM. (final)

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1. INTRODUCTION

The phenomenon of globalisation, which transformed world trade,

communications and economic relations in the latter part of the 20th Century, is
having a similarly profound effect on education at the start of the 21st. Student
options for higher (tertiary) education, in particular, are no longer constrained by
national boundaries. Innovative forms of transnational education - Internet-based
distance learning, branch campuses, educational "franchising"- have greatly
expanded opportunities for students to study and learn outside their country of
origin. In addition, there is now increasing global competition for the "best and
brightest" students, as more and more countries recognize the economic potential
of higher education as a service export sector. For the first time in history, large
segments of the world's student population truly have access to a "global
marketplace" of higher education.

Globalization has a multi-dimensional impact on the system of education. It has

underlined the need for reforms in the educational system with particular
reference to the wider utilization of information technology, giving productivity
dimension to education and emphasis on its research and development activities.

Education is an important investment in building human capital that is a driver for

technological innovation and economic growth. It is only through improving the
educational status of a society that the multi-faceted development of its people
can be ensured. In the post-industrialized world, the advanced countries used to
derive the major proportion of their national income not from agriculture and
industry but from the service sector. Since the service sector is based on imparting
skills or training to the students and youth, the education sector is the most sought

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 after. It must provide gainful employment so that the sector is developed in a big
way.

1.1 The World Trade Organization and the GATS

The World Trade Organization (WTO) facilitates and enables the capitalisation of
all areas of social life. In particular, one of the WTO’s key agreements, the
General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) functions to open up public
services to capital and its value-form of labour. It nurtures the operations of
corporations that search the globe for profit-making opportunities. The overriding
goal of GATS and the WTO is to guarantee market access to educational products
and institutions of all kinds. The WTO would help guarantee that academic
institutions or other education providers could set up branches in any country,
export degree programme, award degrees and certificates with minimal
restriction, invest in overseas educational institutions, employ instructors for their
foreign ventures, impart training through distance technologies without controls
and so on.

1.2 Commercialisation, Privatisation and Capitalisation

Commercialisation describes the ways that educational institutions will become

foci for marketing and advertising campaigns. Companies will promote their
corporate image. Privatisation involves the takeover (either directly of indirectly)
of schools, colleges and universities for the business of generating profits.
Capitalisation entails labour taking the value-form: the generation of value, and
the surplus value out of which profits arise. Capitalisation involves the erosion of
all values – such as public service ones – to the process of producing value. It
changes the nature of labour (its motivation, its purposes, and its organisation and
management) in educational institutions.

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2. GLOBAL INSIGHT

2.1 Looking Back - International Influences in Indian Higher Education

If one scans the horizon of Indian higher education institutions today, the legacy
of prior waves of international, if not global, influence can be seen in virtually
every field. The impact of British higher education is felt not only in the basic
structure of Indian higher education - the system of examinations, structure of
post-secondary education, scheme of universities and affiliating colleges - but
also in the range of colonial era institutions that are still among the most elite in
India today. St. Stephens College in Delhi and Presidency College, Calcutta, are
but two examples of prestigious undergraduate institutions that still bear the
distinct imprint of their British heritage.

In the post-Independence era, the Indian Institutes of Technology, consciously

patterned after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the U.S., received
substantial overseas help right from the outset. With support from four donor
nations, the five IITs benefited from guest faculty from outside of India, the
ability to send Indian faculty for training abroad, and contributions of modern
laboratory equipment and facilities. Similar international links were established
by the Indian Institutes of Management: IIM Ahmedabad, for example, still
maintains strong connections with the Harvard Business School. Perhaps the most
recent innovation in Indian higher education, the Indira Gandhi National Open
University (together with similar, state-sponsored Open Universities), drew
heavily on the UK experience with distance education and the Open University
concept.

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 Even the most genuinely "Indian" of Indian institutions, Santiniketan, kept its
windows wide open to international ideas, influences and experience. Conceived
by its founder, Rabindranath Tagore, as an international center for humanistic and
cultural studies, Santiniketan captured the ancient Sanskrit notion of a "world in
one nest." In inaugurating Visva-Bharati in 1921, Tagore spoke of India's "wealth
of mind which is for all." In creating a center where East meets West, Tagore
acknowledged both "India's obligation to offer to others the hospitality of her best
culture and India's right to accept from others their best."

