India and China : Expansion, Equity and Excellence [1 ed.] 9789819956272, 9789819956289

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Kavita A. Sharma

India and China Expansion, Equity and Excellence

India and China

Kavita A. Sharma

India and China Expansion, Equity and Excellence

Kavita A. Sharma Noida, India

ISBN 978-981-99-5627-2 ISBN 978-981-99-5628-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5628-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Paper in this product is recyclable.

Preface

In the middle of 2019, Ms. Satvinder Kaur from Springer met me and asked me to write a book on higher education. As the President of the South Asian University, I was more than busy at that time. I requested her to wait, if possible, until I finished my tenure, in November 2019. By the time I took up the project, it was the middle of 2020. I had been to China three or four times during my five year tenure at SAU and was amazed how well-equipped the Chinese universities were in terms of physical and academic infrastructure. Way back in 2009, I had given a couple of talks at the Beijing Normal University and had been surprised at the presence of many foreign scholars teaching and visiting the university. The university had also entered several foreign collaborations, which were being actively carried forward. This had stayed in my mind over the years. Therefore, when Ms. Satvinder Kaur proposed the book, it occurred to me to write on a new trajectory, on higher education in China and juxtapose it with higher education in India, something that I am familiar with. Here are two giants of Asia who started out at around the same time—China in 1949 and India in 1947. Both have faced similar economic challenges and have had a troubled history. Both have huge populations with a preponderance of young people who have to be educated and skilled. I felt that it would be useful to write a broad-based book comparing the higher education of the two countries that could pave the way for further in-depth work focusing on a comparison of one aspect of higher education in the two countries. This was required because so little of higher education in China was in the public academic domain in India. India, of course, was familiar ground. I had to understand China. Little did I know that the pandemic would intervene bringing about the closure of all academic institutions and libraries, not to mention, personal ill health. As I delved into it, I realized the vast difference in the trajectories of the two countries. It required volumes of reading and getting acquainted, not only with the Chinese higher education system (HES), but also with China’s historical background; the suffering and struggles of its people during the evolution of the People’s Republic of China; its steely determination to be counted among the leading countries of the world; and the willingness to pay the costs required.

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Books on higher education in China were hard to find. They were also very expensive although I did purchase several from my own resources. It was, however, a pleasant surprise to find statutes, proceedings of the Communist Party of China, and government documents, all translated into English and made available by the Chinese government and by other organizations on the internet. There was an abundance of scholarly articles on different research platforms. Newspaper reports and opeds on China could also be found on the World Wide Web. Given the political and environmental situation, it was pointless attempting interviews with faculty and students in China. About India, I have first-hand knowledge having taught for 37 years and having headed two academic institutions for 10. Writing this book has been an arduous but exciting journey. It has enriched me and given me an understanding not only of Chinese higher education but also deepened my perspectives on Indian higher education, making me think anew on many issues. The pandemic also made it a lonely journey, but through it, the encouragement and help I received from Ms. Indu Ramchandani have been invaluable. She tirelessly edited and re-edited what I wrote and constantly commented on it, preventing me from thinking in a groove. I must also thank Mr. Vijay Singh, my assistant who kept books and other source materials carefully and produced it instantly when required giving order to the chaos. I’m grateful to Springer and to Ms. Satvinder Kaur for giving me the opportunity to know the different system of higher education of a large neighbouring country, which also gave me a greater understanding of my own. Noida, India

Dr. Kavita A. Sharma

Contents

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2

3

Historical Context of Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.1 Education Through the Dynasties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Academies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 The Contemporary Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6 The Brahminical Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.7 Introduction of Education Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.8 A Changed System of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.9 The Beginning of Modern Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.10 Disillusionment and Change in the Higher Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.11 Post-Independence Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.12 Diversity of Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 2 2 5 7 10 10 12 15 18

Evolution of Higher Education Policy in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Re-organization of the Education System in the 20th Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Reforms of May 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Education System of the PRC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Mao’s Great Leap Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 A New Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 The Law on Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Reforms of Deng and Their Aftermath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.1 The National Plan 2010–2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Evolution of Higher Education Policy in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 The University Grants Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Growth in the Five Year Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 Kothari Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 The National Policy of Education, 1968 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

65 67 68 69 71

20 22 22

30 34 35 42 47 50 52 57

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3.3

The National Policy of Education, 1986, and Ramamurthy Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 Janardan Reddy Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.2 Gnanam Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inculcating a Scientific Temper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . National Knowledge Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Expansion and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RUSA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Private Sector and the Narayan Murthy Committee . . . . . . . . . . . Divergent Policies and Their Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

73 75 76 78 80 83 86 87 88

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Higher Education and Equity and Affirmative Action in China . . . . 4.1 Stalinist Approach with a Marxist Overlay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Affirmative Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Legal Rights of Minorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 The Development of Minority Education Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Gaokao . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6 Language and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7 Factors Overlapping with Ethnicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8 Market Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.9 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

93 95 96 97 99 100 102 105 106 108

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Higher Education and Equity and Affirmative Action in India . . . . . 5.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Constituent Assembly and the First Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 The First Backward Class Commission: Kaka Kalelkar . . . . . . . 5.3.1 The Balaji Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 The Second Backward Classes Commission: BP Mandal . . . . . . 5.4.1 The Indra Sawhney Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 The 93rd Amendment of the Indian Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.1 Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.2 2016 Study of N. V. Varghese and Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 Current Situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7 Inequalities and Disadvantages in Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8 Uneasy Growth in Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.9 Quotas and Implications for the Individuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.10 Two Alternatives for Affirmative Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.11 The Case for a Diversity Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.12 In Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.13 Divergent Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

115 115 116 117 119 120 120 121 125 126 127 127 128 129 130 131 132 132

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Internationalization of Higher Education in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Students Studying Abroad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Efforts to Recruit Overseas Scholars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Project of Thousand Talents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 The Current Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

135 136 138 139 141

3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9

Contents

6.5

Sino Foreign Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5.1 Double-Degree Programmes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5.2 Branch Campuses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Academic Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Further Evolution of Internationalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Geopolitical Outreach and Internationalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.8.1 Confucius Institutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . United Front Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.9.1 One Belt One Road or Belt and Road Education Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

142 143 144 146 147 148 149 152

Internalization of Higher Education in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Internationalization Can Mean Different Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.1 Indo-US Collaborations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.2 Indo-Russia Collaborations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.3 Ministry of External Affairs and Indian Council of Cultural Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.4 The Neighbours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1.5 Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) . . . . 7.2 Internationalization at Public Sector Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Contradictions Between Aspiration and Implementation . . . . . . 7.3.1 A Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.2 Some Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Seizing Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

163 164 165 167

Quality, Global Ranking, and the Rise of China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 World Bank Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 Quality Assurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 External Quality Assurance, Assessment and Accreditation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 Internal Quality Assurance Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5 External Quality Assurance and Autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.6 Performance Based Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.7 Benchmarking and the Academic Ranking of World Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.8 Publish or Perish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.9 Uneven Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

189 191 192

India’s Quest for Global Rankings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1 Indian Ranking System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2 Impact of Liberalization on Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3 Need for Clarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.5 Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.6 Some Other Measures for Improvement of Quality . . . . . . . . . . .

209 211 212 213

6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9

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167 169 173 174 180 181 182 186

195 197 198 198 200 203 205

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9.7 9.8

Quality Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Different Paths, Different Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

10 The Way Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1 China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.2 Integration with the Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.3 Use of Smart Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.4 The Double First-Class Initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.5 International Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.6 Gaokao or Entrance Exam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.7 Modernization Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.8 Socialism with Chinese Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.9 India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.10 The Thought Behind NEP-2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.11 National Research Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.12 The Higher Education Commission of India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.13 Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.14 Restructuring of the Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.15 Multidisciplinary Structures and Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.16 Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.17 Digital Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.18 Affirmative Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.19 Internationalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.20 Mentoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.21 Summing Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.22 The Gulf Between China and India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

229 230 232 232 234 235 236 237 237 237 238 239 240 241 241 242 243 244 244 245 246 246 247

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

About the Author

Kavita A. Sharma is an accomplished academician. She has been an active contributor to the cause of higher education through her teaching, publications, and the institutions she has been associated with. She has published several books, including Internationalisation of Education, Sixty Years of University Grants Commission, Hindu College, Delhi—A People’s Movement and The Windmills of the Mind. Her research papers on various topics, including higher education, language, immigration and identity, culture and women, have made their way into many reputed national and international publications. She holds a Ph.D. Degree in English from the University of Delhi and an LLM degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. A Fulbright fellow, she was conferred the Indira Gandhi Sadbhavana Award by the National Integration and Economic Council in 2005. She is associated with many professional organizations, is Vice President Indian Comparative Literature Association, Member International Comparative Literature Association, Indian Law Institute. She has been the founder and president of the Parent’s Forum for Meaningful Education.

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Chapter 1

Historical Context of Higher Education

The Asian countries, China and India, are the two most populous countries of the world, and together, they represent over one-third of the global population. This makes it imperative to take cognizance of the impact of their policies and their implementation. What happens in these two countries affects the world in all the spheres—economic, political, and others. They began to rebuild their nations at around the same time as well. While India became independent on August 15, 1947, the Communist Party of China (CPC) came into power on October 1, 1949. Further, the two countries also have the youngest populations of the world. Hence, it became vital for them, as they embarked upon nation building, to educate and make their youth employable. Both countries are a study of similarities and divergences as they have charted out their individual higher education paths.

1.1 Background Both China and India have a long tradition of learning, going back to 5000 years. But when they began to modernize education, they adopted the Western model. As Philip Altbach1 has pointed out, neither country has made any significant use of its rich indigenous traditions in the structure of mainstream education. The pursuit of modern education began in or around the middle of the 19th century and it took various twists and turns, till the defining years of 1947 and 1949 for India and China respectively. The historical context is important because subsequent trajectories of higher education took place according to the thought process that was integral to the country’s psyche, for centuries. It explains the different paths taken, not only in the contemporary period after their coming into their own but even earlier, according to what motivated them to adopt the Western model and abandon their own traditions. The differences in the evolution of higher education are evident because diverse aims led to varying motivations for setting up or establishing Western-style universities, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 K. A. Sharma, India and China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5628-9_1

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1 Historical Context of Higher Education

and this has had a vital impact. India and China adopted opposite forms of government; the nature of their diversities and their modes of dealing with them, accounted for differences in formulating policy and affected the speed of implementation.

1.2 China Although higher learning in China can historically be traced back to roughly 1600– 1100 BCE, when the Shang dynasty was in power, there is no consensus among historians about its exact origin. Most scholars agree that the daxue or “university” grew out of youxue, a multifunctional space in which education was a part of its many activities.2 Youxue also means to travel, wandering, play, and fun. Since the year 2000, there has been a rise in what is commonly called the youxue phenomena. It means to study abroad for shorter or longer periods. Youxue is traced back to Confucius who is supposed to have travelled with his students to neighbouring countries in order to widen their knowledge and mould their character. While retaining the essentials of this purpose, the current use of the term youxue also highlights the experimental and experiential dimensions of overseas education.3

1.2.1 Education Through the Dynasties During the Western Zhou dynasties, between 1100 and 771 BCE, a daxue was established in the capital city as part of the national educational institutions or guoxue. It was even called piyong or imperial daxue for a while. All the institutions at this time, and even later, were controlled by the upper ruling class and were meant for the education of the political elite. They focused on the Confucian classics.4 Besides daxue, another important institution developed, shuyuan or academies, scholarly societies.5 The highest institution of learning for a long time was a taixue or the Institution of Supreme Learning meant for advanced scholars.6 During 770–476 BCE, called the Spring and Autumn period, and during the Warring States period, between 475 and 221 BCE, dramatic changes took place in Chinese society. In the field of education, the government-owned institutions declined due to political turmoil, and private institutions came up. Many of them were supported by different kingdoms making private education the norm. These institutions, unlike the government ones, did not focus only on the children of the elite. They also accepted poor students. Scholars in these institutions allowed free discussions and even heated debates took place.7 This was also a period of a Hundred Schools of Thought. When the authority of the Zhou Dynasty began to break down, the officials spread throughout the country and began to teach subjects of their own specialization. The Confucian school was born out of the officials of the Ministry of Education; the Taoists from the historians; the Yin Yang from the astronomers; the Legalist from the Ministry of Justice, to mention a

1.2 China

3

few. Thus, specialized teaching in various subjects began around particular teachers. Only the Confucians and the Mohists from among these were organized teaching and learning institutions. Mohism emphasized rational thought, science, and logic and was a rival school of philosophy to Confucianism. It was taught by the Chinese philosopher, Mozi of the 5th century BCE and developed by the scholars who studied under him. Unlike Confucius, who propagated love for humanity but special love for one’s parents and family, Mohism talked of undifferentiated or “universal” love for humanity. Confucius’ philosophy was the theory on which the social harmony of the state was founded. Confucius bitterly attacked Mohism. The Qin dynasty ruled between 221 and 207 BCE. Its first emperor, Huang, conquered the warring kingdoms and brought them under one rule. The Hundred Schools of Thought were suppressed and legalist reforms were carried out. The teachings of Confucius were suppressed and many who followed him suffered.8 Emperor Huang also fought the Xiangnu who harassed China by repeatedly attacking from its northern borders. He built the Great Wall of China to prevent any surprise incursions by the Xiangnu. Although it was a very short dynasty, consisting only of the first emperor, Huang followed by his son, the administrative system the emperor put into place in 221 BCE carried on, with adaptations, till 1912 CE. After the death of the emperor, his son could not consolidate the gains made by his father and was overthrown in three years. The country descended into turmoil and the descendants of the erstwhile rulers saw an opportunity to get back to the pre-Qin order. From this emerged the Han dynasty, after a few twists and turns in 202 BCE and ruled up to 220 CE, with a few years interruption in between by the Xin dynasty which ruled from 9–23 CE. The taixue or the National University was established during the former Han period from 206 BCE to 8 CE. Before this there were only private schools. During the early former Han period, the philosophical system was the Huang Lao teaching, which was influenced by Daoism and the Five Agents theory. Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty adopted Confucianism as the state doctrine as he felt it was the most systematic philosophical system that could connect spheres of government, society, and cosmology. Besides, it also had a regular system of education. The Confucian scholar, Dong Zhongshu, suggested establishing a taixue in the capital Chang’an or modern Xi’an where erudite scholars would teach the Five Confucian Classics—Book of Change, Book of History, Book of Songs, Record of Rites, and Spring and Autumn annals. In the beginning there were only fifty persons in the university including both teachers and students. By the end of the Former Han period, the number of students and the disciplines taught both increased consistently. By the Late Former Han period, there were 3000 students enrolled in the university. This can be considered to be the beginning of a government-owned institution for the most advanced learning in Chinese feudal society.9 Into the Common Era, the usurper, Wang Mang, from the year 8 to 23 used Confucian experts to bolster his government ideologically and hence founded two different schools, the Biyong and Mingtang academies located south of the city walls. These had an intake capacity of 10,000 students. Until this time, it was common for scholars from the National University to be chosen for high state offices.10

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1 Historical Context of Higher Education

Emperor Guang Wu, who reigned from 25 to 57, founded the Later Han dynasty that remained in power till 220. He moved the capital from Chang’an to Luoyang and established the National University close to the Kaiyang Gate. In 126 the buildings were considerably enlarged to receive as many as 30,000 students. In 175 Confucian classics were engraved on stone slabs that were put around the compound of the University. While the scholars and students of the University were supposed to be philosophers, they started meddling in government affairs. The Han court got corrupt and the eunuchs in the court started exercising authority well beyond their positions making the emperor powerless. The most debilitating consequence for the University was a eunuch clique in which they got a thousand students and professors arrested. After this the University became dormant.11 After the Han dynasty, Emperor Wen of the Wei dynasty, who reigned from 220–226, re-animated the National University.12 He sponsored nineteen new chairs to teach more than 1000 students. Students could take examinations for seeking positions of clerks in the central administration, or for becoming secretary to the heir apparent, or even to become “gentleman of the interior.” By the time of the Western Jin dynasty, from 265 to 316, there were about 3000 students. It was at this time the system of nine ranks was adopted. For those who qualified to rank 5 and above based on their social background, a separate institution was established known as guozijian or Directorate of Education. The University itself was for commoners. In the next two centuries, especially during the Southern dynasties period, from 420–589 the Directorate provided the state officials, based on their knowledge of the Confucian classics, while the University gradually became an institution for research with very few students. In northern China, education expanded as many of the more successful sixteen states founded their own national universities as well as specialized schools such as, the School of Four Gates, which were primary schools, law school, and schools for military training and for the education of the princes. All these were open only to the sons and relatives of high officials. Thus, the education system basically got divided into three—the Directorate, the University, and the School of Four Gates. When the Sui dynasty ruled from 581–618, the Imperial University took charge of the entire education enterprise.13 It consisted of five schools: • Guozixue for noble students; • Taixue, which taught Confucianism and Chinese literature among other things for high level civil service posts, although a civil service based upon competitive examination rather than recommendation was introduced in this period but matured only during the Song dynasty; • Simenxue, which taught four subjects; • Shuxue for calligraphy; and • Suanxue, for arithmetic and mathematics. Following the Sui dynasty, the Imperial University was expanded into six schools, adding law or lixue to the previous five.14 The education at the guozixue, taixue, and simenxue of the six schools was classical education of higher learning. All schools were subordinate to the Directorate. The rank system applied. On it depended in

1.3 Academies

5

which of the six schools could the candidate be enrolled. Those with official rank of 8 or below could go the law, calligraphy, and arithmetic schools. The sons of highranking officials and families could enter any of the three higher institutions. The three higher schools provided education in the Confucian classics, their philosophy, and application to statecraft, while the three lower schools were concerned with more practical matters. It was common to enter the school between 14 and 19 years of age but for the Law School, the age of entry was 18 to 25 years. At the beginning of the Tang period, there were 300 students in the Directorate, 500 at the University, and 1300 at the Four Gates School. The Law School had 50 students and the other two only 30 each.15 The third emperor of the Tang dynasty, who reigned from 649 to 683, founded a second Directorate at Luoyang. It consisted of two sets of students—those who were preparing for Jinshi and the others for Mingjing. The Mingjing students studied the classical texts. Jinshi was the highest and final degree in the imperial examination in the Imperial China of the time. It was a very tough examination to pass and the success rate was apparently only 1–2% per thousand. The Song dynasty followed the Tang dynasty. Its period of reign was one of the most brilliant epochs of culture and education in China. It is commonly divided into the Northern Song and Southern Song periods as after 1127 the dynasty ruled only in South China. During its period, there was a notable increase in the number of candidates declared qualified for Jinshi. Most senior officials were Jinshi holders. During the latter part of the Song period, however, the examination became less important as more officials were needed and hence lateral entry was made possible. This led to the dilution in the standard of bureaucracy. The fourth emperor of the North Song dynasty, Emperor Renzong, who reigned from 1022 to 1063, established a new National University in 1044 in Kaifeng, the capital of this dynasty. It enrolled 200 students. Emperor Shenzong, the sixth emperor raised the number of students to 2400. Emperor Huizong re-established the Biyong Academy as a kind of preparatory school for the National University. In both institutions, 3800 students were enrolled. Under the new rules, the protocol of selection by examination was abolished. Graduates of the University were directly selected and recruited for official positions. When the dynasty had to flee to the South, this National University ceased to exist and was re-established in the new capital of Lin’an.16

1.3 Academies The academies were an alternative system of education.17 These ran parallel to the university systems. They could be public, private, or mixed. The Hongdumen Academy was founded in 178 CE at Hongdumen, Luoyang. This was one of the earliest institutions of its kind where art and literature were taught. It is also recognized as the first “Academy of Classical Learning,” or as the first shyuan. It went beyond the traditional and long-standing educational ideology which was based

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1 Historical Context of Higher Education

on Confucian Classics, with its focused attention to art and calligraphy, ode and phraseology, epistolary art, novel and painting. The Tang period, which began in 618 and continued till 907, was a time when culture and art flourished, and many academies were established. One of the earliest was the Lizhang Academy later called the Jixian Academy. Since these academies were primarily libraries and compilation centres, they were called shuyuan, which literally means “book yard.” Run by academicians, they were like consultative institutions for the emperor. By the late 8th century more private academies opened like the Academy of Zhang Jiuzong in Suining in the province of Sichuan. They gradually grew into centres where books were not only read and discussed but students were taught by private teachers, who were mainly philosophers and experts in Confucian classics. In the early Song dynasty, the shuyuan were no longer the national library or a private learning centre and it became the real institution of higher learning. The distinctive features of teaching at the shuyuan were: • • • • • •

The connection between research and teaching. Freedom of teaching. Freedom of learning. Predominance of self-study in the learning process. Teachers’ emphasis on enlightenment in teaching and The close relationship between students and teachers.