2.2 Current Realities - India's Position in Today's Global Marketplace

Regrettably, the current realities of globalisation reflect a highly skewed

relationship between East and West. Of the 514,000 foreign students currently
studying in the United States, more than 54 percent are from Asia. Seven of the
top ten "sending countries" of international foreign students to the U.S. are Asian,
while not a single Asian country is represented among the top ten destinations for
American students studying abroad.

It is also well known that the demand for "seats" at India's apex institutions for
Indian students in highly competitive fields such as engineering and management
vastly exceeds the supply. Reservation policies, designed to ensure educational
opportunities for disadvantaged groups within Indian society, further limit the in-
country slots available for students from forward caste backgrounds. To a certain
extent then, foreign universities provide a safety valve for talented, well-off
Indian students who cannot find seats in their chosen fields within Indian
institutions.

While the UK and (more recently) the USA are well-established destinations for
Indian students, Australia and Canada are rapidly gaining in "market share". In
recent years, Australia, the UK and France have all launched aggressive student
outreach/recruitment efforts in Asia.

The Institute of International Education annually publishes a directory of study

abroad programs for U.S. students seeking a semester or academic year of study
in another country. Given the wide availability of English-medium courses in
India, the subcontinent's rich cultural, historical and ecological resources, and its
well-developed higher education infrastructure, India should be a much more
popular destination for Western students than it currently is. There is clearly a
large, untapped potential to attract increased numbers of foreign students to
experience India's "wealth of mind."

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3. GROUND REALITIES

Decades of under-investment in education have created shocking shortages of

buildings, laboratories, libraries, sanitary facilities and even drinking water and
sanitation facilities in the nation’s decaying education sector. Though the Finance
Minister cites shortage of investible resources for implementing the 6 percent
proposal, it is common knowledge that given political will, additional resources
can be deployed into education only by trimming non-merit subsidies to the
middle class, and reducing defense expenditure. In the final analysis a national
consensus has to be built immediately by the Union ministry on the premise that
higher education outlays are important investments in the nation’s future. Besides,
the emerging political consensus that seeks to reform India’s traditional education
based on mere memorization rather than development of problem-solving and
conflict-resolution skills requires immediate attention.

The new United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s stand on a common

school system for India that was recommended by the Kothari Commission
(1966) is yet to be decided. The children of the poor and socially disadvantaged
have been denied English medium school education. As usual there is no re-
thinking on this issue within the Union ministry. However, Rajiv Gandhi
introduced the National Policy on Education in 1986(NPE-1986) and its
accompanying Programme of Action that promised child-centered, free and
compulsory education up to the age of 14 years by 1995. Interestingly, the revised
formulation of such NPE, made in the 1992, also talked about the same theme of
free and compulsory education, and thereafter it focused on ‘satisfactory quality’
education! Even the 86th constitutional amendment act in 2002 that made the
elementary education a fundamental right and has promised the same education to

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all those between the ages 6 and 14 in the country. But then reverse of what had
been promised became a reality now.

Recent Trends: In the wake of globalisation process and to cope up with the
changing priorities of the people, the planners are bound to revise their strategies
in the education sector. Thus, several specialist committees, involving the elites
and captains of industry and education, constituted by the Union ministry are
engaged in the process. Whereas, the public interest demands a wider domain for
the national debate on syllabus and curriculum reform among other related
aspects. As usual there are several viewpoints of conflicting nature expressed by
the captains of industry and education like Azim Premji, Prof. N.S.Ramaswamy,
Kabir Mustafa and others. While there is a broad consensus on some points, some
are almost at variance with each other.

The common educational reforms that were endorsed by some of the eminent
industrialists and academics recommend:

• Liberalise and deregulate the education system to encourage promotion of

new schools, colleges, vocational and other institutions of higher education.
• Delicence higher education, confer institutional autonomy and
decentralise syllabus design.
• Central and state governments should change their roles within the
education system, re-inventing themselves as facilitating and supervisory
organizations.
• Teacher training, infrastructure and syllabuses need to be urgently upgraded.

The rapid growth of the software development and electronic communications

industries is one of the few achievements of Indian industry in post-independence
India. Further, because of strong hold of the English language in MNCs and
corporate circles, the divide between rural and urban is almost complete in the
field of education. In consequence, this great reservoir of skills and expertise
offers the opportunity to utilize them for the spread of quality education through
several technologies.