Between 960 and 1024, several academies were established, like the Academy of the Prefecture of Yingtian in 1009 under the protection of the emperor. It was also called the “Academy of the Southern Metropolitan Prefecture.” The private academy, Songyan, came up near Mt. Taishi in Henan and was given an official status in 1033. The Yue-Lu Academy near Changshe, Hunan, was founded in 976, enlarged later and visited by the emperor in 1015. He presented the Academy with an official tablet bearing its name. The Stone Drum Academy, established in 997, was officially acknowledged in 1035. The Maoshan Academy was granted land for a new building in 1024 by the emperor. Initially, local governments or private persons were responsible for the foundation of academies because the early Song dynasty was preoccupied with military matters, defending its northern borders rather than focusing on education. Often the academies were located in remote areas. For instance, the White Deer Cavern Academy was at the foot of Mt. Lushan, Jiangxi, and was financed by the income from the harvests and yields of lands allotted to it. In 1044, an Imperial edict ordered the foundation of public schools throughout the country. This was a big blow to private academic institutions as they were often forced to submit to governmental supervision. Emperor Shenzong of the Song dynasty, who ruled from 1068 to 1085, seized the income of private academics and merged it with the income of the local prefecture. The fate of the academies was tied to the dictates of the emperors of the various dynasties. It went through many twists and turns. When the Qing dynasty started to control the country, the shuyuan transformed into a government agency. Consequently, it functioned passively, as a subordinate of the

1.4 The Contemporary Transformation

7

Imperial examination system. The term shuyuan was replaced by “college,” a contemporary higher education institution, and thus the concept of Academy, discontinued after a history of 1000 years.18

1.4 The Contemporary Transformation The traditional higher education system was reshaped slowly between 1840 and 1911, the period of the last dynasty. In these 70 years modern higher education emerged in China as a consequence of the Western systems of higher education being introduced and with the impact of other social reforms. The two important types of modern higher education were the modern college, and the new government-owned, specialized institution, focusing on training and creating the kind of workforce that was the urgent need of the hour. Besides these was the Western-style university which offered four-year courses, with its focus on specialized academic disciplines.19 The Qing dynasty was forced to reform the prevailing system of higher education as a consequence of the humiliation in the two Opium Wars. Now the top officials were looking at learning from the outside world, primarily from the industrialized nations. The movement to modernize, with an eye on the dynamic reforms encouraged by open-minded reformists especially in the fields of technology, industry, military, and education opened out the doors of the antiquated dynasty and directed the focus to Western concepts so as to incentivize social change and help create a powerful and wealthy nation. The reformists introduced modern industries which were directly supported by Western learning, and thus they channelized a movement of new education. In the course of the initiating the dynamic changes, the reformists adopted several “non-traditional” concepts from the West and introduced them systematically into the last dynasty in Chinese history. Consequently, all the new concepts were quite different from those that had existed consistently prevailed in the well-known dynasties of ancient China. Essentially, the Modernization movement equated itself to modern education systems. This included the use adoption of Western languages and Western technology. The School of Combined Learning (or Tongwen In 1862 the Imperial College, also called the School of Combined Learning (or Tongwen Guan), was founded. Active reformists facilitated the Qing government to establish this. To begin with, it was useful in teaching Western languages, and for training translators in foreign languages, especially English, French and Russian. In 1867, it began to expand and grew from a one-subject college to a wider-spectrum polytechnic having diversified into the teaching of subjects such as physics and chemistry. The Imperial College was the first government-owned modern college of the late Qing dynasties. It not only heralded the emergence of modern higher education in China but initiated the gradual transformation from the traditional to the modern. Between 1862 and 1898, 44 modern colleges were initiated, and among them was the Imperial College. These institutions had two unique features:

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1 Historical Context of Higher Education

• Courses on Western learning which included foreign languages, natural sciences, and practical technologies which directly challenged the traditional ideologies and practices. • Great importance was given to military colleges. Consequently, as many as 22 of the 44 earliest modern colleges were military colleges. It was recognized that foreign invaders could be defeated only with adequate military training. China thus focused on advanced military technology and through modern and globally relevant military education.20 In 1898, the Imperial University was founded in Beijing as per the command of Emperor Guangxu. General divisions were mandatory for all students, and special divisions from such students who opted for one or two subjects. Forty years after the Imperial College was founded, in 1862, it merged into the Imperial University, in 1902, which subsequently became the University of Peking. The University expanded further into an even larger institution in 1909 with eight primary subjects: classics, literature, law and politics, agriculture, business, medicine, engineering, and science.21 In the early 20th century, the concept of a modern university in the Western sense emerged in China. The three main HEIs in Tianjin, Shanghai, and Beijing marked the rudimentary birth so to say, of the new university system in modern-day China. Some specialized disciplines and the well-established four-year system of the West were introduced in its definitive form.22 A decade of turmoil leading to the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, ended the Qing dynasty, the last dynasty of China, and led to the formation of the Republic of China (RoC). During this time different types of modern colleges were established. Thereafter, specialized, HEIs were introduced. These included diverse colleges of higher education; normal senior and industrial colleges; some private and missionary colleges, and colleges of politics and law Zhang Baixi, a high official in the late Qing period, made the greatest contribution to reforming education. He was obviously driven by national pride as he wanted to prove that in spite of political turmoil, China could have institutions of excellence. Although he participated in the Boxer Rebellion of 1911, a peasant uprising to end dynasties and to drive out foreigners whom they perceived, as having a privileged position in China, Zhang Baixi’s role was not prominent enough for his career to suffer. After the revolution he became a close advisor to the Empress Dowager. It was on his persuasion that the Imperial Capital University, former Peking University, originally founded in 1898, was reopened. He was acknowledged and honoured by both the Peking University and the Beijing Normal University as a founder. He pursued that goal by not only procuring funding to expand the campus in the heart of the city, but also get a well-supported faculty. In 1902, he drafted the “Authorized School Regulation” called the Renyin school system, since the year 1902 was called the Renyin year. This was implemented by the Qing dynasty. In 1904, he participated in establishing the “Presented School System,” also called the “Guimao Educational System,” guimao being the name of the year 1904. This was the first modern Chinese educational system.23

1.4 The Contemporary Transformation

9

For the first time in China, large numbers of colleges of higher education now started coming up in individual provinces. These became of the new institutes of higher education. Ironically, many so-called universities with less than three subjects were also referred to as colleges of higher education just to meet the requirements in the two systems. In 1903, the University of Zhejian transformed into the Zhejian college of higher education. Industrial colleges, however, did not metamorphose into the independent type of modern colleges until the following year when the Zouding School System was introduced. The system included various colleges of mining, agriculture, commerce, and industry.24 This trend of modernizing higher education continued with several important adjustments over the period of 1911 to 1949 in the republic of China. This period was generally divided or classified as development over three time frames: • 1912: The Nanjing Interim Government • 1912–1928: The Northern Warlords • 1927–1949: The National Government The measures taken in 1912 for incorporating educational change set the groundwork for the development of higher education in the years that followed. These included: • The new Renzi Guizi School System as promoted by the Minister of Education, Yuanpei Cai. • The University Ordinance and the Specialized College Ordinance, being promulgated, and • Permission to establish private universities and specialized colleges, but not private normal colleges.25 During, 1924–1949, the period of the Revolutionary War, several different but unique HEIs came into existence: • • • •

1925: the Sino French University. 1933: the University of Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army. 1936: the Chinese People’s Anti-Japanese Military and Political University. 1942: the School of the CPC Central Committee.

These were characterized by the CPC’s educational ideals. These institutes trained specialized workforces—political, military, economic, and cultural for the CPC’s Revolutionary War, thus emphasizing the direct link between theory and practice; between political attitudes and red thoughts, and bringing in well-rounded individual personalities, with high qualities in moral, intellectual, and physical aspects, with the objectives of well-rounded. This was in direct contrast to the specialized colleges referred to as “universities” that existed in the regions under the control of the Kuomintang or KMT, also called the Chinese Nationalist Party. As per records, there were 205 HEIs throughout the country in 1949, which including as many as 49 universities, 61 private institutions, 28 technological institutions, and 21 missionary institutions.26

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1 Historical Context of Higher Education

1.5 India India’s ancient learning traditions were as ancient as China’s, but the approach of the two civilizations was distinctly different. Primarily, the ancient Indian civilization was shaped by religion, or rather, the duties and code of conduct in every sphere of life, known as dharma. Political and economic activities were to be followed according to dharma as well. Although India produced some great mathematicians, astronomers, doctors, and legal and political experts, by and large, education was concerned with the emancipation of the individual soul. The origins of education in India go back probably to the composition of the Rig Veda. At first it was merely connected with sacrificial rites, and it was from this that the Brahminical education developed. Those pursuing craft were educated in their vocations, but mostly through an apprentice system, the knowledge being handed down from father to son. Not much emphasis was placed on academic pursuits for them except for some texts that they had to learn being essential for their craft. However, each religious domination or political conquest brought about changes in education. Of course, the educational system existing at the time did not completely die out. Therefore, when Buddhism became the dominant religion with royal patronage, Buddhist education began mainly from Magadh, the modern-day Bihar, as it was the chief preaching ground for the Buddha. The Muslim kingdoms, which followed later, set up their own system of education. They introduced maktabs and madarsas; maktabs were primary schools attached to mosques and were seats of higher learning. The final wave of change before India’s Independence, came with the British colonizers with their mode of education adapted to suit their colonial interests.

1.6 The Brahminical Education The Rig Veda, which consists of 1017 hymns, was composed sometime before 1000 BCE. It is a collection of 10 books, of which seven were seriously guarded family collections of the rishis or sages, handed down from generation to generation. Gradually, others also joined in. Because sacrificial rituals became more complex, each senior priest in the family taught the male family members all the ritual laws and hymns that were known to belong to that branch of the family. The entire Brahminical education system was initially oral.27 The Brahmanas, considered a part of the Veda, were composed between 900 and 700 BCE. They laid down the ritual methodology. They also contained mythology, stories, speculations, and arguments. While the intellectual activity was centred on sacrifice, in the ritual methodology can be seen the beginnings of grammar, etymology, astronomy, philosophy, and law.28 The ancient schools followed the guru-shishya parampara, the teacher–student discipline or tradition. The student approached the teacher with firewood in his hand indicating that he wanted to be accepted as the pupil of that particular seer, sage, or

1.6 The Brahminical Education

11

priest. With this gesture, he promised that if accepted, he would stay in the teacher’s ashrama, dwellings or premises, participate in the teacher’s daily domestic sacrificial ritual, and help to maintain it. The period of studentship was not merely a period of learning. It entailed vigorous discipline, which was developed through the hard physical work that the students had to do. The shishyas had to work for their teachers, with household chores and errands in the fields; they had to attend to the sacred fires, and the cattle, and regularly collect alms for the guru and the entire family, which included all the brother disciples. The pupils always accompanied the teacher as his entourage and waited on his commands. Renowned teachers attracted students from distant places.29 In the early Vedic schools, education was very selective, and only young Brahmins were instructed. But sometime before 500 BCE, the education of young kshatriyas or the warrior caste and that of the vaishyas or the traders also came under Brahmin control.30 Expanding from the Brahmins to the kshatriyas and to the vaishyas, only these three castes had the privilege of education, the system firmly excluding the shudras, the masses of people engaged in so-called menial work. The initiation of a Brahmin boy took place in his eighth year, that of the kshatriya in his 11th year, and of the vaishya in his 12th year. The clothing of the pupils indicated their caste, making caste identification easy. Although they all studied together, they had to adhere to their caste norms.31 The students had to memorize the sacred texts and other compositions taught orally. Since each Veda took 12 years, the three Vedas (not taking Atharva Veda into account) would take 36 years. Because this was too long a period, different rishis began to teach different Vedas and thus the specialization began.32 Most likely, by the end of the Vedic period, six angas or limbs of the Vedas were conceptualized: Vyakarana, or grammar and linguistic analysis, Nirukta or etymology; Shiksha or recitation or phonetics and philology; Chhanda or prosody and ritual instructions; Jyotish or astrology and astronomy; and Kalpas or the study of procedures and ceremonies for performing the Vedic rituals.33 The insights into metres, linguistic analysis, grammar, structure of sound and language, and linguistic analysis influenced the post-Vedic studies, arts, culture, and the six schools of philosophy that developed later. For instance, the kalpa studies, gave rise kalpasutras or Vedic aphorisms like the dharmasutras to memorize the code of conduct or dharma. These later expanded into dharmashastras, or the science of righteousness or dharma, of the code of conduct, and these were used to settle matters of law among other things. As knowledge increased, it became impossible for students to master all of it. That gave rise to special schools for studying specific subjects.34 At its best, Brahminical education encompassed comprehensive study of the Vedas, the sciences of numbers, portents, and time; and included the specific study of logic, ethics, etymology, and pronunciation. Also covered was the study of demons; the science of serpents, or poisons; the science of weapons; astronomy; and even

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the science of making perfumes. Simultaneously, the students also learnt dancing, singing, playing musical, and the five arts.35 Gradually, the training became stereotype and lost its vitality. The kshatriyas did not take the study of the Vedas very seriously, and the vaishyas paid even less attention to them as their main preoccupation was with agriculture and trade. The result was the growth of specialized schools for the vaishyas, which taught them enough arithmetic and trade practices required for their occupation. As time went by, they often did not even avail of the privilege of attending the Brahminical education schools. However, this made their education very narrow. Craftsmen did not usually send their children and apprentices to school, but trained them by apprenticing them to themselves. They did not teach their children or apprentices to read and write as it was not required for them. They were familiarized with relevant manuals in the tradition for diverse crafts, as they could require them for their craft. However, as the crafts got diversified, more and more people got involved, leading to expertise in a craft, but little else to widen their horizon.36

1.7 Introduction of Education Institutions One of the earliest institutions of Vedic and Buddhist learning was Takshashila, which probably dates back to the 5th century BCE. It was situated in Takshashila about 32 kms north-west of Islamabad, the capital of present-day Pakistan. It is mentioned by Fa-hien, the great Chinese traveller monk who visited the place in 405 CE. Xuanzang, another great Chinese traveller monk, visited Takshashila first in 630 CE and then in 643 CE. By this time the city was in ruins.37 The strategist and economist Chanakya, who helped Chandragupta Maurya to consolidate his empire, was a senior teacher there. The institution was significant for the Buddhists as the Mahayana Buddhism was said to have taken shape there. Jivaka, an alumnus of Takshashila, was the physician of the Buddha himself as also of the Magadhan emperor, King Bimbisara. King Prasanjit of Kosala, sympathetic to Buddhism, was also said to have studied here. Included in the curriculum were the Vedas, medicine, for which it was renowned, astrology, and hetu vidya or logic.38 Later, Buddhist texts were added as the Buddha’s teachings came to be known. Students from neighbouring areas and from distant lands came to study here despite the long and arduous journeys. This was because of its renowned teachers, all authorities in their respective subjects. At its peak, over 10,500 students studied here. They came from diverse such diverse regions as Babylonia, Greece, China, and Arabia. Altogether over 60 different courses were taught in various subjects, including science, warfare, astrology, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, religion, politics, music, and philosophy. Students would receive education directly from their teacher in the subject of their choice. They had to pay for their education but those who could not, had to work for their teacher in lieu of payment. The university produced three great scholars:

1.7 Introduction of Education Institutions

13

• Charaka was a famous physician, the author of the Charaka Samhita on Ayurvedic medicine. He was apparently the court physician of the Buddhist King Kanishka in the 1st century CE. One hypothesis is that the Charaka Samhita was authored by several scholars, and Charaka was the editor of this compendium.39 • Chanakya or Kautilya who wrote the Arthashastra.40 • Panini, a scholar of Sanskrit, who is considered the founder of grammar and the study of language and literature. He wrote the sutras or aphorisms on grammar in eight volumes called Ashtadhyayi in the 4th century BCE, the most commonly accepted date although scholars also place him in the 5th or 6th century BC.41 While many may not consider Takshashila as a university, at least in the modern sense of the term, it comprised multiple colleges managed by individual teachers who taught there. There were probably no lecture halls expressly designed for the purpose. The students were not provided accommodation, and hence it was not a residential university. There was no external authority like a king or a local chieftain who controlled it. There was no centralized curriculum or period of study. Each teacher had the autonomy to teach what he liked. There were no examinations. When the teacher felt that the student had learnt enough, he declared him qualified. In general, specialization in a subject took eight years but it could be shorter or longer depending on the ability of the individual student. No formal degree was awarded; knowledge was supposed to be its own reward. The teachers received no fixed payment as it was not considered proper to receive a salary for imparting knowledge. However, the teachers were amply supported by the members of society. At the end of his study, a student was expected to give his teacher guru dakshina, an offering as a token of his gratitude. It was not expected to be anything expensive but if he did not have the means to afford even that, he could approach the king. The king was duty-bound to help him.42 Many later scholars built on the accumulated knowledge of the past. For instance, two centuries after Panini, Patanjali wrote a commentary on Ashtadhyayi. The most commonly accepted date for Patanjali is between the 2nd and 4th century CE.43 Around 375 CE Amarsinha, a poet about whose life little is known, composed a metrical lexicon, Namalinganushasnam, popularly known as Amarkosha.44 Aryabhata, born in Patna in 476 CE, reduced early writings of astronomy, to a concise and practical form.45 Another famous astronomer, Bhaskaracharya, was born much later, in 1114.46 The ancient Indian scholars also knew Algebra, which went to the West through Arab traders.47 Another great name emerged in medicine, that of Sushruta who is called the father of Indian medicine, in particular of surgery.48 He composed or compiled a treatise on surgery called the Sushruta Samhita in around 6th century BCE. When Buddhism became the dominant religion, it enjoyed royal patronage and monasteries were established. Buddhist education began mainly from Magadh, the modern-day Bihar as it was the chief preaching ground of the Buddha. Buddhism gave rise to famous universities. They grew out of a vihara, or meeting place for monks, generally refers to a monastery, where the monks congregated during the

14

1 Historical Context of Higher Education

four monsoon months. It was essentially monastic in nature but as it grew, lay persons also got access to education in them, and the curriculum expanded from only Buddhist texts to other subjects as well. The most famous universities of the time were Nalanda49 whose traditional history may be said to go back to the sixth and 5th century BCE to the time of the Buddha and the last Jain Tirthankara, Mahavira. Apparently, some recent archaeological discoveries have, however, pushed Nalanda’s history back to 1200 BCE.50 Nonetheless, a mud brick stupa has also been carbon dated to the 6th–5th century BCE. Nalanda therefore was definitely an acknowledged and significantly important Buddhist site since its early period. The renowned Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna was said to have studied there in the 2nd or 3rd century CE.51 Fa-hien came to India in 399 CE and travelled extensively but he makes no mention of Nalanda in his accounts although he seems to have visited the site of its location. However, there is some difference of opinion whether Fa-hien actually visit Nalo or did he go to Nalo where there was an ordinary Buddhist monastery.52 In any case, the area was the centre of learning, which is not surprising as both Mahavira (5th century BCE) and Buddha (6th or 5th century BCE) taught there. Excavations reveal that its monasteries were built during the Gupta period in the 5th century CE onward. The powerful 7th century CE ruler of Kannauj, Harshavardhana, who belonged to the Pushyabhati or the Vardhana dynasty also contributed to them. Most of the information about it comes from Chinese records. However, it is through Xuanzang, who came to India in the early 7th century CE, that we get a glowing account of the magnificence of Nalanda to which students came from far and wide. Xuanzang studied under the renowned scholar Shilbhadra. He was followed a few years later by Itsing who studied in Nalanda for ten years and gave a detailed account of the life of a student there and the subjects that the students were taught. The subjects of study were the four Vedas, logic, grammar, medicine, different schools of philosophy such as Sankhya, Yoga, and Nyaya and Buddhist works of the different schools of Buddhism. Gradually the focus shifted to Mahayana Buddhism and Tantric Buddhism.53 Other famous universities of the time were Vikramshila, in the northern part of Magadha, based on the banks of the River Ganga, Odantapuri about six miles from Nalanda, Sompura and Jaggadala in what is today Bangladesh, and Vallabhi in Gujarat. In addition, there were Buddhist monasteries and seminaries focused on teaching and learning.54 Nalanda was the most famous. At its peak, it had 3000 students although Xuanzang claims, 10,000. But, it was destroyed by the Muslim invader Bakhtiyar Khilji in the 12th century. Khilji burnt the monasteries down and, what was even more tragic, set fire to its magnificent library housed in three buildings, at least one of them being six storeys high. He also destroyed Vikramshila and Odantapuri. With the coming of Islam, not only were the Buddhist universities destroyed, but Buddhism itself died out in India.55

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1.8 A Changed System of Education Muslim rule introduced its own system of education. The Muslims first appeared in the 8th century, which was a century of great societal turmoil but the real storm burst with Mahmood of Ghazni, who raided multiple times between 1000 and1026.56 With the permanent settlement of Muslims, subsequent dynasties established maktabs and madarsas. Buddhist education, which had flourished earlier weakened and finally ceased to exist after Nalanda, Vikramshila, and Odantapuri were destroyed. Monasteries continued in a desultory manner for some time, but in terms of education this did not amount to much as the most eminent scholars had either been killed or had fled, while the books had been destroyed. Some of the existing texts today can only be found in Chinese or Tibetan, and some efforts have been made to retranslate them into Sanskrit. Members of successive dynasties, such as the Slave dynasty, Tughlak dynasty, and the Lodhi dynasty, together with Sharqi emperors in Jaunpur in the North and the Bahmani emperors in the South, apparently encouraged education and established colleges for higher education. However, the system was only meant for Muslims. Gradually Delhi became a vibrant centre of education. Despite the exclusion, both the Hindus and Muslims made the effort to learn each other’s languages since Persian became the language of the court. This made it useful for Hindus to learn it. Muslims, too, started translating many Hindu texts into Persian. Going by court historical accounts, by the time the Mughals came to India, there should then have been many schools and colleges. But a college in that era was not necessarily a large institution. It could perhaps only mean a class attached to a mosque with 25 students and one teacher in charge. The teaching was mainly of the Koran and sometimes reading, writing, and mathematics were included. It is telling that Babar did not seem to find much of higher education when he arrived in India. In his memoirs, Babar wrote: “The people of Hindustan have no good horses, no good fruits, no ice or water, no food or bread in their bazaars, no baths, colleges, no candles, no torches, not a candlestick.”57 Obviously, the fame of whatever colleges there were, was not evident and had certainly not gone outside the borders of India. The Mughal kings, like their predecessors, sporadically encouraged education, in particular Akbar and later Aurangzeb. Akbar was a tolerant king. He allowed Hindu boys to be admitted in the madarsas. Although said to be unlettered himself, he tried to reform education by suggesting that boys were being kept in school for too many years only to learn consonants and vowels. They were also being made to read many books but no writing was taught. Akbar ordered that the boys should be taught to write the alphabet before reading, as was done in Hindu schools. Once the student had learnt to write, he would learn to read much faster as the letters would be fixed in his mind and he could progress on his own. He wanted the teacher to particularly ensure that the student understood the meaning of the words and that regular revision of previous lessons was done.58 However, at this time, education in India did not reach very far. Crafts developed far more than academics. The French traveller Bernier visiting India during Shahjahan’s

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reign remarked, “…a profound and universal ignorance is the natural consequence of such a state of society as I have endeavoured to describe. Is it possible to establish in Hindustan academies and colleges properly endowed? Where shall we seek founders? Or, should they be found, where are the scholars? Where the individuals whose property is sufficient to support the children at colleges or if such individuals exist who would venture to display so clear proof of wealth? Lastly, if any person should be so tempted to commit this strange imprudence, yet where are the benefices, the employments, the offices of trust and dignity, that require ability and science, and are calculated to excite the emulation and hopes of young student?”.59 Aurangzeb tried to encourage education, but he had a much narrower vision than Akbar. He completely excluded Hindus, supported Muslim learned men and professors, and Muslim students. He added many Islamic theological works to the Imperial library.60 After his death, the Mughal Empire began to rapidly fade away. In 1739, The Emperor of Persia, Nader Shah, plundered and sacked Delhi, after he had entered India from the north. This was a great setback to education. Apart from large-scale destruction, he carried away to Persia the Imperial library that several sovereigns had built up over the centuries.61 With the advent of the British, initially as a trading company, the East India Company, and the simultaneous decline of the Mughal Empire, the Company became the virtual ruler of India during 1757–1858.62 At this time education was completely neglected. The indigenous system was destroyed, while there was no encouragement or support from the Company. The Company did not think that it was even required to do anything about education in India as it was driven by commercial interests rather than of societal upliftment. However, it did pay attention to the education of the European and Anglo-Indian children. Some beginning was made towards the education of influential Indians in 1781 when a petition was presented to Governor General Warren Hastings, “by a considerable number of Mussalman’s of credit and learning” that led to establishing the Calcutta madarsa. The Banaras Sanskrit College now known as Sampurnanand Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya was established by Jonathan Duncan, the then Governor of Bombay, in 1791. Parallel to the Company’s efforts missionaries set up educational institutions. Up to 1765, the Company encouraged them, even giving them financial support. But after acquiring political power the attitude towards them changed, probably because Company officials did not want to arouse hostility among the natives by seeming to meddle in their religious practices. Hence, they placed many obstacles in their way from 1793 to 1813. Simultaneously, many of the Company officials demanded bolder and more active encouragement to Oriental learning. The whole matter was raised in the British Parliament leading to the enactment of the Charter of 1813 by which the Company was made responsible for the education of Indians and had to allocate a sum of at least 100,000 rupees annually for this purpose. This was abysmally low for any meaningful education programme and hence progress was very slow. The Charter also empowered missionaries to carry on their educational activities. The Company adopted an impractical policy emerging out of a filtration theory meaning that if higher education was provided to the elite, it would somehow filter

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down to the masses. Lord Macaulay landed in India in June 1834 as a law member in the Governor General Lord William Bentinck’s Executive Council. He was given two tasks: settle the dispute between Anglicists and Orientalists, that is, among those who favoured traditional education and those who wanted to study English and follow Western education; and lay down guidelines on the most appropriate way to spend the 100,000 rupees allocated for education. The result was the famous Minutes of Macaulay in which he denigrated both Sanskrit and Persian learning in favour of English education. He advocated the use of English as a medium of instruction to teach science and emphasized the study of English literature so as to permeate Indian society with English culture and to engender a feeling of cultural inferiority among the Indians. He wanted to create “a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect” so that even if the colonial rule ended, culturally it would continue as the elite would have been trained in that mould. In short, he aimed at a cultural conquest of India. Also, he wanted to provide a kind of English education which would produce clerks for the government thereby reducing administrative costs. He recommended stopping all aid to Sanskrit and Persian institutions and to prohibit printing texts of traditional learning. After some agitation and negotiation, minimal support was given to oriental learning a few years later by Lord Auckland, the Governor General who followed Lord Bentinck. It was not just the British who were pushing for English education. The Anglicists themselves were also keen to get English education for the opportunities of upward mobility that it could provide. Even before the arrival of Macaulay, the Anglicists had done the spade work. The seeds of English higher education in India were planted with establishing Hindu College in Calcutta in 1817, due to the efforts of Raja Ram Mohan Roy and David Hare.63 It was the first “Europeanized” institution of higher learning. By 1830, several similar colleges were setup through private enterprise in a similar mould. English replaced Persian as the official and court language in 1835 and in 1844, Lord Harding’s government announced that those receiving English education would get preference in all government appointments. The government established many colleges between 1836 and 1854 such as the Hooghli College (1836), Dacca College (1840), and the colleges at Behrampur and Agra (1853). Education in the new schools and colleges became a passport for entrance to government service and the professions. The precolonial indigenous system of education was therefore, gradually replaced by a new language and curricula. The purpose of education, too, altered. In traditional Indian institutions, education, had mainly a religious and cultural aim while the new English high schools and colleges were degree-granting institutions that enabled students access power in the colonial political and economic system. In as early as 1845 attempts were made to establish a university in Calcutta, but it was not successful. In Madras, there was an institution curiously styled as Madras University, but in reality, it was only a high school. In 1852, it developed into the present Madras Presidency College. By 1855, there were 281 high schools and 28 colleges, but the need was already beginning to be felt for regulating their work, holding examinations, and establishing a common standard.

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1.9 The Beginning of Modern Education In the strictest sense, modern higher education in India started in 1854, with Wood’s Dispatch, which wanted the government to create a properly articulated system of education from the primary school to the University. It also recommended the institution of universities at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay modelled after London University. The considerable preliminary spadework took some time; but in as early as 1857, the Government of India passed acts of incorporation of all three universities. Mirroring the London University, they were purely examining and affiliating bodies and undertook no research or teaching. The actual teaching was done in colleges, for which the University laid down the syllabi and conducted examinations. The Acts of Incorporation of the universities mentioned the degrees by name that the university could confer but later more were added. In 1860, the Indian Universities (Degrees) Act was passed, empowering the universities to confer such diplomas or degrees as had been provided in the byelaws or regulations. Following this, several university colleges were established, some of which grew into full-fledged universities. A University College was established at Lahore in 1869, which achieved university status in 1882. The Mohammedan Anglo Oriental College at Aligarh established in 1875 developed into Aligarh Muslim University. The government of North-Western Provinces submitted proposals for establishing a Central College at Allahabad that would form the nucleus of a university for resident undergraduates in 1869 and then again in 1879. It was finally set up by a special Act of Incorporation in 1887. The Government of India appointed an Indian Education Commission in 1882 to give recommendation to streamline higher education but curiously did not give it the right to enquire into the general working of Indian universities. The Commission therefore contented itself with making only a few observations on the need to improve affiliated colleges and asking local governments to expand college education. It also recommended a grant-in-aid system to colleges based on the strength of the staff, the expenditure on its maintenance, the efficiency of the institution, and the wants of the locality. Special grants were also to be made whenever necessary, for the supply and renewal of buildings, furniture, libraries, and other apparatus of instruction. The recommendations of the Commission were of minor importance because of its restricted mandate. They, however, led to a rapid multiplication of high schools with regard to secondary education. Consequently, the number of students appearing in the entrance examinations of different universities and subsequently seeking admission to colleges for higher education too increased greatly. Higher education in India was so chaotic and had such poor standards that Lord Curzon turned his personal attention to its reform at the beginning of the 20th century. He appointed an Indian Universities Commission on January 27, 1902, to enquire into the condition and prospects of the universities established in British India and to consider and report on proposals for improving their constitution and working. The Commission submitted its report in the same year and adopted the model of London University, as modified by the Act of 1898. It made five important recommendations: 1. The re-organization of university governance.

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2. A stricter and more systematic supervision of colleges by universities and the imposition of exacting conditions of affiliation. 3. Closer attention to the conditions under which students lived and worked. 4. Assumption of teaching functions by the University within defined limits and 5. Substantial changes in curricula and in the methods of examination. Lord Curzon’s analysis of the effects of higher education in India identified the monstrous and malefic spirits of cramming as one of its chief drawbacks.64 The aim of the students was to pass examinations and to qualify for employment. The teachers, too, did not care for the moral and mental development of the students, but were only concerned with the percentage of those who cleared or passed the examinations. Lessons were imparted in a mechanical manner, and discussions and seminars were not encouraged. There was great stress on information gathering and little was done to develop the problem-solving abilities and critical faculties of students. The tutorial system followed at Oxford and Cambridge was introduced in some universities, but was unsuccessful because the poor teacher–student ratio made it difficult for teachers to cope. The students too were not interested as they were obsessed with passing examinations. Lord Curzon was very clear that India and Britain were different and that in India, government control was necessary both on educational and political grounds. In his view, University autonomy view was educationally unwise and politically dangerous. He felt that the Government alone could remedy the ills that plagued higher education. These were identified as falling standards, the curse of examinations, young, immature striplings rushing to enter college, and education as mere means of earning and not of learning. Higher education in India was an exotic transplant introduced by the English based on English models. The government alone could ensure that universities followed the latest advances in European learning. In any case, to expect the government to pay for higher education and to divest itself of all powers was to ignore the elementary obligations of the state. Curzon’s attempt at reforms created more problems. The new strict regulations for affiliation were considered a hindrance to Indian private enterprise in higher education. Consequently, the number of colleges declined from 192 to 170 in 1912 but the public demand for higher education continued to grow. Restriction on establishing new colleges only led to an increase in the enrolment in the already saturated existing ones. Although the colonial higher education in India was alien in character, it got massive response especially in the metropolitan cities of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, because Indians saw it as a passport to government jobs or careers in professions. Between 1855–1856 and 1921–1922, the number of general colleges increased from 21 to 172 and the pupils in them from 4335 to 58,837. By 1947, there were 19 universities and 496 colleges with 237,546 pupils. The growth was mainly in privately managed colleges. Indian education had a predominantly literary bias, and hence arts colleges were far more popular than the professional ones. In 1901–1902, while there were 140 arts colleges with 17,655 pupils in them, there were only 46 professional colleges with 5358 pupils.

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1.10 Disillusionment and Change in the Higher Education System From 1911 to 1912, onwards, there was growing disillusionment with the model of affiliating universities.65 The first university to deviate from the model was Banaras Hindu University (BHU), set up in 1916. It was a unitary, residential, teaching university. It was also different from the usual universities in its basic philosophy. Established by Annie Besant and Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, the objective was to uphold Indian values and ancient traditions while teaching modern science. The University of Mysore, established in the same year as BHU, was the first university in a princely state. Osmania University, established by the Nizam of Hyderabad in 1918, undertook the experiment of teaching through the Urdu medium. The Calcutta University Commission was appointed in 1917, under the chairmanship of Sir Michael Sadler. It made a thorough assessment of the entire university system in the country, Calcutta, only serving as an example, and submitted its report two years later. One of its major recommendations was the need for unitary teaching and residential universities. If the first three universities of the country were modelled on London University, the Oxbridge model inspired Sadler and his colleagues. Of the universities set up, in the decade after the Sadler Commission report were Aligarh (1920), Lucknow (1921), Dacca (1921), Delhi (1922), Nagpur (1923), Andhra (1923), Agra (1927), and Annamalai (1929). Out of them, only Nagpur, Andhra, Delhi, and Agra were affiliated. The rest were all teaching and residential. The Great Depression of 1929 was a watershed. Between then and Indian independence, only one university was founded in the princely state of Travancore, which, after Mysore and Hyderabad was the third university in a princely state. Also, three universities were set up in British India—Utkal (1943), Sagar (1946), and Rajasthan (1947). Neither London, Oxford, nor Cambridge could be replicated in Indian conditions. The form could be taken, but the spirit was missing. Unlike in Britain, the Indian universities were under official control. They were legislative creations, unlike the universities in Britain. The key offices of the Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor belonged to the government, which also nominated the majority of the members of the Senate. The primary function of universities established by the British was the diffusion of Western culture among the people. Therefore, priority was given to the study of English language and literature. This added to the ills of the system because most students found it hard to understand these texts and, therefore, turned to rote learning of their lecture notes without comprehending their content. The curriculum was skewed towards the West and ignored Indian history, culture, philosophy, and India’s contemporary needs and problems. Resolutions and reports repeatedly recommended the introduction of Oriental studies, classical Indian languages and vernaculars in the curriculum as a result of which the Indian component in the university curriculum increased somewhat after 1921, but Western learning still continued to be emphasized.