Again the pace is set by a variety of private ‘educational entrepreneurs’, otherwise

known as, ‘edupreneurs’, who have promoted internationally recognized
institutions of higher education such as the S.P. Jain Institute of Management in
Mumbai; Amity University, Delhi; Indian School of Business and ICFAI
Business School, Hyderabad; Mahavir Academy of Technical Sciences and
Presidency College, Bangalore and the Great Lakes Institute of Management,
Chennai, among others. Besides, some Indian ‘edupreneur’ are venturing
overseas.

Thus, educational sector has been more commonly described as, not service
sector, but education industry. The free market philosophy has already entered the
educational sphere in a big way. Commercialisation of education is the order of

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 the day. Commercial institutions offering specialized education have come up
everywhere. In view of globalisation, many corporate universities, both foreign
and Indian, are encroaching upon our government institutions. Once these
institutions turn ‘self-financing’, their prices would be benchmarked against their
global counterparts, which would be affordable to the same top layer of the
society. As the job markets become acutely narrow, the polarization between the
elite and non-elite would be clearly discernible. Meanwhile, various kinds of
price barriers would be imposed to prevent the entry of the non-elite like the
downtrodden and poor communities. Further, Corporatisation has transformed the
education sector into an enterprise for profits.

4. IMPACT OF GLOBALISATION

4.1 Threats

Education, as a service industry, is part of globalization process under the

umbrella of General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). However, there is
every possibility that this might force countries with quite different academic
needs and resources to conform to systems inevitably designed to service the
interest of corporate educational providers, and thereby breeding inequality and
dependence. Thus, several teachers’ organizations are on record opposing the
inclusion of education in the GATS, on the ground that education was not a
commodity.

Incidentally, there is an emerging threat from the process of globalisation in the

recent times. Because, in the words of Arun Nigvekar of the World Bank’s Task
Force, “Globalization can lead to unregulated and poor quality higher education,
with the world wide marketing of fraudulent degrees or other so-called higher
education credentials”. It seems that countries like India are likely to turn into “an
increasingly attractive market for foreign universities and hence other nations are
going to use GATS’ provisions to their advantage”.

As more and more Indian students look to Australia, Britain and the U.S. for both
undergraduate and post-graduate studies, the quality of Indian universities will
continue to suffer. Lacking computer facilities and Internet access, many of
India's resource-starved institutions - such as mofusil colleges in remote rural
districts - will be on the wrong side of the "digital divide." Even India's elite
institutions - the IITs and IIMs - will find it increasingly difficult to attract and

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retain world class faculty members in the face of attractive offers from foreign
universities, research institutes and multi-national corporations. So, there is a
substantial risk that Indian universities and their students could end up as serious
losers in the global higher education "game".

Nobel Laureates T.W.Schultz and Gary Becker in 1961 and 1963 respectively
propounded the new economics of education. According to this, all investments in
education, whether private or public, were guided by profitability. It was the
profit motive that exhibited in the concern for the ‘rate of return’ to the money
spent on education, which was the main factor, behind one’s investment decisions
in education. The private investments were based on the private ‘rates of return’
calculated by counting the private costs and gains that were expected as the result
of acquiring one kind of education rather than the other. The objective of
education was the same, be it for individual or for society as a whole, to get the
best economic value for the money and effort spent.

The impact of globalisation on higher education may now be summarised in the

following ways:

• Increasing interest of parents to get their children admitted to foreign

educational institutions will cost us precious foreign exchange.

• Sometimes there is also the possibility of sub-standard courses being offered

to the students, which may lead to cheating of innocent citizens of India.

• It will lead to the creation of three different classes of graduates - those

educated in foreign universities, those from costly private domestic
institutions, and those from economically weaker sections studying in
government funded institutions. This will only lead to social tensions.

• In view of the nature of the globalised higher education, the

commoditification of Indian higher education is bound to have an adverse
effect on our culture, the ethos of social welfare and even the quality of
Indian education system.

Social Obligations: In fact, the introduction of ‘cost recovery’ principles that

results in a hike in fees contributes to reduction in the burden of the government
in financing higher education. But, what about social obligations? Obviously, the
composition of student population will change in favor of the higher income
groups. Further, privatization of higher education makes it expensive such that it
is beyond the reach of lower income groups. Inadequate income implies denial of
opportunity of the benefits of higher education whereas the denial of access to
higher education results in the lack of fair opportunities to improve income.