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Not only was the content to Western in its orientation, it also tended to deemphasize scientific, technical and vocational education. Although the Woods’ dispatch made specific reference to the spread of Western science and the Indian Education Commission (1902), the Calcutta University Commission (1917), and the Sergeant Committee (1944) suggested the inclusion of natural science and vocational and technical subjects. But these recommendations remained mostly on paper. Instead of training scientists, technologists, or agronomists, Indian higher education was engaged in producing mostly clerks. Some Indians, dissatisfied with the state of affairs felt that schools and colleges were imparting education that did not inculcate patriotism and pride in one’s country. The Deccan Education Society, founded in 1880 in Poona, established its first institution, the Fergusson College in 1885, where the young were educated to serve their country. Mahatma Gandhi founded a series of national universities during the first non-cooperation movement in 1920–1922. These included the Gujarat Vidyapeeth, Kashi Vidyapeeth, Bihar Vidyapeeth, Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, and Jamia Millia Islamia. Hindi or the vernacular language was the medium of instruction in these universities. But these universities did not perform true educational functions of instruction of higher education. They were primarily concerned with character formation and building the national movement to fight the “Raj” (British rule) rather than with cultivating the intellect. Rabindranath Tagore tried a different kind of educational experiment at Shantiniketan where he founded the Visva Bharti in 1921. Until Independence it was called a college, later became a university. He attempted to synthesize Asian and Western culture. While Tagore respected Western knowledge, he was also concerned that English education had alienated the intelligentsia, both from the common people and from its roots. At the same time he believed that though India had to cherish its past, it could not also cling to its traditional orthodoxies. Educational institutions were also established by the socio-religious reform movements of the late 19th century, partly in response to the Christian Missionary Colleges that were first in the field. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan established the Oriental College at Aligarh in 1877 to popularize English education among Muslims in North India. The Arya Samaj tried to modernize and strengthen Hinduism through educational institutions, particularly in the Punjab and in the United Provinces. The Dayanand Anglo Vedic College (DAV) was founded at Lahore in 1886, which subsequently became a movement. These colleges were affiliated to universities and followed the prescribed curriculum, but emphasized the study of Sanskrit and the Vedas. The Sikhs in the Punjab started the Singh Sabha Movement in 1873 and also the Chief Khalsa Diwan established Khalsa schools and colleges. These too followed the curriculum prescribed by the universities to which they were affiliated but laid great distress on the study of religion and the language of the community. All these institutions played an extremely useful role, but could not provide a viable indigenous alternative to the system that had already got established. Moreover, there was a growing demand for higher technical education since the 1880s. Jamshedji Tata, one of India’s pioneering businessmen, and icon of the early 20th century, was fully aware of the shortcomings of Indian universities. He saw that

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they examined, but did not teach, and was particularly concerned about the lack of scientific teaching. He initiated a scheme in 1898 that finally led to the founding of the Tata Institute of Science at Bangalore in 1911. The leaders of the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal established a College of Engineering and Technology in 1907. It was later shifted to Jadavapur. D.K. Karve started a women’s university, the first of its kind, in 1918 at Poona, which later developed into SNDT Women’s University, now located at Mumbai.

1.11 Post-Independence Growth It is therefore obvious that the higher education scene at the time of India’s independence was one of inequality and uneven spread. It remained largely concentrated in and around the metropolitan towns. Not only were some regions more advanced than others, even within the region there were disparities of both availability and access to different groups of people. The study of English brought about an intellectual revolution, but only to a minority of the population that imbibed new ideas such as liberty of thought and expression, responsible and objective criticism, tolerance of different opinions, government by discussion and the importance of the individual. These ideas did not filter down to the masses and traditional society remained hierarchical and feudal.

1.12 Diversity of Evolution There are obvious divergences in the way education evolved historically in the two countries which were bound to impact later developments. While education in both countries was for the elite, it was more highly stratified in India. In China, the nobility and the elite had access to higher education, in India access was dependent on caste. It is said that initially caste in India was not by birth but by profession. However, questions can be raised on that hypothesis. During the period of Brahminical education, the earliest form of education in India, the guru (the teacher) admitted children (shishya, students) according to their caste and even in his ashrama the caste distinction was maintained including in the clothing worn by the disciples. The age of admission for Brahmins, kshatriyas, and vaishyas being, six, eight, and eleven years respectively. The different ages of admission by caste could then only have been by birth. In India, religion was the dominant factor, which influenced higher education, even radically changing its nature according to the religion of the ruling kings and their dynasties. Religion provided the motivation through which political will was exercised. This is most evident during the Muslim rule when Hindus were excluded from education system itself that pivoted around mosques. They were allowed during Akbar’s reign but then excluded by Aurangzeb, the last powerful Mughal

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emperor. In China, access depended on class and not on religion or any other form of discrimination. Different impulses led to different aims of education. In China, the most important influence was that of Confucius. While there were other competing philosophies as of Daoism, of those who followed Mencius or Mozi, but except for a short time, Confucianism dominated. Confucius enunciated man’s relationship with his family, community, and the rulers and combined it with ethics. In India, the emphasis was on the individual’s soul and his liberation from the travails of the world. Somewhere, in spite of the achievements in many fields like mathematics, astronomy, medicine, grammar, literature, lexicography, etymology, and others, the psyche in India got focused on the individual and his liberation from the world, which was considered the arena of suffering. The other obvious difference is that emperors of different dynasties in China supported or modified higher education. They constantly organized and re-organized the structure dividing it into various levels according to the function of each level and who it was meant to train. Higher education played a vital role in China, in obtaining positions in the imperial court. This was perhaps because higher education was directly linked to governance. The highest and most difficult examination Jinshi, which was held at the imperial palace, was organized through the higher education itself. Those who passed Jinshi qualified for the highest levels of civil service. Hence, there is the dimension of the scale of institutional organization of education. In China, larger forms of higher education institutions whether called schools, universities, or academies, appeared much earlier. In India, except for the Buddhist universities, education revolved around individual teacher and their endeavours without any external supervision or control. The beginning of larger university-like organizations probably grew gradually as specialization evolved, and teachers may have lived in clusters. This was the essential structure even of Takshashila. After the Buddhist universities decayed and disappeared, with the Muslim conquest, no proper organization into universities or colleges took place. It was only with the colonial British government that modern universities were established but only to serve colonial interests. Hence, it is not surprising that China had over 200 universities in 1949 while India had about 25. Finally, the desire to meet the West on its own terms came to China after its humiliation in the opium wars between 1839 and1842 and then between 1856 and 1860. Some of the officials of the last dynasty of China, the Qing dynasty, realized that the old educational content and methodology would have to be replaced by Western-style education and set about bringing reforms like the teaching of foreign languages, introducing the four-year undergraduate course and aligning the entire educational system with the aim of overtaking the West on its own educational turf and of successfully competing in economic, political, and military development. India, on the other hand, at this very time was establishing its first universities in 1857 to meet the British colonial needs of producing clerks. The emphasis was on permeating Western values and taste, at least in the elite, so that psychologically, they become servile to the British and ashamed of their culture and heritage. The few educational thinkers who were dissatisfied with the alienating higher education

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being encouraged and shaped by the British, tried different nationalist experiments in higher education but they could not present a viable alternative. Endnotes and References 1. Altbach, Philip C. “One-Third of the Globe: The Future of Higher Education in China and India,” Prospect: Quarterly Review of Comparative Literature, March 2009, 39 (1): 11–31. 2. Jianmin Gu, Xueping Li, Lihua Wang Higher Education in China; Springer December 2018, pp. 17–18. Mathur, Nalini. “Historical Background,” in Educational Reform in PostMao China, Delhi: A.P.H. Publishing, 2007. Surowski, David B. “History of the Educational System of China,” http:// www.math.dou-ed/--dbski/writings/history.html [year?]. 3. Jianmin Gu et al. Op. cit. p. 18. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. See also, “Academies (Shuyan) New World Encyclopedia http://www.new worldencyclopedia-org/entry/Academies_Shuyan. 6. Jianmin Gu. et al. Op. cit. pp. 19–20. “Taixue the National University,” An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History, Literature and Art, www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Terms/taixue.html. Candice Song, “China Ancient Education” Education in Zhou and Han Dynasties” http://www.travel.travelchinalguide.com/intro/education/anc ient.htm. “Zhou Dynasty.” www.britannica.com/print/article/114678. 7. Jianmin Gu et al. Op. cit. pp. 19–20. Nan Li, “Education in China—A Historical Perspective,” http://Theasiadialogue.com/2015/07/08/education-in-china-a-his torical-perspective/. Lui, Martin D. “A Study on the Historical Development of Chinese Education and Culture.” www.researchgate.net/publication /272888527. 8. Jianmin Gu et al. Op. cit. pp. 19–20. Charlene Tan, “Confucianism and Education,” https://coi.org/10.1093/cre fore/9780190264093.013.22 “History of Qin Dynasty 221–206 B.C.” http://www.chinaeducationcentre. com/en/whychina/qin.php. 9. Hantian W, Qiang Zha. “Chinese Higher Education, History of,” Encyclopaedia of Educational Philosophy. and Theory,” M.A. Peters (ed.) http://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_ 598-1. 10. http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Han/personswangmang.html. 11. Emperor Wang Mang: China’s First Socialist http://wwwsmithsonianmag.com/ history/emperor-wnag-mang-china’s-first-socialist--2402977. Liu Xiu Biography: Emperor Guangwu of Han (5B.C.–57A.D.) https://www. totally/history.com/liu-xiu.

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12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20.

21. 22.

23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

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“Emperor Guangwu of Han” https://www.newworldencyclopaedia.org/ entry/Emperor_Guangwu_of_Han. “Taixue, the National University,” ChinaKnowledge.de-An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History, Literature and Art. Jianmin Gu et al. Op. cit. p. 20. “The Highest Educational Institution in Ancient China,” http://en.ouchn.edu. cn/index.php/news-v2/academic/1539-the-highest-educational-institution-inancient-china. Jianmen Gu et al. Op. cit. p. 21. Taixue, The National University. Op. cit. Ibid. Jianmin Gu et al. Op. cit. p. 21. Ibid. pp.21–22. See also, Encyclopaedia on Chinese History, Literature and Art. New World Encyclopaedia, “Academies (Shuyan)” https://www.newworlde nclodedia.org/entry/Academies_(Shuyan)#. www.chinaknowledge.de/History?Terms?shuyan. “Shuyan:academies,” html Jianamin Gu. et al. Op. Cit. p. 22. Ibid., pp. 22–25. Pei Gao, Risen for Chaos: The development of modern education in China, 1905–1948, A thesis submitted to the Department of Economic History of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, March 2015. Jianamin Gu. et al. Op. cit. p. 27. Ibid. pp. 25–26.Hantian Wu and Qiang Zhou. “Chinese Higher Education, History of “M.A. Peters (ed.). History of Educational Philosophy and Theory, http://doi.org/10.1007/978-981287-532-7_598-d1; https://www.academia.edu. Jianamin Gu et al. Op. cit. p. 25. See also, Ying Zhou, “Was Educational Reform in China’s New Policies ‘genuine reform’? The critical role of political ideology (1901–1904)” Paedagogica Historica 57(3), 314–331. Jianmin Gu et al. Op. cit. p. 25. Ibid. p. 28. “The Warlord Era,” https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/warlord-era. Keay, F.E. Ancient Indian Education. London: Forgotten Books, 2018, pp. 12– 13. Ibid., p. 18. Ibid., pp. 19; 24. Ibid., pp. 26–27. Ibid., p. 29. Ibid., p. 31. Ibid., p. 42. Ibid., pp. 44–45.

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35. Ibid., pp. 23–24. 36. Ibid., p. 60; pp. 72–80. 37. Ibid. p. 49. For details of Taxila see R.K. Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education: Brahmanical and Buddhist, Delhi: Motilal Banarsi Dass. 2011, pp. 477–491; See also, A.S. Altekar, Education in Ancient India, Delhi: Isha Books, 2009, pp. 248–255. 38. “Indian Educational System: An Overview of the Ancient Indian Education,” https://content.inflibnet.ac.in. 39. Mookerji, R.K. op. cit. p. 319. See also, Keay, op. cit. p. 45. 40. Mookerji, R.K. pp. 246–248. See also Keay, op. cit. pp. 62–66. 41. Mookerji, R.K. pp. 230–233. See also, Keay, op. cit. pp. 42–43. 42. Altekar, A.S. Education in Ancient India, op.cit. pp. 234–235. 43. Keay. Op. cit. p. 43. 44. Ibid. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid., pp. 43–44. 47. Ibid., p. 44. 48. Ibid., p. 45. 49. Ibid., p. 95. 50. nalanda.nic.in. 51. Nalanda: Buddhist monastic centre, India, Britannica.com. See also R.K. Mookerji, op.cit. pp. 557–558. 52. Mookerji, R.K. Op. cit. p. 558. 53. Ibid., pp. 536–556. 54. Ibid., pp. 585–596. See also, Sukumar Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries: Their History and Their Contribution to Indian Culture, Delhi: Motilal Banarass. 2015, pp. 371–380. 55. Dutt, Sukumar. Op. cit. pp. 356–357; See also Keay, pp. 90–111; A.S. Altekar. Op. cit. pp. 260–282. 56. Keay, Op. cit. pp. 115–121; See also, historydiscussion.net. 57. Grover, B.L. A New Look at Modern History, Delhi: S. Chand Publishers, 2000. pp. 368–381. 58. Keay. Op. cit. pp. 123–128. 59. Ibid., pp. 128–129. 60. Ibid., pp. 136–137. 61. Ibid., p.137. 62. Sharma, Kavita A. “Education as a Constitutional Right,” Constitutional History of India: Federalism, Elections, Government and Rule of Law, Volume XIV Part 5B, D.P. Chattopadhyaya General Editor, Subhash Kashyap (ed.) New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2015; pp. 140–144. See also, Kavita A. Sharma. Sixty Years of University Grants Commission: Establishment, Growth, and Evaluation, New Delhi: University Grants Commission, 2013, pp. 3–12. N. Jayapalan, History of Education in India, Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 2008, pp. 51–73.

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R.N. Sharma, R.K. Sharma, History of Education in India, Delhi: Atlantic, 1996; 2021, pp. 126–133. 63. Sharma, Kavita A. Sixty Years of University Grants Commission, op. cit. pp. 3–6. See also, R.N. Sharma, R.K. Sharma, History of Education, op.cit. pp. 105– 114. 64. Sharma, Kavita A. Sixty Years of University Grants Commission, op.cit. pp. 6– 7. See also, R.N. Sharma, R.K. Sharma. op. cit. pp. 134–152. N. Jaypalan, op. cit. pp. 61–78. 65. Sharma, Kavita A. Sixty Years of University Grants Commission, op. cit. pp. 7– 11.

Chapter 2

Evolution of Higher Education Policy in China

The historical context and responses to it led to different kinds of policies being formulated by China and India. The fundamental response of China was that it would never again be so humiliated as it was after the Opium Wars, by the West. The determination was strengthened by its defeat by Japan, whom it had always considered its inferior. China resolved to beat the Western powers on their own turf by using their own tools. For this, it made education the bedrock of all policy formulation for its growth and development. Mainland China, unlike India, was never a colony. Parts of China were under Western control and later of Japan in the latter half of the 1900s, but it was not a colony the way India was. Also, one view is that for years the Mongols ruled over China, but they could not change the dominant Han culture. This accounts for the difference in response of China and India to the Western powers. The differences in history are reflected in the evolution of educational policy. These have been dealt with in two chapters individually on India and China. Mao was the most important figure from the early 1920s to his death in 1976. The rivalry between the Communist Party and the Nationalist Party, the GMD or the KMT played out in various fields including education which provided the arena for the recruitment of cadres. China was in a state of ferment after the defeat in the two Opium Wars (1839–1842) and (1856–1860). The unequal treaties imposed upon it by the victorious powers—England, France, Germany, and Russia—had left it angry, determined to avenge itself by becoming a leading power in the world. There was further humiliation when it was defeated by Japan in (1894–1895), an Asian country that China considered its inferior. This broke the prejudice against Western learning as China realized that Japan had already adopted it after the Meiji restoration (1868), and moved ahead. It made China determined to learn from the West whom it had earlier considered its cultural inferior, so that it too could have, “solid ships and effective guns.” The motto of the era was Chinese learning for fundamental principles, Western learning for use.1 Between 1901 and 1905, the Imperial government issued decrees to re-organize the entire education system into three tiers consisting of elementary, secondary, and tertiary on Western lines. The primary © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 K. A. Sharma, India and China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5628-9_2

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reference point, however, was Japan’s reformed education system. Despite the new system receiving approval in 1903, the obsession with exams, a practical manifestation of Confucian learning, continued till they were abolished in 1905, breaking the link between learning and bureaucratic power. They were later restored. Overseas studies were officially promoted, the primary destination being Japan. There was however, a counter-reaction to the abolition of Confucian learning, which had been abandoned in favour of Western learning. One section of the population wanted Confucian learning to be abolished, the other wanted it restored. The search for and dependence on foreign models before the experimentation settled down made internationalization an important strand in higher education in China and has been dealt with in a later chapter on internationalization of higher education. Hence, several strands of thought emerged in the first decade of the 20th century. One was that Western learning would bring wealth and power to China. Another was that classical learning and the examination system could be substituted by study abroad and foreign degrees leading to a dependence on foreign models. There was constant change as the society struggled to remodel its education system, but was not able to find a consensus on the course to take. Japan was abandoned in favour of the USA, but higher costs and greater difficulty of access limited it to far fewer numbers. Its influence however, overshadowed the others. The underlying theme was that China was poor because it had not industrialized and therefore sciences had to be developed together with learning to use foreign capital. Education became the key to modernizing China and bringing in wealth and power.2

2.1 Re-organization of the Education System in the 20th Century The constant state of flux affected the education system. When China followed Japan, it ignored the vital factor of stability.3 In 1912, it undertook a major re-organization of the education system to follow progressive ideas of modern education, especially in the USA. Schooling was reduced to 11 years from 14 years. The emphasis was on Western subjects requiring laboratory work and experimentation rather than the study of Chinese classics. However, not long after, the Chinese educators concluded that the previous German model, that they had earlier experimented with, was better. Before they could go back to it, World War I intervened. In 1922, the Chinese returning from USA exercised influence, forcing a reluctant Nationalist Government weakened by the warlords to pass a reform decree. The credit system was adapted from the American system at both the secondary and tertiary levels. During 1927–1928, the GMD acquiesced to experimenting with a system based on the French model. Accordingly, regional independent districts were put under university management, and the Education Ministry was replaced by the National University Council. But this experiment too was short lived like the others. There was an inherent contradiction in thinking. On the one hand the GMD wanted more nationalistic content and greater

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control over the system, and on the other was trying mechanical imitations based on foreign models. A new curriculum was developed in the 1930s, which abolished the American-style comprehensive secondary school and bifurcated the academic and vocational streams. The Education Ministry too was reinstated. In this welter of churning, Mao Zedong was being impacted and shaped. He had received formal education at the Normal School, a secondary school for teacher training in Changsha from 1913 to 1918. As a student activist he had been the Director of the night school from 1917 to 1918. In 1916, the Normal School had also inaugurated a Labour Association to accustom students and teachers to manual labour. Among other things, they did janitorial work and farming on campus. In 1920, Mao was appointed Principal of the elementary school attached to it, a position he held for three semesters. He was also made the Director of the school complex and concurrently, the highest education official in the provincial government. Mao followed the lead of his alma mater and brought about many changes in the elementary school.4 Society was in a ferment. An indication of the intellectual and political awakening was the student protest, on May 4, 1919, over the Shandong question by which the Treaty of Versailles ending the First World War approved the transfer of German interests in Shandong to Japan.5 Faith in hierarchical power to bring about change was shattered. Western science and democracy seemed to be the real agents of change, but democracy had its own failures and disillusionments. In 1923, the Chinese Association for the Promotion of Learning was formed as a movement towards mass education, especially of the peasantry.6 Several modes of accomplishing this as quickly as possible came into being, including a unique idea of the “Little teacher” movement. Little teacher was a person who had learnt only a few Chinese characters, which he taught to the others. Throughout the 1920s, and especially after 1927, those who had been educated abroad monopolized all the leading administrative and academic positions, including those in the Education Ministry, the Provincial Bureaus and in tertiary education. They were determined to fashion the education system according to their personal ideas depending on where they had been educated abroad. Each was convinced of the efficiency of his system and tried to impose that. Therefore, success in education was undermined by the educators themselves. The education system was blamed for the mismatch between its output and the needs of the economy. Many educated young people were left unemployed, while jobs could not be filled for lack of qualified people. The graduates being produced were completely alienated and detached from the masses because of their elitism. The Rockefeller foundation had invested close to USD 2 million between 1935 and 1941 to try and bridge the gap between modern intellectual expertise and the requirements of rural education. The missionary schools were found to be mediocre, as was the Peking Union Medical College that had received the bulk of the Rockefeller grant. Foreign degrees had become a passport to academic positions, with scant regard to the actual capabilities of the recipients. In addition, these people had lost touch with Chinese realities and found themselves unable to contribute even in fields in which they had been trained. The Rockefeller foundation now reflected on its support

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and stopped aiding the missionary schools and study abroad programmes. It shifted focus to enhancing the strengths of existing institutions and re-orienting education towards practical application especially in rural areas, where the need was greatest.7 The KMT, established in 1920 had asked the League of Nations to prepare a report on Chinese education to point out its deficiencies and recommend solutions. According to the Report, in 1931, half the tertiary institutions were private and the other half, that were state-owned, were geographically concentrated in Beijing and Shanghai. The rest were distributed haphazardly all over China. They all did the same kind of work without any division of labour between them.8 The majority students studied law and politics to the neglect of science and technology. But the policymakers firmly believed that China could become an advanced country only through modern science and technology. They perceived Europe and America to be the products of science and technology, not understanding that it was the countries themselves that had created science and technology. This lack of understanding made them give an autonomous role to science and technology and the mechanical use of foreign models. It led to many defects in the system, which the intellectuals could not correct because they themselves were its creators. Simultaneously, some traditions persisted like the emphasis on examinations based on the classical Confucian canon. China, therefore, entered the 20th century with an elite system, which was a complex mix of ancient traditions and multiple models all jostling for space.9 There was an incessant quest for finding the perfect foreign model that would be appropriate for China without the understanding that for the education system to flourish, reformation of the social and economic system too was required. Education alone could not be the panacea for all ills. Mere imitation of Western learning only created dependency on the west. The result was a volatile combination of dependence, insecurity, and resentment articulated by individuals and reflected in public policy. The contradiction persisted, because although Chinese intellectuals, accepted that the system needed to be reconstructed they could not agree on how it was to be done. By the 1930s, a consensus was building up that education had to reflect the contemporary condition and future aspirations of the Chinese society. The need was for technologically appropriate education, modern in form with content focused on China, together with being mass-based. A new curriculum was developed in the 1930s, which abolished the American-style comprehensive secondary school and bifurcated the academic and vocational streams. The Education Ministry too was reinstated. During the brief existence of the Jiangxi Soviet (1931–1934), a state within the state, which Mao established after the communists were purged by the Nationalist Government of Chiang Kaishek, the main preoccupation was with the agrarian revolution or land reform, and military survival. The immediate focus was to destroy the power of the classes to which most intellectuals belonged, but also still use them to build a system of mass education. The relevant points of discussion pertaining to the intellectuals were:

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(1) Intellectuals were not a separate classification: their social economic status depended on the class to which they belonged, and not their occupations. Therefore, intellectuals who came from landlord families were to be classed as landlords; but if they belonged to middle peasant families, they remained middle peasants. (2) As long as they obeyed the Jiangxi Soviet’s laws, all intellectuals from the landlord and capitalist families should be welcomed to work in its service in spite of their elite class. (3) When intellectuals worked as teachers, editors, journalists, office clerks, writers, artists, or in any other non-exploitative occupation, they were to be regarded as performing mental labour and be protected under Soviet law.10 After Mao’s demotion, when under the influence of Moscow, in 1934, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) shifted its precarious base from Shanghai to Jiangxi, a more radical resolution was passed in which the viewpoint of using landlords who were intellectuals was attacked. Some comrades did not understand the importance of the war efforts, while others felt that education could not be pursued in wartime conditions. Mao declared that this could not continue as because of it, the education department was unable to provide universal public schooling. He directed that a system of mass education be created and an antiliteracy movement for adults begun immediately. Social education needed to be developed. Schools for training teachers and cadres had to be established so that large numbers of workers and peasants could be trained to become educators. In this endeavour the service of even some bourgeois intellectuals and experts who were keen to serve the Jiangxi Soviet could also be used.11 A contradiction in this formulation is obvious. On the one hand, Mao understood that education was a prerequisite for the growth and development of China, and on the other hand, intellectuals were also to be the casualties of the revolution. The two obviously could not coexist. When Chiang Kaishek attacked the Jiangxi Soviet the fifth time, after being repulsed four times earlier through guerrilla tactics under the leadership of Mao who was its Chairman, it was overwhelmed because the new leadership chose to fight a conventional war for which it was ill-equipped. In the autumn of 1934, Mao broke away with his red army of 75,000–100,000, the precursor of PLA, and led the Long March from Jiangxi to Shanxi covering over 6000 miles. Only a few thousand survived. But for the GMD too, these years were a disaster as Yan’an became the capital of Shanxi–Gansu–Ningxia border region in early 1937 and remained as such till 1945. Many educational experiments were carried out here.12 The Communists were now confronted with too many illiterates and too few intellectuals. The educators did not want to do technical work. Social revolution could not even be thought of at this stage. Across-the-board education reforms were drawn up in the following year, with immediate focus on two issues. One was the new education system that had been introduced at the turn-of-the-century, the ongoing debates that it had provoked between tradition and modernity, between politicized amateurs and academic professionals, and between the locally educated and the

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foreign returned. The second pertained to Marxist teachings and the role of education in society. The Marxists advocated combining production with knowledge which Lenin had put into practice. Since the border regions were particularly vulnerable, the proposals of Marx and Lenin, had to be suitably adapted to local conditions. The aim was to find a kind of education system responsive to the people and not alien to them. Since life in the border regions was dominated by war, revolution, and the struggle for economic survival in an impoverished rural environment, the education imparted could not be divorced from those realities.13 The conventional system, however, had its own appeal for the educators, which its Yan’an critics could not escape. That system, they explained, was the product of peacetime, of city life, and a high stage of capitalist mechanized production, which was characterized by the influence of Europe, America, and Japan. There was a continuum of study from the first grade through to college, with every grade rigidly linked to the next. There was no room for a gap between them. Dozens of subjects were compulsory, and hundreds of optional technical courses were available. In the tumultuous border regions, it was impossible to implement the conventional system as one grade could not be linked to another. Hence, there could be no uniform standards. Many different forms would have to be used for both the masses and the cadres, including winter schools, half-day schools, night schools, literacy groups, the Little teacher method, apprentice systems, and others. Mass elementary schooling had to focus on home and village. Cadre schools might still be called middle schools, teacher training schools, universities, or training courses, but all needed to base their curricula on the armed struggle, border-region imperatives, construction, and production. Courses had to be designed to eliminate the aversion to technical work. Reform of higher education was even more complicated as it had to draw students from the pool of irregular schools that had grown around the need for short-term cadre training, both civilian and military. Consequently, when the rectification movement began as a political education drive, it was launched from the higher level cadre training schools of Yan’an, where the future leaders of the Communist movement were being produced in short order.14

2.2 Reforms of May 1944 The conflicting imperatives of mass education at the earliest, training of cadres, and access to higher education drawing upon irregular schooling had an inherent contradiction. The tussle was between an improvised informal system born out of political necessity and the more conventional regular system favoured by educators. Hence there was need for political rectification. However, once the movement progressed from political rectification to general reform, ironically it entailed once again, a movement towards regularization. Some of the cadre training schools had to be transformed into more conventional institutions, albeit based on the reform principles that were laid down in May 1944 in the Reform Plan of Yan’an.

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Yan’an had been created in 1941 as an amalgam of three other schools, and most of the individual institutes had also been merged with it as it re-organized into a comprehensive university. Its Reform Plan was a preliminary effort to adapt the new masterplan principles for use in regular institution of higher learning. The adaptation remained largely on paper, since Yan’an enjoyed very few years of regular existence after the 1944 re-organization. However, the 1944 regulations are an important record of the ideas that inspired the first official effort to reform higher education created by CCP leaders who would soon rule all of China. The overriding aim of the 1944 regulations was the practical application. Mao set the tone in his address at the opening ceremony of the newly re-organized Yan’an university. It was to be a university for the study of politics, economics, and culture, but it was important for the students to learn the application of these subjects to serve the border region. On-the-job practical training was to be part of each student’s study plan, along with productive labour, which was supposed to cultivate a knowledge of the habits and viewpoints of working people. Approximate ratios were fixed for on-campus study, off-campus practice, and productive labour. New teaching methods were to be developed based on three special characteristics: (1) the union of study and teaching with practical application; (2) independent study to be primary and instruction supplementary; and (3) the development of a democratic spirit. The university appeared to be designed as the regular equivalent of a military political training school and in spirit was a descendant of Mao’s old self-study university. The 1944 reforms made some positive contributions to China’s educational development. One was the general need to adapt schooling more closely to the demand for specific manpower needs. The minban or non-governmental schools established through local initiatives were accepted as necessary, although by themselves they could not promote universal education. The Marxist–Leninist principles implied that political will or direct government leadership was necessary to enforce collective support. Therefore, two lines got created; one of regular institutions and the other of mass education through irregular setups to hasten elementary education for the masses.15

2.3 Education System of the PRC When the People’s Republic of China (PRC), emerged in 1949, it was a poor country with a predominantly large rural and preponderantly illiterate population. The basic tasks were to provide elementary schools for all and higher learning for the elite few. Intermediate secondary schooling had to be established to the extent that the economy could afford, and society could accept. The new country looked towards the Soviet Union for inspiration and the latter became the authoritative reference point from 1949 up to the mid-1950s, replacing the Western models.16 Perhaps the most definitive influence on Mao was his revolutionary experience and the educational experiments of the Yan’an times, which became prototypes for later experiments. Mao was convinced that the Western

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system of education with well-equipped school buildings was not suitable for Chinese society. Nor was the traditional Chinese educational system, with its preoccupation with academic pursuits, sufficient to meet the needs of the day. He believed in an alternative scientific, national, and popular model needed to be developed. He turned towards the long tradition of informal learning outside the formal school channel. According to Mao, the national element had two facets: instil a feeling of pride and patriotism towards China and make the people vigilant against foreign oppression in its political and cultural manifestation. The inherent moralistic attributes of the people and the commitment to Marxist–Leninist ideas were emphasized. Political study, accordingly, was placed as the focal point of curricula development for all levels of schooling. While Mao cautioned against the uncritical absorption of Western knowledge, he simultaneously called for the adoption of whatever was useful in other cultures. Encouraging scientific education, Mao pointed to such education that opposed all feudal and superstitious ideas. It had to stand for seeking the truth. Within the ideological framework, education was tasked to provide the Chinese populace with skills required for rapid economic development. Hundreds and thousands of skilled workers, administrators, and specialists had to be trained. In June 1950, a conference was called for the re-organization of higher education, to produce a new type of intellectual from among workers and peasants.17 It was decided therefore that institutions of higher learning should lower their admissions standards for workers and peasants. The old idea that politics had to be separated from academics was abandoned. It was accepted that whatever be the subject, the two were inseparable. It was emphasized that higher education must be made to serve economic development for which the key lay in technology, rather than pure science. Curricula had to be revised accordingly. To ensure the enforcement of this new direction, leadership over higher education was unified and centralized under the Education Ministry, which was given the responsibility for determining policy, curricula, teaching materials and methods, as well as the appointments and dismissals of university leaders. The institutions themselves and the departments within them were re-organized nationwide, to fulfil their new mission. Intellectuals were sent for training to Soviet bloc countries, and Soviet textbooks were translated into Chinese. These decisions were made at the highest levels. The academic community was not asked, only told to comply. As many as 10,000 or more Soviet experts served in China during the 1950s. Of them, about 700 worked in higher education. More than 30,000 Chinese scientists and technicians, teachers, students, and workers went to the Soviet Union for study and training. Institutions of higher learning had to submit reports of their progress. Investigations of selected departments were conducted by faculty committees. They checked whether: • • • •

the stipulated political courses had been introduced; theory and practice were being coordinated; departments were offering courses in a rational and planned manner; and the new teaching-research groups were being formed.

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At the tertiary level, the teaching-research groups were at first unwelcome, but soon all teachers were organized into these groups according to the subjects and courses they taught. These were essentially basic units for the collective course preparation, teacher training, and mutual supervision. The more experienced were supposed to mentor the younger members into the practical aspects of the profession. The group members prepared course outlines and lecture notes together as a team, dividing up the work in different ways. They also attended one another’s classes as a basis for group evaluation. The government strictly enforced the Soviet model. While it went through continual readjustment, three factors remained constant: 1. Mass education—all children get free schooling; four years in the countryside and seven in the cities. 2. Adult education on a similar pattern. 3. Reform the intellectuals. This was not easy because most of them were not sympathetic to the revolution. They regarded the Western capitalist way as more progressive than the Marxist, and that the proletariat was incapable of grasping culture. The reform was not immediately implemented because of hostilities in Korea in June 1950. Chinese troops came to the aid of its North Korean allies in October. Domestic tensions escalated. In December, the US government halted the remission of all funds to China. The Chinese responded by freezing American assets. Financial supply lines for American-funded institutions on the Chinese mainland were cut. All foreign subsidized and foreign-operated cultural, educational, relief, and religious institutions were required to register. All institutions receiving American subsidies were nationalized or transferred to private control. The two most prestigious American-funded educational institutions, Yanjing or Yenching University and the Beijing Union Medical College, became targets of criticism.18 College students and faculty were taken to the countryside to be taught firsthand about social revolution by observing land reform or the expropriation and redistribution of agricultural land. At the start of the academic year in September 1951, a more systematic thought reform campaign was launched as the tertiary sector mobilized its forces to resist. The First General Reform Plan for the education system was announced in October 1951, and restructuring at the tertiary level was intensified. The campaign, was known as the “three anti campaign”—anticorruption, antiwaste, and antibureaucratization. University administrators were targeted since most institutions of higher learning were public and by early 1952, the campaign combined with the thought reform study movement reached a crescendo of criticism against the bourgeois ideology.19 The Thought Reform Campaign began in September 1951, with a four-month study programme for the university personnel of Beijing and Tianjin.20 It was then extended nationwide for educators at all levels, although the activity remained concentrated on higher education. The campaign was directed from the centre by the government’s Culture and Education Commission and the CCP’s Propaganda Department. The work was coordinated in all major cities by the local government

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education bureaus. Regional study committees provided direct guidance and coordination with the Centre. Prominent intellectuals were named to head most major universities. They were directed to lead the branch committees and to use themselves as models for study and reform. At the grassroots level, all faculty members were organized into small mutual-aid study groups. A core curriculum of prescribed reports and documents had to be mastered to serve as the basis for small group exercises. In this way, everyone was supposed to master the art of criticism and self-criticism. Five stages of study were proposed: (1) The study of premier Zhou Enlai’s five-hour keynote address, which launched the campaign on 29 September 1951 in which he introduced seven topics necessary for the thought reform of the intellectuals: their standpoint; attitudes; whom they should serve; problems of thought; problems of knowledge; democracy; and the practice of personal self-criticism. (2) Peng Zhen’s report on three major movements, then underway: land reform, resist America, and support Korea. (3) Suppression of political opponents, or counter-revolutionaries. The Study materials for the third stage comprised Hu Qiaomu’s history of the CCP and an essay by the political theorist Chen Boda on Mao Zedong’s theories, combining Marxism–Leninism with the realities of the Chinese revolution. (4) Study of Vice Premier Li Fuchun’s report on economic development and cadre training considered to establish among university and research personnel the idea that their work should serve the needs of economic development and national defence. (5) Tackling ideological problems or resistance to the new plans introduced in the mid- 1950s for re-organizing faculties and departments, revising curricula, and reforming teaching methods. It entailed summaries of personal ideological problems revealed during the study sessions; examination of work done; and the preparation of concrete measures for implementing the proposed reforms in higher education. In his keynote address, Zhou Enlai issued a direct, although polite warning to intellectuals that indefinite passive accommodation with the new order would not be enough. There could be no middle ground. The Deputy Minister of Education was more blunt; he admonished the great majority of college teachers for their dismal progress since 1949. They were thus obstructing reform of higher education without which institutions would not be able to serve the nation. In practical terms, he said, over 200,000 people had to be trained for implementing the country’s ambitious new economic development plans. Qualified people were needed especially in industry, agriculture, communications, transport, and medicine, and tertiary education had to be modified to serve these needs. Three incorrect viewpoints and work styles among college teachers were identified: (1) Strong Anglo-American bias; (2) High motivation among intellectuals to work only for self-interest which included their security, wealth, and prestige; and