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 Further, market needs should be kept in view while developing the curriculum.
The element of productivity orientation should guide the formulation of
curriculum framework. It is also necessary that while deciding about the fee
structure and other student levies, the tendency towards commercialization of
education should be guarded against.

The government of India has recognised these dangerous phenomena and

belatedly started the process of constituting a Committee for the Promotion of
Indian Education Abroad (COPIE) under the ministry of Human Resources
Development, Department of education.

4.2 Opportunities

Globalisation is expected to have a positive influence on the volume, quality and

spread of knowledge through increased interaction among the various states. In a
globalised world, as technology becomes its main motor, knowledge assumes a
powerful role in production, making its possession essential for nations, if they
are successfully to pursue economic growth and competitiveness. Education,
being the most potent instrument of creation, assimilation and transmission of
knowledge, assumes a central role in the process.

In a market oriented competitive world, unleashed by the forces of globalization,

education has to assume a somewhat different role. It cannot afford to be
conventional, rigid and impervious to change. It has to keep abreast of the latest
developments in various fields and be capable of creating, absorbing and
transacting neo-technology and information systems that are sweeping across the
countries of the world. There has also to be a paradigm shift in the contents of
education with substantial emphasis on the productivity aspect of the curriculum.
It would also call for adequate emphasis on research and development (R & D).

There are also real opportunities for India to benefit significantly from the global
revolution in higher education. To do so will require major policy reforms in the
way Indian universities are structured, funded and regulated. It will also require
closer links between Indian industry, especially the growing technology-based
sector, and Indian universities.

And, it will require a new, globally oriented, entrepreneurial style of leadership

by Indian Vice Chancellors and other top-level administrators. With these
ingredients, India has the potential to capture the "up-side" benefits of

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globalization, emerging with a stronger, better, more globally competitive higher
education system, and greater opportunities for Indian students.

Internationalization of Education

Implicit in the system of Globalisation is the inevitability of

internationalization of the educational system, particularly at the higher
education stage. This is not peculiar to India but has become a worldwide
phenomenon. The entry of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the
inclusion of educational services under the general Agreement on Trade in
Services (GATS) have given a boost to the internationalization of higher
education.

Merits of Internationalization

i) Education will improve if it is internationalized and healthy competition takes

place;
ii) It will provide global opportunities and promote international good will; and
iii) It will encourage exchange of scholars. This can be done by involvement of
reputed scholars in the respective countries in curriculum designing and
transaction of knowledge.

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5. PATHWAYS TO GLOBAL FUTURE

Even an extreme optimist cannot help but be disheartened by the myriad problems
confronting the Indian higher education system - a vast and unwieldy system
comprised of some 300 universities and deemed universities, more than 10,000
colleges and some 6.5 million students. Massification of higher education has
overwhelmed large parts of this system, resource constraints are severe, and the
quality of education available to most Indian students has deteriorated markedly
in recent years.

The situation is further complicated by the rigidities of India's centralised higher

education bureaucracy, the political pressures on higher education institutions
from regional, religious and caste-based groups, and the growing problem of
corruption in various aspects of university life (e.g., admissions, examinations,
promotions). In such a beleaguered system, how can internationalization efforts
possibly be effective?

Following are some “pathways” by which India can achieve tangible gains from
current global trends in higher education, without sacrificing its national goals for
higher education development or abandoning its commitment to Indian cultural
values.

1. Policy reforms: It includes opening up space for private universities, easing or

eliminating research restrictions on foreign scholars and graduate students, and
encouraging "foreign collaboration" in the university sector in the same way such
joint ventures now exist in private industry.

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 While system-wide higher education reform may not be feasible politically, a
targeted and incremental approach to liberalization of higher education is essential
in order for India to take advantage of opportunities in the new global
environment. Making educational exchange a more central feature of Indian
foreign policy could also produce tangible benefits for India's relations with other
countries and for Indian universities and students.

2. Partnerships: In fields such as engineering, management and computer sciences,

for example, industry-university collaborations can yield significant benefits for
both sides. The growing presence of multi-national corporations in India, together
with India's own emerging high tech industry, holds considerable promise for
university partnerships in areas such as curriculum development, equipment
donations, faculty training and student scholarships. Global companies such as
General Electric and Lucent Technologies have already shown an interest and
willingness to support international education initiatives, such as scholarship
programs for highly talented Indian students. They join a long list of Indian firms
and industrial houses that have seen higher education as a worthwhile investment
for both practical and philanthropic reasons.