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(3) The dogmatic attitude of college teachers, which was divorced from reality. Thereafter, China’s best-known academics from its leading universities came forward in succession voluntarily or because of social pressures or coercion, with statements of criticism and self-criticism.21 Such direct personal confrontation was a new and unpleasant experience for academics, but it would become a routine feature of their lives in later years of struggle as discipline was enforced throughout the cultural revolution decade. In November 1951, a National Conference on Higher Technical Education finalized plans for the re-organization of all institutions of learning.22 The themes on the reform agenda were familiar: an unbalanced geographic distribution, with institutions of higher learning, concentrated in the largest cities, specially of north and east of China; inefficient teacher–student ratios; insufficient emphasis on technology education, with only a few students in many important specialities such as geology, mining, water conservation, and civil engineering; high unemployment among graduates due to the isolation of their training from the actual needs of the economy. In 1952, the unified national entrance examination was re-introduced in which all candidates appeared on the same days, at the same time, and in the same sequence.23 Examination scores were then used to allocate all first-year students in accordance with the unified enrolment plans—coordinated and carefully balanced between the national and regional levels, which stipulated the number of students to be enrolled from each region into each institution and speciality. Beginning in 1952–1953, free room, board, and healthcare were added to the benefits of tuition- free education. But these socialist measures were insufficient to eliminate frustrations generated by the new enrolment procedures that created a hiatus between the personal desires of students and the enrolment plans designed to meet national needs.24 In the same academic year, all institutions were divided into tertiary institutions of three types: comprehensive universities, combining science and humanities; polytechnics, with several applied science faculties in a single institution; and specialized colleges, each with a single faculty. Merger of institutions became the order of the day causing a fair amount of hardship to faculty and students. The restructuring was designed to dovetail with the First Five Year Plan, which began in 1953.25 The proliferation of specialized colleges assumed that narrow specialization provided the most efficient training. Academic specialities were redesigned more narrowly than majors under the old system to prepare students more quickly for specific kinds of work as dictated by the economic plan and to create a more rational geographic distribution of academic resources. At least one college each of medicine, agriculture, and teacher training was established in every province. The new style comprehensive universities were more or less evenly distributed around the country, with only one each in Beijing and Shanghai. All remaining private institutions were taken over by the State. The new system was designed not only to emphasize technical education, but to also elevate it to a status equal to other fields as in the old system, the liberal arts and sciences universities had enjoyed a superior status as compared to colleges

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and technical institutes. The whole system was restructured according to that of the Soviet Union in all its aspects—curricula, enrolment, job assignment to students after graduation. The latter was done in accordance with the economic plan. This was to prevent joblessness after graduation although often it led to a mismatch between the qualification of the student and the job assigned despite enrolment having been done according to jobs available.26 While the new system was said to be daily increasing the opportunity for workerpeasant youth to enter college, it was also realized that students who were admitted into higher education after the admission criteria had been lowered, could not keep up with the course work. It was then stipulated that only those workers and peasants should be enrolled who had attained the required scores in the entrance examinations for the departments and majors to which they were applying. The issue was the old tussle between regular education and informal schooling. If the students of the latter were to be given college education, these institutions would have to prepare them through college preparatory classes. Only then could the numbers of qualified worker peasants be increased at the tertiary level.27 Order and discipline also assumed prominence. Suddenly, the political and social concerns that had fuelled academic life both on- and off-campus after 1949, belonged to another era. Institutions of higher learning now all agreed that teachers must concentrate on teaching and research. It was accepted that the new Communist Party organizations established within the universities had tended to overstep the bounds of their authority by confusing political leadership with administration. Professional university administrators had to be respected, even when they were not party members and allowed to do their work unhindered.28 The most popular subjects in 1953 were mechanical and radio engineering, telecommunications, and medicine. The fields that did not receive enough voluntary applications to fill the available vacancies included geology, mining, civil and military engineering, teacher training, mathematics, finance, economics, politics, law, and physical education.29 Most candidates applied to the regular four-year courses rather than the two-year post-secondary programmes. The best-known institutions in the largest cities were flooded with applications, while the newly established schools elsewhere had difficulty filling their enrolment quarters. More than publicity and counselling, the new system depended on central enforcement to obtain the results necessary for the Soviet-style planned economic development. During the 1953–1954 academic year, the Ministry of Higher Education convened a series of conferences.30 The one on Technical Education acknowledged that during the previous three years, there had been blind preoccupation with quantity over quality. Also, the new tendency to emulate contemporary Soviet standards, all at once, was a serious error. The teaching loads were too heavy, teaching materials, excessive, and students were unable to absorb what they were being taught. New guidelines emerged requiring gradual adoption of the Soviet model to reach Soviet standards. Curriculum developers were required to address the issue of the kind of technicians needed for China, keeping in mind the actual conditions and the prevailing scientific and technological levels. Quality could only be achieved by recognizing China had different demands and different paces of advancement.

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Another conference for Comprehensive Universities revealed an excessive shift towards technical education.31 Suddenly, everyone wanted to train engineers. The importance of comprehensive universities had been underestimated; and the little concern shown for their historical strengths had left them weakened and their work impaired. Good students were reluctant to enter the comprehensive universities, especially because first-year enrolment targets were often met by persuading candidates to accept disciplines they did not want. Faculty members at comprehensive universities were similarly demoralized. Many were unwilling to accept the assignments because they felt these institutions had no important role to play in the new, unanimously accepted work of rebuilding the country. Work was continued to revise and develop curricula in the Soviet manner but more appropriately tailored to China’s needs. Standardization and uniformity were idealized as the essence of modern education. All institutions were forced to adopt uniform teaching plans and syllabi, because, as it was explained, only through such a planned system would it be possible to produce the required numbers of people trained to the specifications of each grade and level in all the specialities. The Ministry of Higher Education coordinated the actual work of developing teaching plans and materials, with the help of Soviet advisers and leading Chinese academics, together with representatives of the relevant government departments. Once course outlines and syllabi were authorized, they were treated as sacrosanct and enforced like the law.32 The 1954–1955 academic year marked the high point of China’s attempt to adapt itself to the Soviet education model, but once quality became the official goal, Chinese educational decision-makers moved back to old familiar ways.33 This exacerbated the contradictions within the education system of the need for talent, and the new revolutionary regimen. Gradually the shift became visible. The Soviet experience was to be used in its spirit and essence and not copied mechanically. The question was how to guarantee quality within the local environment. Emphasis on education paid dividends. The first-year enrolment increased by leaps and bounds although the drop-out rate increased as well. To teach all the new students, about 20,000 new faculty members were hired in 1954 taking the tertiary level teaching force to 38,000.34 Over half that number, however, were only teaching assistants, especially in the engineering faculties. Several important decisions were made, including: • Observing stricter college enrolment standards. • Suspending most post-secondary courses so that the demand for higher education could be managed. • Extending the regular college programmes from 4 to 5 years and • Abolishing the worker-peasant short-course middle schools. Entrance requirements were strengthened, while academic standards were not compromised. Training intermediate level technicians was transferred to the specialized secondary schools. Beginning with polytechnics and comprehensive universities, coursework was extended to five years as accommodating Soviet curricular requirements needed time.

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By the mid-1950s the mechanical copying phase peaked, and a Sino-Soviet compromise emerged.35 The college entrance examinations merged the Sovietstyle economic and personnel planning with the old Chinese selection procedure of examinations to create a new unified enrolment and job assignment mechanism, far more rigid than the Soviet counterpart. The Chinese educators accepted the nationally unified teaching plans and teaching together with the research groups as their own. Inevitably, the CCP’s demand for worker-peasant college enrolments was compromised. The quality versus quantity rationale was used to curtail growth and concentrate resources on the key centres of strength. By 1955–1956, specialized education was drawn into the sphere of the State Plan, and students were trained to meet the specific needs of the planned economy. Schools were placed under the jurisdiction of 29 ministries and departments of the central government and offered some 200 specialities.36 Teaching outlines for most of the subjects had been completed under the leadership of the various Central ministries. Intermediate technical training was streamlined and standardized at the senior secondary level. To ensure student quality, admission requirements were upgraded in 1955. By the end of the first five year plan in 1957, Chinese leaders had to acknowledge that Soviet-style industrialization did not match Chinese realities.37 In 1957, Mao initiated the Hundred Flowers Campaign in which the intellectuals were asked to air their views on the Party and the development of the country. There was an outpouring of criticism which may have taken Mao by surprise. He stopped the Campaign, and the critical intellectuals were labelled as rightists and hence enemies of the people. They were accordingly persecuted. The antagonism against intellectuals continued for several years.38

2.3.1 Mao’s Great Leap Forward In 1958, Mao launched the Second Five Year Plan and incorporated the Great Leap Forward.39 He again placed his faith in the peasants, unfettered by intellectuals and technocrats who were now effectively silenced. Collectivization, pooling of land and resources, begun during the first-five year-plan was seen as the more efficient mode of agriculture than individual farming. The goal was to abolish private ownership. Peasants who resisted were severely punished. While by 1958, imitation of the current Soviet model was showing signs of withdrawal, Mao now harked back to the Soviet model of 1928 although it had led to starvation deaths of 6 to 8 million people. He felt that China was at the similar stage of development. Those who opposed the model were branded as rightists. Their careers were ruined; they were declared to be social pariahs, and many were exiled to labour camps or driven to suicide.40 Bottlenecks in the economy began to appear during the First Five Year Plan. Further radicalization was imposed during the Second Five Year plan with the formation of large communes, each consisting of five- to five-and-a-half thousand families. Each commune was to be self-sufficient in agriculture, industry, governance, education, and healthcare. Everyone was guaranteed a fixed income irrespective of the

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individual’s labour contribution. Community kitchens fed the peasants; children were looked after by the commune; and the old people were sent to recreation centres.41 The idea was to develop agriculture and industry in parallel.42 Farmers were required to divert their energies equally towards both. Placing steel as the most important product for industrial development, farmers had to produce steel in their backyards by setting up furnaces. At least 10% of the country’s forest reserves were lost because wood was required for the furnaces. The ore was not mined. The farmers made tools, implements, and household goods by collecting scrap, while children scoured the countryside for discarded nails. Because the peasants had no expertise, they produced worthless lumps of pig iron. At the same time, they faced unrealistic demands to produce more grain as more industrial workers in urban areas had to be fed. No one spoke up for fear of reprisals. False figures of both production and procurement were given to the government. The effort to secure the maximum farm produce led to large-scale famine exacerbated by the severe flood of the Yellow River in July 1958. Thousands died, and over half a million acres of cultivated fields were inundated. Ironically, the government exported grain between 1958 and 1960 due to inflated figures reported to it, although production had fallen by at least 30 percent. People died in droves because of drastic shortage of food. A state of emergency was declared in around July 1959.43 The entire population was enlisted to save the harvest, including workers and students who went to the countryside to help. The remaining agricultural work-study schools became convenient labour pools. All forms of educational activity virtually ceased and so the attempt to develop an expert working class of intellectuals had to be abandoned. Since economic considerations were paramount at this point, there should have been close coordination between the educational policies and economic planning. This, however, did not happen. Mechanization was primitive, the economic production output was inadequate, and therefore the resources available for educational development were limited. Large number of schools had been set up, but simultaneously, numerous irrigation and industrial projects too had been initiated. This had placed a severe strain on available resources. By March 1959, the work-study schools had to be closed down or amalgamated into regular schools. In July and August 1959, a party summit, the Lushan conference, was organized. Peng Dehuoi, the defence minister and long-time associate of Mao, privately gave him a hand-written letter apprising him of the real situation. Mao interpreted this as a personal attack and Peng was dismissed. Although Mao himself had stepped down as Chairman of the PRC on April 27, 1959, he remained Chairman of the Communist Party. The more moderate new PRC Chairman, Liu Shaoqi and the reformist Deng Xiaoping, the CCP General Secretary were left in charge to bring about an economic recovery. Mao’s Great Leap Forward policies were openly criticized. There was a growing sense of dissatisfaction with low academic standards in regular schools, which were exacerbated by the preoccupation with production priorities. The widening Sino-Soviet split eventually culminated in the withdrawal of over 10,000 Soviet technical personnel in 1960. This added more chaos to the floundering economy and further convinced the leaders that it was urgent to train their experts.

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The Central Government became more concerned with increased expertise rather than ideological commitment although the latter was not abandoned. The Great Leap Forward had faltered. In 1965–66, 30% of the children, mostly in the rural areas, were not even covered by primary education. The bleak scenario could only be rectified by increasing the number of schools in the rural areas and inducting peasants and workers into the existing educational system. By 1962, it was clear that the party had moved away from the extremist ideology of the Great Leap Forward. Number of conferences were held, and many deposed comrades who had criticized Mao were rehabilitated. The most prominent conference was the Seven Thousand Cadre Conference in February 1962, in which Mao undertook self-criticism and reaffirmed his faith in democratic centralism. Till around 1966, he took a backseat in the matters of the government.44 Retrenchment had to take place in 1963 because of the lack of resources. The Ministry of Education issued, “The decision on unifying management in the higher education system,” in which the Central Ministry took full responsibility for preparing nationalized standardizing textbooks, teaching plans for each specialization, and teaching outlines for each course. These materials were prepared by the Ministry with the help of academic subject committees whose members were often professors at prestigious universities. Each specialization had several teaching and research groups responsible for researching methods to transmit knowledge as efficiently as possible. Teaching plans for each specialization, contained four focal points: purpose, time management, course structure, and teaching environment. The Communist Party aligned education to the tenets of the Party with firm adherence to policy and wide dissemination of technical knowledge, to ensure that all aspects of education were directly focused on economic development. The basic structural change in education was its firm coupling with the participation in labour. This became a formal course requirement. Student activities ranged from tending vegetable gardens and schoolyards to working in neighbourhood factories or communes. The purpose was both economic and educational, allowing the students to test through application the theoretical knowledge they had garnered in the classroom. It also provided them an opportunity to associate closely with the working class and overcome the traditional disdain of manual labour. The academic community was not however, convinced of these policies. Some felt that this made a mockery of school education and the increase of hours spent in manual labour was excessive. Hearing that peasants had set up their own universities in the countryside the academic community ridiculed the idea because without qualified professors and students who had graduated from senior middle schools there could be no university.45 In 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution essentially to consolidate his position. In education, it had three objectives46 : (1) Raise the political consciousness of the students by ensuring intense ideological content.

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(2) Integrate into the educational process so that education was more responsive to the immediate production needs of the country. This was not a new idea. What was new was how the two were to be linked. (3) Popularize education, especially in the rural areas. In effect, economic development had to be combined with a true social revolution in which even the most culturally deprived elements would no longer be subordinate to or dependent on an elite technocracy. Mao made it clear that the purpose of all work and school was to change the thinking of the student. The educational objective was part of a massive effort to revitalize the commitment of the country to a socialist transformation of society. Educational reforms were basically implemented through a decentralized process, by placing more schools under local management. Each school had its own Revolution in Education Committee, responsible for implementing the reforms and for being a part of the planning process within the institution. Local experimentation within the general framework of the new educational policies was encouraged. To elevate the political consciousness of the students, the curriculum was heavily stocked with political education courses; the major texts being drawn from Mao’s works. Other courses also drew on Mao’s thoughts to explain various approaches to the analysis of whatever phenomena were involved. Simultaneously, revolutionary mass criticism and class struggles were actively promoted to bring into sharp relief the various contradictions in society. Theory was linked to practice as students worked in the fields and learnt from peasants in the rural areas. They cleared marginal lands, helped in planting and harvesting, and worked on water conservation projects and irrigation systems. Research was directed towards methods to increase crop yield and mechanize the local production units. In the urban sector, secondary and higher learning institutions were required to set up local factories within the schools to train students in practical work and engage them in significant production work. Factories and schools established ties with each other and tried to research the immediate application of theoretical learning. Veteran workers were often brought to the schools to teach in certain areas. Some factories even established schools of their own, although this faded out quite quickly.47 Prior to the Cultural Revolution, peasants and workers had found it difficult to attend schools. They had been unable to surmount the hurdles of standards required in entrance examinations for colleges and universities, the high costs, inaccessibility because more schools were in the cities, class schedules conflicting with local production timetables, and because the courses offered were not of direct and immediate relevance. Many of the reforms of the Cultural Revolution were specifically focused on erasing such barriers. Entrance exams were abolished in 1965. Educational standards were lowered to enable large-scale recruitment of peasants and workers into the existing educational system, and specially into institutions of higher learning. Educational expenses were lowered. Basic education was changed from a 6–3–3 years framework to one of 5–2–2 years. Higher education also was reduced from 4–5 years to 2–3 years. Popularly sponsored schools were promoted in the rural areas, limited

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basically to the primary school level, adapting curriculum and schedules to local requirements, and simplifying teaching materials. These drastic educational reforms had some negative fallouts. Values of collaboration, diligence, modesty, and respect for elders and teachers were discarded to purge the old cultures and traditions. Due to the political struggle and the line drawn between working classes and intellectuals, and because of the political and violent nature of the social revolution, several innocent teachers and professionals were subjected to personal attacks and humiliation. Some were even executed. Many strategies of the reformed curriculum and examination system proved to be misguided and resulted in the waste of several years for the students. While the Cultural Revolution made people realize the existing inequality in both education and society, the political control it imposed did not provide the opportunities for developing any real independent and critical thinking. Tensions within the education sector came out into the open in 1975. These were related to plans to step up industrial modernization. Import of advanced technology had begun again in 1971, because in some fields, self-reliance was making China more dependent than independent. In 1975, plans were announced to make China a world economic force by the year 2000. To achieve this the maxim of Four Organizations or focus on four fields was adopted. These were agriculture, industry, national defence, and science and technology. Many of the ideas propagated during the Cultural Revolution were reversed. Higher levels of academic work and greater professionalism were emphasized. Less work-study with more discipline in the classroom was enforced. The mediocre standard of higher education became a cause for concern. In September 1975, a new counter-campaign demanded carrying forward the revolution in education to the end. These were the last embers of the Cultural Revolution. The Minister of Education, Zhou Rongxin, was attacked at a meeting on April 13, 1976, where he collapsed and died. He had denounced Deng Xiaoping who had been sent to the countryside for rural reconstruction work as he was out of favour with Mao. Deng was accused of belittling the workers’ universities and for claiming that practical work was over-estimated and academic work undervalued. He was also accused of predicting that student anarchy would lead to social problems. Momentous events now took place in that eventful year. On January 8, 1976, premier Zhou Enlai died, and an estimate of 1 million mourners visited the Tiananmen Square on April 5, the day of the annual festival for mourning and honouring the dead, to place wreaths, portraits and poems on the monument of the martyrs in his honour. This extraordinary display of affection for Zhou was seen as a political demonstration in support of his policies, and the militia was sent in to disperse the crowds. Deng was stripped of his official positions in the same month, although he was permitted to retain his Party membership. In July 1976, a massive earthquake destroyed the major coal town of Tangshan, east of Beijing, killing 242,000 people and seriously injuring 164,000. Mao was on his deathbed. From there he made a last play for his revolutionary ideas, urging the Chinese people to act according to the principles he had laid down. He died on September 9, 1976. A year later, Deng Xiaoping was reinstated. Finally, the Cultural Revolution ended.

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2.4 A New Order Hua Guo-feng, considered a virtual non-entity, was chosen to succeed Zhou Enlai as Prime Minister in January 1976. He became the CCP general secretary in September 1976. In August 1977, he delivered the political report at the 11th National Conference of the Communist Party in which he listed the future tasks. He called for rapid quantitative and qualitative expansion of education and reliance on technical cadres, professors, teachers, scientists, and other specialists. For some time, he occupied centre stage, but he was soon eclipsed by Deng. He was replaced by Zhao Ziyang as Prime Minister in 1980, and by Hu Yaobang as CCP general secretary in 1981. Both were Deng’s protégés.48 After the 11th Party Congress the State Council took several important decisions on science and education. The most important ones were: • Set up a State Scientific and Technological Commission. • Reshuffle and strengthen universities and colleges. • Incorporate administrative changes in universities and research institutes, including the introduction of the system of directors assuming responsibility under the leadership of the party committees. • Work out new programmes for the development of science and technology. • Hold national conferences on science and education. • Revive the old Scientific and Technological Association. • Introduce a new university enrolment system. • Compile textbooks for the whole country. • Strive to learn from foreign countries. • Grant five-sixths of the work time of scientific and technical personnel for professional work rather than making them expend it on manual labour. • Allocate a greater proportion of the state budget for science and education; and • Give higher subsidy to science and education. After 1976, the men and women who had been persecuted during the Cultural Revolution were rehabilitated.49 The post-Mao administration restored College Entrance examinations. The first examination took place in December 1977.50 Thereafter, the examinations were held in July and unified on a national basis, as was the norm before the Cultural Revolution. Initially, the test papers were drawn up by the provinces themselves. In 1978 they were standardized and students across China received the question papers simultaneously. The candidates were selected according to merit without considering their family or political background. Overall, the papers were poorly answered and the pass percentage was only 50. Some bonus points, however, were given to red students; young men and women who had been active in youth movements or who had specific talents. Some bonus points were also given to those excelling in sport and other activities. Science and engineering graduates who had qualified during the Cultural Revolution were re-examined. The selection of postgraduate students was based on

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internal testing. Academic staff seeking opportunities to study overseas had to take examinations. In 1977 and 1978 the system made efforts to revitalize and strengthen the Chinese Academy of Sciences to promote research and development. It was re-organized to include departments of philosophy and social sciences. The new academy embraced 18 research institutes in as many subjects, although education as a subject was excluded. In 1977, the Ministry of Education compiled uniform textbooks and revised teaching material for all subjects, including social sciences, arts, science, and engineering. The goal was to unify the curricula and teaching plans for all HEIs.51 Clearer directions for education were given in March 1978 at the National Conference convened by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Deng Xiaoping addressed China’s top scientists and administrators where he emphasized that the Four Organizations referred to earlier, agriculture, industry, defence, and science and technology, depended on the mastery of science and technology. Education and the modernization of science and technology were vital. The aim of the Party was to draw up plans, commend advanced units and individuals, to study ways and means to speed up the development of science and technology. Scientists must be considered as part of the proletariat being a productive force. The priority areas were agriculture, high energy physics, and genetic engineering for which a vast contingent of scientific and technical personnel had to be built up who were both red and expert. Directors of research institutes needed to take charge of their institutions under the leadership of Party committees. Institutions of higher education were authorized to make their own decisions, on condition that they do not increase the state expenditure. They had to use their personal income to ensure welfare of teachers and students, and to acquire additional equipment for teaching and scientific research. Deng went on to make significant points to the Fifth National Education Work Conference in April 1978 in which 6000 delegates approved a target of eight years schooling in rural areas and 10 in cities and adopted draft regulations for managing primary, middle, and higher education. Deng stressed the need for quality, order and discipline, education, and economic development. Regarding the status of teachers, only those who did outstanding work needed to be selected for higher education. He cautioned against excessive focus on politics and exhorted teachers to improve their qualifications. The best of them could study abroad and more overseas educators could be brought to China. Joint research projects could be undertaken with foreigners.52 In February 1979, the sixth meeting of the Standing Committee of the Fifth National People’s Conference took place in which many pre-Cultural Revolution policies were revived. The new leadership of China under Deng embarked on a new educational strategy that included: • Substantially increase in the number of university students, particularly those specializing in science, technology, and engineering. • Raise standards of admission and curriculum. • Rapidly expand postgraduate and specialist training. • Reopen the examination system to select academically qualified students.

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• Reopen special key point and experimental schools to train outstanding students and serve as models for educational innovation. • Permit select students to proceed directly from high school to university without an intervening period of manual work. • Raise the status and authority of teachers, researchers, and intellectuals. • Strengthen discipline in schools, increasing study time; and • Reduce the amount of time students spend on political activity and productive labour. Another important component of Deng’s agenda was to obtain a better financial deal for teachers. Better wages and a higher sense of esteem was the need of the hour. Deng also encouraged more and more Chinese students to go abroad for higher studies, especially in science and technology, and simultaneously facilitated the visit of foreign scholars to China. The previous academic policy of closed-door was replaced by open-door to bridge the gap between China’s level of science and technology and the world standard.53 The CCP Central Committee decided to set up the State Commission of Science and Technology to take charge of the overall planning, coordination, organization, and administration of the entire scientific and technological work. Leading bodies of many scientific research institutions and many universities and colleges were reshuffled and strengthened.54 Some scientific research institutes were restored, and the National Scientific and Technological Association resumed its activities. Titles for technical personnel were revived to encourage improvement in professional skill. New five year science and technology courses were introduced in the universities. Manual labour was de-emphasized, and the scientific and technical personnel were allowed to focus on their professional work. Special classes for bright students at the University of Science and Technology of China were to continue through 1978. Popularization of science was emphasized, and the Central Committee of the party decided to increase the allocation for science and education in the State budget. China’s need for technological personnel was great and the supply very short. Therefore, the syllabi and teaching material were geared to serve the cause of developing modern science and technology, and teaching equipment and media were gradually modernized. From October 1977 to November 1980, education was permeated by a mood of pragmatism and liberalism. Liberalism in the Chinese context is not what it means in the West, where it means to relax both the academic and personal restraints on teachers and students and allow them to realize their full potential. The needs of the economy were paramount considering the prevailing conditions. In China, liberalism only meant the curtailment of political and ideological lectures. In effect, “red” was de-emphasized, and “expert” was underlined. Thus, education and science and technology were considerably de-ideologized. The aim was to utilize all available resources to produce immediate results.55 Recognizing the advantages of enhancing international academic exchanges, the endeavour was to learn from the best in the world, especially in science and technology, while adhering to the principle of independence and self-reliance.56 In 1979,

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over 140 foreign professors, specialists, and teachers were invited to deliver lectures in Shanghai in institutes of higher learning in the highly specialized fields of computer programming, automation, lasers, microwave technology, and biotechnology. Many samples of Japanese textbooks were ordered, especially in engineering and science for all grades, from primary school to university. Books that had been banned earlier reappeared in the Beijing library as part of the growth of liberalism. Education conformed to the needs and capabilities of the country’s economic development and was pursued in a planned and proportionate way. To ensure effective implementation, material incentive to teachers as bonus and incentives to students were introduced. The internationalization of higher education has been discussed in greater detail later.

2.5 The Law on Education In 1985 an effort was made to consolidate and rationalize the plethora of promulgations, rules, and decrees on education. To that end, a draft law on education was prepared. Apart from streamlining the laws pertaining to education, the aim was to rejuvenate the higher education system (HES) by giving it more operational freedom. The universities and colleges, it was felt had lost their initiative due to the rigid administration of the Ministry of Education. If education was to serve as a tool for the modernization of China, they needed to keep abreast of the trends of development in the world and be dynamic for which they needed greater freedom than had been allowed to them. In March 1991, the Fourth Session of the Seventh National People’s Congress (NPC) approved the State Council’s Report which had “The Ten-Year Layout Plan for National Economy and Social Development and Eighth Five Year Plan.” The law of 1985 was cited as a means of realigning education with the new economic directions. Between 1985 and 1995, different aspects of the law were experimented with and the data was evaluated to work out the details. In 1995, the draft law was sent to more than 500 units and individuals in higher education as also to legal entities for their comments. The final draft of the law was submitted to the Standing Committee on Education of the National People’s Congress in 1997, and it was finally passed for implementation in 1998.57 The spirit behind the law was to only enunciate the general principles, leaving room for further revision. This law was to be the foundation on which to build the education policy of the country. As has been already mentioned, one of the basic goals was to decentralize the control and management of education at all levels and to move away from the dominance of the Central authorities. The decentralization brought about some positive changes. The nine years compulsory education system was accelerated with the objective of reaching a hundred per cent by 2000. This was later amended to 85%. In trying to make education accessible to all, exercise books were provided and girlsonly classes were established wherever required. The principals were granted greater autonomy for decision-making, and alternative systems of bilingual education were

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promoted. New policies were implemented to increase autonomy within the existing HE system, develop occupational education, and improve the quality of educators. But there were some unforeseen consequences of decentralization. The Central government’s financial capacity declined because the amount of tax that came to its share lessened. Consequently, the Centre could not afford the promised free basic education, especially in poor areas. As a result, schools became highly dependent on the local economy for a large portion of teachers’ salaries, capital construction, and other non-recurrent expenditure. Regional disparity increased because while the more prosperous regions were able to fund good basic education, the poor areas, including many minority regions, were unable to build and maintain schools. Even providing salaries and equipment was difficult for them. The decline of the State financial power also had a very negative effect on HE, because professional educators and researchers shifted their focus to profit-making to improve their incomes. About 60% of all tertiary educators had more than one source of income. To some extent, this was encouraged by the government as well. Commercial activities became prevalent for educators and in educational institutions. Schools set up income-generating businesses such as car repair sites, factories, shops, and orchards, to ensure that teachers’ salaries were paid. The law not only aimed to establish more educational institutions, but also to encourage the proliferation of universities and colleges run by different ministries, departments, private individuals, and to extend the government’s investment in higher education.58 The objective was to develop a new system in which the Central government would maintain macro control while the provincial and local governments would do the actual management of the institutions. Greater decision-making powers were given to colleges and universities. They were accorded a legal status and their presidents were appointed their legal representatives. The President of the University oversaw student admissions, enabling reform of specialities, teaching programmes, scientific research, foreign exchanges, personnel and management, and generating and allocating funds. The institutes formally recognized the importance of research and placed it on an equal footing with teaching. They admitted intellectuals to the category of working class as research work was seen as legitimately equal to physical work. They were thus somewhat shielded from the class struggle that they had faced in the turbulent years of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The different aspects dealing with academic personnel were standardized as the duties and obligations of faculty were detailed together with rules regarding their promotion, and forms of affirmative action to be taken to ensure that students from low-income families could attend school and complete their studies. The State Education Council set up in 1985 was meant to administer the education system. It was to grant greater local administrative control, while retaining a certain level of centralization of education administration in Beijing. The Council was later replaced by the Ministry of Education, which was given more direct responsibility and control over the macro educational policy. As has been pointed out in the previous chapter, the political conjunction of the Party and Education was not unusual. Historically, the Chinese society has been politically related with the system of education since the time of Confucius when

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there was an enduring link between education and political power. Therefore, political interference had always been a part of the Chinese education system. By the end of the 19th century, local officials were approving appointments of Academy administrators, approving regulations, and conducting regular assessment examinations of the students. Academic supervision by government officials was an accepted concept. Hence, while the educational reforms introduced presidential responsibility into the system, the transition to autonomy was gradual. It was decentralization rather than autonomy. With the dualistic system the Communist Party would retain control of ideological matters, and the President would take charge of general administrative and academic affairs of the institution, principally teaching, research, personnel, and finance.59 This dual arrangement shows the insecurity and dilemma of the State with regard to of institutions (HEIs). On the one hand HE must be at the forefront of the modernization efforts providing the high-level of techniques and technologies needed to propel China into the modern world; on the other hand, professors and students of universities have been the vanguard of various movements criticizing the government. The classic example is the events of Tiananmen Square in June 1989 in which teachers and students of Beijing University were actively involved.

2.6 Reforms of Deng and Their Aftermath The developments in the decade of 1978–1988, served to generate an entirely new kind of thinking among the Chinese planners and programmers. They realized that a slow and tepid reformist approach was not adequate to meet the challenges of the new economic reforms. Non-government funding was institutionally accepted in 1988; many private schools and colleges emerged; job assignment was reformed enabling students and employers to work out mutually-acceptable arrangements; and finally, there was new stress on the holistic development of a student’s personality.60 The State, however, could not meet all the funding requirements. Many schools and colleges were asking for additional infrastructural support to reach and maintain even the minimum standards laid down by the State Education Commission. This led to the important concept of self-paying students. Colleges and universities were allowed to enrol a certain number of applicants who wanted to study at their own expense, with grades 30 points below the minimum score for admission in the national entrance exam. The response was overwhelming. Despite a high fee of 1800–2000 yuan a year for universities and 900–1100 yuan a year for professional training schools, there were more than 5000 applications to enrol as self-financing students in Beijing itself. An extremely radical idea practised in selected parts of China transferred management of schools and colleges into private hands. Several private colleges in China began to establish a name for themselves based strictly on their utility and performance.61 With self-paying students and private management, the natural next step was to open the job market to free competition. A report dated August 5, 1988, gave details

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of the assignment plan as approved by the State Education Commission. It said that out of more than 457,000 students who had graduated in July, 430,000 had been assigned jobs. About 23,000 were going to continue with postgraduate education. This new system had been introduced as an experimental measure to enable students, universities, and employers to get into the employment market without any state plan of assignment. The new system was called “mutual selection” or “free marriage.” Students and prospective employers took a while to accept the idea. According to a news report of a survey in September 1988, two-thirds of students welcomed the new job-assignment reforms because it gave them equal opportunities and more freedom. But many students had misgivings because university courses were not job related and there was a paucity of jobs, many establishments being already overstaffed. It also appeared that the marketization of employment would discriminate against women graduates because many employers did not favour women employees.62 In another reform measure, work units had to sponsor their employees, especially for postgraduate seats. In some cases, they were asked to pay advance costs for a student whom they would ultimately absorb under the state assignment plan. This scheme had been put forward by the State Education Commission and had been selectively implemented since 1986. Generally, the work units paid 6000 to 10,000 yuan a year for each postgraduate student. Various reports stated that students at the postgraduate level would be given priority and the work units would pay for their education. This was expected to sustain interest in postgraduate education because students would not face the risk of unemployment and the work units would be assured of qualified personnel trained according to their needs. Finally, the old practice of making money through schoolrun factories was encouraged and publicized as another acceptable method of generating additional funds. A report from the State Education Commission revealed that in 1987, the output value of school-run factories and businesses exceeded 8.9 billion yuan. Out of this, 900 million yuan were to be spent on building research laboratories, classrooms, and to buy advanced teaching equipment. Apart from generating funds, these factories were to be used to impart skills and inculcate the value of manual labour. This was not a revert to Mao’s idea manual labour must be an essential part of education.63 It was purely an economic necessity for the educational institutions. Nearly a decade after Deng’s reforms, although some of the distortions of the Cultural Revolution had been eliminated, a clear alternative had not emerged. Several trends though had become visible by 1988 that indicated a direction for the future. In general, educational achievements had been broadly satisfactory. According to the documents released by the State Statistical Bureau on August 9, 1988, the number of institutions of higher learning had grown by 77.8%, reaching 1063. The enrolment in these institutions had shot up by 130% to 1.959 million students. By 1988, there were 119,000 students in the postgraduate programmes. Of them, 82,000 had completed their studies over the 10-year-period. Of the 715 institutions of higher education, 98 were earmarked as the key point colleges that were to lead the way to raise the quality of higher education. They had priority in the choice of students from among successful candidates at the university examinations and in the allocation of resources. They had better buildings, more qualified and trained teachers, and the

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fee structure was also quite high. They were supposed to impart quality education to those Chinese students who could afford it and had higher academic aptitude. By 1988, China had 16,024 special vocational and technical schools with over 5 million students. This was because mass education had been scaled down and directed towards vocational training. The more modest targets now were the eradication of illiteracy among the youth, and reduction of the drop-out rate from primary schools. Universal primary education was aimed at by 1990.64 Enrolment in senior secondary-level education had reduced since 1979, but the most important change at that level was the attempt to turn most ordinary senior middle schools into vocational schools and introduce vocational training in their curriculum. The intention was that the percentage of technical vocational students should reach more than 40% of the combined total of senior secondary students by 1987, although the ideal would be 60%. The re-centralization of educational administration in the hands of the Ministry of Education ensured the efficient operation of these reforms. This again gave the central government authority to establish rules and standards without interference from local party and government bodies. However, the implementation was handicapped by the legacy of past policies, For instance, while there was no general shortage of teachers, but since they were under qualified they could not be fully utilized. It led to poor pedagogy and poor teaching, regardless of the curricula and the regulation issued by the Ministry of Education. The problem was most acute in the countryside, but it also existed at the university level. Efficient implementation of new reforms was also hampered by inadequate resources. While the situation was better in some key universities, buildings made more than 30 years earlier were inadequate for the current teacher–student population. Shortage of space led to the common use of the double-shift system not only in secondary schools but sometimes in universities and colleges. From 1977 onwards, the central government regularly increased resources for education but did not cut allocation for the other sectors. However, the increase could only be moderate, 8 to 9% per year. Of this, three quarters of the budgetary increase went into teachers’ salaries between 1979 and 1981. The improvement in equipment was very slow, except in some key universities, where the funding came from the World Bank or other international aid agencies.65 The overwhelming majority of graduates found that they could not cope with career demands because they lacked basic skills. Their basic educational skills inadequate to cope with career demands. This led to renewed and repeated stress on vocational education. To cope, a policy was laid down for rural areas that while gifted students could go to higher studies, the less gifted should be taught useful techniques for local production that could include skills and techniques relevant to village and township industries. The move succeeded to a certain extent.66 Many vocational colleges used the model of regular universities and set up teaching plans in consonance with social needs and local requirements. Guangzhou Vocational University set up hotel and restaurant speciality; the Tianjin Vocational University set up a speciality for the manufacture of spectacles. In each case the courses offered became extremely popular. Many colleges also started a series of