Stronger partnerships also need to be developed between Indian universities and

universities in other countries. Project JUNO (Joint Universities Network Online)
enables Thai universities to explore potential opportunities for student or faculty
exchanges, develop joint courses, and undertake collaborative research with
interested U.S. counterparts. A similar service could easily be developed for
Indian universities, and could open up new avenues for Indo-U.S. educational
linkages and collaboration. A more systematic focus on institutional partnerships
could also become part of India's approach to bi-lateral scholarly exchange
programs, such as those sponsored by Fulbright, DAAD, and the British Council.

3. Innovation and Leadership: The final pathway focuses on innovation and

leadership, two qualities in greatest need within Indian higher education today.
Innovation can take a variety of forms, ranging from the use of internet
technology to develop joint on-line courses between Indian and foreign
universities to institutional innovations like the recent initiative by SNDT
Women's University to establish an overseas branch campus for women students
in the Gulf region. However, successful innovation does not take place without
leadership.

The National Law School University of India would not be the premier institution
it is today without the leadership of its founding director, Professor Madhava
Menon. Wherever one finds excellence and innovation taking place in higher
education today, it is directly connected to the efforts of a dynamic, energetic and
committed leader or group of leaders.

For India to broaden and expand its niche in the global marketplace of higher
education will require bold and innovative leadership by university vice

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 chancellors, political leaders, administrators and policymakers at the central and
state levels.

Detractors of global higher education raise the specter of Western universities

dominating the educational landscape in the way that McDonalds has come to
dominate the global fast food industry. With foresight, skill and determination,
today's leaders of Indian universities have it within their power to craft a different
kind of globalization, one which affirms and values cultural difference and
encourages greater mobility for all students. The world of higher education in the
21st century can truly be a border-less world of knowledge and ideas which will
yield reciprocal benefits for all nations. There is no single, simple path for
reaching this new global future, but instead, multiple pathways that lead toward "a
world in one nest."

6. CONCLUSION

Globalisation process may mean different things in the context of higher

education. Most certainly, it means a very competitive and deregulated
educational system modelled after ‘free-market’ but with more pressure on it to
assure that the future workers are prepared for some fluid jobs in the ‘free-market
of 21st century’. Further it means that educational system would provide the sites
of struggle over the meaning and power of national identity and a national
culture.

Thus, each country should decide about the nature and extent of globalization that
can be constructively introduced in their socio-economic and educational
systems. While it is difficult to resist the temptation of falling in line with the
international community, it is necessary that while doing so, the paramountcy of
national interests should be kept in view. This is more so in the field of education,
which is intimately concerned with the development of human capital.
Ultimately, any hasty involvement in the global educational market can end up in
harming the vital interests of students, and particularly of poor and downtrodden
for generations to come.

In view of the above considerations, while the participation of private

bodies in investment and management of education should be
encouraged, complete privatization of these sectors of education should be ruled
out. Further, market needs should be kept in view while developing the
curriculum. The element of productivity orientation should guide the
formulation of curriculum framework. It is also necessary that while deciding

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about the fee structure and other student levies, the tendency towards
commercialization of education should be guarded against.

Globalisation, as an effective instrument of international exchange of

goods and services, has to have a humane face, based on ethical considerations
rather than on cut throat competition. It should play a positive role in reducing
economic and social disparities within, and among, the nations. It should also be
an effective tool for promoting sustainable development.

REFERENCES

Philip G. Altbach and Patti McGill Peterson, (eds) Higher Education in the 21st
Century: Global Challenge and National Response Institute of International
Education/Boston College Center for International Higher Education (New York,
1999)

Suma Chitnis and Philip G. Altbach, (eds) Higher Education Reform in India:
Experiences and Perspectives, Sage Publications (New Delhi, 1993)

Mushirul Hasan (ed), Knowledge, Power and Politics: Educational Institutions in

India, Roli Books (New Delhi, 1998)

The Asian Student of 2000: Choice Factors and Influences of Asian

Undergraduate Students Studying Overseas, EduWorld (Melbourne/Sydney,
2000)

International Association of Universities (2001). Issues in Higher Education, the

OECD, Globalization and Educational Policy, Pergamon.

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