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part-time courses offering a definite career orientation. Popular among these were business management, computer programming, foreign language, law, and public relations. These courses were available in night schools or on television as well. This enabled 64,000 people to pass the examinations in 1987 and obtain diplomas after putting in three to five years of hard work. For postgraduate studies, the effort was to increase the numbers. The first Doctoral Research Centre was opened in 1985, on a trial basis, to train more senior researchers. Between 1981 and 1987, more than 1200 Ph.D. degrees were granted and 8000 more students were studying for it. However, postgraduate research did not appear very attractive. The primary reasons were poor working conditions for postgraduate students and the lack of clear opportunities for getting satisfactory work after qualifying. The government addressed this problem in several ways. It increased funds to provide better facilities to postgraduate students. According to a report, the government allocated 10 million yuan in 1988 to build apartments for postdoctoral researchers in various cities. It allocated 77.58 million yuan to the National Natural Science Foundation to finance 2647 basic and applied science research projects; four million yuan were put aside for young scientists.67 After Deng’s death in 1983, despite reforms, the mismatch between the demands of the economy and education remained. The reform of education had its own fallout. Although the new priorities of educational reform had raised the status and prestige of teachers and intellectuals, there was a decline in enrolment rates at all levels of school, especially in the rural areas. There could be various reasons for this. One clear reason was that the blue-collar workers earned more than the educated intellectuals. Consequently, many students in rural areas thought that studying was worthless since the chances of continuing with higher education were practically non-existent because 80% of high school graduates had no chance of gaining admission into any college. The emphasis on quality and merit had led to the neglect of education of the vast masses, especially in the deprived areas and in the countryside. Simultaneously, vocational education had not produced the desirable results. Students did not want to pursue higher education, particularly in postgraduate research, because it gave them no advantage in procuring jobs.68 The issue of the educated unemployed surfaced seriously in 1998.69 There was also a general complaint that apart from a few affluent students, most of whom enrolled in higher education, the rest faced extremely hard times. Many quit because they did not want to ask their parents for financial support. Several reports indicated that the basic facilities required to use trained manpower were unavailable leading to massive wastage of money and talent. Agricultural colleges, for example, continued to train university and secondary technical-school graduates, most of whom had no interest in farming and did not take to agriculture. The situation of graduates in cities was not any better. The Peoples’ Daily reported that out of those enrolled in postgraduate programmes in Shanghai, only 6200 were employed during 1988–1990, covering merely 57%. This meant that almost half the postgraduates would be without jobs and would have to find openings in other cities. A similar mismatch was reported for students especially sponsored by the government to go abroad for advanced training. A survey by the State Education

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Commission found that 757 of 3184 students complained on their return that they could only partially use the knowledge they had acquired abroad. Even those students who returned with advanced qualifications in their specialities did not find jobs easily. While several reports gave details of how China needed the services of these people, the ground reality did not offer much hope.70 A special Association of Science and Technology of Chinese students in West Germany was set up to act as an agency to help arrange jobs for students who returned to China after their studies in West Germany. The Ministry of Personnel also established a special service centre to help students find jobs. It disseminated information about students studying abroad, their fields of specialization and units with available vacancies. In some cases, it even acted as a bridge to help returned students in the process of readjustment.71 The international academic exchange programmes created other problems. Some Chinese students going abroad defected. Many of those who returned students could not easily readjust. Also, foreign students in China often found it difficult to adapt to local conditions. To those who returned after studying abroad, the bureaucracy seemed inefficient and insensitive. They wanted to radically change people’s thinking and action, which was resisted by the government. There were shifts in industrial policy that created fresh demands on education. Enterprises were told to introduce technical advances, reduce overstaffing, and run profitably. This led to a premium on skilled labour and management of resources. It was also decided to avoid importing industrial plants as total packages and to purchase only the components. To implement this the labour force had to be appropriately skilled. This required better schooling of workers and improvement in vocational and technical education. The leadership was particularly concerned about the low educational level of the workforce. Even long-established industries suffered from inadequate standards.72 Apart from skilled personnel, qualified managerial personnel were required for modernization. Most available at the time were inadequately trained besides being extremely bureaucratic in their work styles. Hence, nearly 10,000 managers were asked to take a written examination in 1984 to test their professional knowledge of enterprise management and the party’s economic principles in a countrywide search for talent. According to Nalini Mathur, “21 million cadres, including senior party and government functionaries, managerial personnel and industry, commerce and agriculture, and cultural and educational leaders, were sent back to school even for up to three years for retraining in Marxist theory and professional and cultural knowledge. They had to attend by rotation party schools, training centres, and special classes run by universities, colleges, and middle schools and TV, radio, and correspondence agencies.”73 However, many in the PLA were unsympathetic to modernization as it called for improvement in living conditions and raising the status of intellectuals because half of the 40 million members of the CCP had been recruited during the Cultural Revolution, when educational levels were considered of little importance. Similarly, the one million PLA personnel demobilized annually, did not have the necessary

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skills for civilian employment and required training. The aim of the government was to ensure that half the senior cadre had tertiary qualifications.74

2.6.1 The National Plan 2010–2020 A National Plan for Medium- and Long-Term Educational Reforms and Development, 2010 – 2020 (the Plan) for orderly and sustained development of education was drawn up. The Preamble to the Plan reiterated that the nation’s enduring future hinged on education, which was the cornerstone of national rejuvenation and social progress. Hence, education had to be enhanced if the nation had to prosper. Giving priority to developing education and modernizing it were seen as key to building a moderately prosperous society and country, which would be strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmoniously modern, and socialist.75 The Communist Party has always stressed on education during the three generations of collective leadership of Mao Zhedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Jiang Zamin together with core Party members like Hu Jintao. They developed a Chinese education system with socialist characteristics, which evolved into the world’s largest education system. Over the years conditions improved dramatically at all levels. Since the beginning of the 21st century free compulsory education became the norm in urban and rural areas, while vocational education also progressed. Higher education became popular because of raising the educational levels in rural areas. The Preamble claimed that remarkable progress had achieved equity in education. Innovations in science, technology, and culture were contributing to the nation’s growth. The Preamble emphasized that the world was developing rapidly which demanded profound changes and major adjustments. Economic globalization had taken place in a multi-polar world. Rapid strides in science and technology inspired competition for talented professionals. China, it was claimed, was at the key stage of development as it was making all-round progress in economic, political, cultural, and social development, while promoting an ecological civilization as natural resources were limited on which there was increasing pressure because of the vast population. The future of the country depended on its innovative personnel and professionals and the enhanced quality of education. However, according to the Preamble, education was still lagging because the concepts of education and other teaching contents and methodology were relatively outdated. The burden of schoolwork on primary and middle school students weakened their adaptability to society leading to the dearth of innovative, practical, and versatile professionals. Schools lacked vitality in their operations, the geographical distribution of education resources, and development was uneven, as the impoverished and ethnic areas trailed behind. Education funding could not keep up with demands and education was still not accorded the strategic priority it deserved. Guidelines for further reform were based on the Preamble and followed the direction of the National Plan. Five executive principles were enunciated: priority to development, cultivation of the people, reform and innovation, promoting equity,

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and improving the quality of education. The government and the Party needed to prioritize education while making socio-economic plans for development, financial allocations, and mobilizing public resources. For this the entire society needed to be motivated to care for and support education, to jointly shoulder the responsibility of nurturing the younger generation, and to create a good environment for the healthy growth of young people. Further, systems and policies had to be perfected to encourage non-governmental sector to run schools and expand the input of social resources in education. Human resources were recognized as the foremost of all resources for a nation’s economic development. For this, education was the main channel to develop human resources. It had to be always student oriented, with teachers encouraging the initiatives of students. Healthy development had to be the starting point and the basis of all work in education. It was imperative to encourage talent for professional cultivation and bring forth millions of quality workers and competent professionals, and many top-notch innovative professionals. Education development depended on reform and innovation. This had to begin right from the school level in which the localities in which they were situated had to play a major role. They needed to explore and experiment, focusing on how to improve the key area of school education. These related to operation of schools, education administration, quality of evaluation, examination and enrolment, revamped teaching contents, and pedagogy. The people longed for better education, but there were institutional impediments and a relative shortage of education resources. It was recognized that equal access to education was the cornerstone of social justice. This essentially meant equal educational opportunities for all while extending help and support to the underprivileged so as to bridge the gap in education development. Hence, reasonable education resources had to be allocated while giving preference to rural areas, and to the impoverished, remote and border areas together with ethnic minority areas. While the government would fulfil its responsibility, it needed concerted public efforts. Issues of educational equity have been taken up further on in greater detail. A scientific outlook at quality improvement was at the core of education reform and all-round development. Schools at all levels needed to distinguish themselves with first-rate educational quality and produce renowned teachers and top-notch talented professionals. Education administrators needed to ensure that these criteria were met. This issue has been elaborated upon in Chap. 5 while discussing quality and the quest for top positions in global ranking of universities. The strategy was to popularize, modernize, and ensure quality education by 2020 so as to shape China into a knowledge society, rich in human resources. To achieve this the following steps had to be taken: • By 2020, preschool education had to be universalized. • The nine-year compulsory education plan had to consolidated and enhanced. • The senior middle school education had to become the norm, with a 90% Gross Enrolment Rate (GER).

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• Higher education needed to achieve GER of 40%. • Illiteracy among the young and the middle-aged had to be eliminated. • The average number of years of education for the newly added members of the workforce had to be raised from 12.4 to 13.5 years. • The average number of years of education for, the 20 to 59 years old population had to be extended from 9.5 to 11.2 years. • Twenty per cent of the working age population should have finished higher education by 2020, doubling the numbers of 2009. • Provide equal education to everyone. • Quality education needs to be globally competitive. • Build an appropriate framework for lifelong education. Develop diploma-granting education in coordination with non-diploma education; connect vocational education with regular education, and create a smooth link between prejob and on-the-job education. • The attendance rate of further or continuing education needs to go up substantially with at least 50% of job holders receiving such education. • Establish a full-fledged, vibrant education system by perfecting the national education system with a basic framework for lifelong education in place. This would ensure that everyone could be taught what they wanted to learn, excel at it, and put it to use. The strategic themes outlined were: • Prioritize moral education for which socialist core values have to be incorporated into the national education. Awareness in the progress made in adapting Marxism to Chinese reality to be enhanced to guide students to form a correct perspective of the world, of life and of values. Students need to have faith and confidence in the party leadership and the socialist system. Education on the patriotism-centred national spirit to be enhanced. Students need to imbibe the socialist concepts of honour and disgrace to cherish unity and mutual assistance; be honest, trustworthy, disciplined, law-abiding, and hard-working, and embrace a plain lifestyle as qualified socialist citizens. Education about citizenship and socialist concepts of democracy, the rule of law, freedom, equality, equity and justice for the students, to be emphasized. Education on the fine traditions of Chinese culture and on revolutionary traditions to be given priority. These values have to be promoted at all levels of education and be inculcated in homes as well. • For capacity building it is essential to optimize the knowledge structure and social practice. The following capacities have to be developed in students: practice and innovate; imbibe knowledge, expertise, survival methods, and proper behaviour; and acquire the ability to use hands and minds make a living, and adapt to society. • Stress on all-round development—moral, intellectual, physical, and aesthetic education to be stepped up and improved. Labour education to be strengthened to cultivate love for work and the working people.

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In the fourth session of the 13th National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China Premier Li Keqiang reviewed the work done in 2020. As far as education was concerned, he made the following points76 : • Top priority was given to stabilizing employment, ensuring proper living standards, and effectively safeguarding people’s well-being. Since employment was pivotal to people’s well-being, market entities had been kept afloat to maintain stable employment and meet basic living needs. Local governments across the country provided more incentives to stabilize and expand employment, thus enabling businesses and their employees to work together. • Innovation in science and technology had been vigorously promoted while industry was upgraded and transformed. • International centres for science and technology innovation and comprehensive national science centres had been developed as the country’s first group of national laboratories. • Efforts to make major breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields had been intensified. Intellectual property protection had been strengthened, and scientific and technological advances had been supported. Collaborative innovation among the small, medium, and large enterprises was encouraged. Pilot reforms on allround innovation were promoted. It was stressed that the achievements had been made possible because of the leadership of the Party Central Committee. Comrade Xi Jinping had provided sound guidance. The Premier talked of socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era. The concerted efforts of the Party, the Armed Forces, and the Chinese people of all ethnic groups had all contributed. The Premier asserted that the GDP had increased from less than 70 trillion yuan to over 100 trillion yuan. Much had been accomplished towards making China a country of innovators, with major advances in areas including manned spaceflight, lunar exploration, deep-sea engineering, supercomputing, and quantum information. China’s success in alleviating poverty was being recognized by the international community. There were new achievements in education, healthcare, culture, and other sectors. The quality of education had markedly improved although a lot still needed to be done. The plan for up to 2035 was formulated which has been discussed while talking of the way forward. Endnotes and References 1. Giulia Valentini, “China and Japan’s Response to the West in the nineteenth century,” https://www.e-ir/2013/11/04/chinese-and-japanese-responseto-the-west-during-the-19th-century/ Jianmin Gu, Xiuaping Li. Lihua Wang, Higher Education in China, India: Springer, 2018, pp. 22–23. Pei Gao, Risen from Chaos: the development of modern education in China, 1905–1948, A thesis submitted to the Department of Economic History for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, March 2016.

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2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

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Yang Rui, The Third Delight (East Asia: History, Politics, Sociology and Culture) Routledge, 2017, p. 9 Camille Romano and Shrusti Goswami, Educational Reform,” in Meiji Development: Modernization of Education, Conference, Rutgers Meets Japan: Early Encounters, https://sas.rutgers.edu Part 1, “The Modernization and Development of Education in Japan.” Overview of the History of Japan’s Education, https://www.jica.go.jp Suzanne Pepper, Radicalism and Education Reform in 20th Century China for an Ideal Development Model, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 55. Suzanne Pepper, Radicalism in Education Reform, op.cit. pp. 46–50. Ibid., pp. 61–62. Ibid., pp. 96–100. Ibid., pp. 88–89. Ibid., pp. 92–95. Ibid., p. 38; p. 108. Ibid., pp. 43–44. Ibid., pp. 44–45. Ibid., p. 1212. Ibid., p. 122. Ibid., pp. 127–128. Ibid., p. 142. Ibid., pp. 142–144; p. 150. Ibid., pp. 151–154. Ibid., pp. 157–158. Ibid., p. 174; See also, Jianmin Gu, Xueping Li, Lihua Wang, Higher Education in China, Springer, December 2018, loc, 665; and Ming Yang, Hao Ni, Educational Governance in China, Springer, 2018, loc. 1370–1426. Suzanne Pepper, op.cit. p. 164. Mun C. Tsang, “Education and National Development in China since 1949: Oscillating Policies and Enduring Dilemmas,” China Review,2000, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, pp. 571–618. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23453384James Carter, “China’s ‘five-anti’ campaign of 1952”, January 5,2022, https://www.thechinaproject.com/2022/ 01/05/chinas-five-anto-campain-of-1952/ Pepper, op.cit. pp. 171–174. Ibid., pp. 167–171. Ibid., p. 175. Ibid., p. 179. Ibid., p. 180; Nalini Mathur, Educational Reform in Post Mao China, New Delhi: A.P.H. Publishing, 2007, pp. 31–32. Pepper, op.cit. p. 175. Ibid., p. 177. Ibid., p. 183; p. 209. Ibid., p. 184. Ibid., p. 180; See also Nalini Mathur, op.cit. p. 32.

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30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

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Pepper, op.cit. p. 185. Ibid., pp. 185–186. Ibid., pp. 186–187. Ibid., pp. 187–188. Ibid., p. 188; Nalini Mathur puts the figure as high as 288,000 in 1955–1956, Op.cit. pp. 33–34. Pepper, op.cit. pp. 190–191; See also Nalini Mathur, op.cit. pp. 34–35; 37–38. Pepper, op.cit. p. 203. Ibid., p. 248. See also Nalini Mathur,op.cit. p. 35. Mun C, Tsang, “Education and National Development in China since 1949: Oscillating Policies and Enduring Dilemmas,” China Review, 2000, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, pp. 579–618; https://www.jstor.org/ stable/23453384 Nalini Mathur, op.cit. p. 38; Pepper, op.cit. p. 269; Ellis Joffe, Between Two Plenums: China’s Intraleadership Conflict, 1959– 1962, Kenneth G. Liberthal and Richard H. Roger, Centre for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, Papers in Chinese Studies No.22, University of Michigan, 1975; https://www.library.open.org. Pepper,op.cit., pp. 275–276. Resolution on Certain Questions in the People’s Republic of China, Adopted by the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on June 27, 1981, The Review of the History of the TwentyEight Years Before the Founding of the People’s Republic; http://www.mar xists.org/subject/china/documents/cpc/hisgtory/01.htm Sixty Points on Working Methods—A Draft For, the Office of the Centre of the CPC, February 2, 1958; https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/sel ected-works/volume-8/msw8_05:htm. Adriene Palese, The Great Leap Forward (1958–1961) Historical events and causes of the biggest tragedies in People’s Republic of China’s History, lunduniversity.lu.se. Nalini Mathur, pp. 44–47. See also, Ruth E.S. Hayhoe,”China’s Higher Curricular Reforms in Historical Perspective” The China Quarterly, No.110, (June 1987), pp. 196–280, https://www.jstor.org/stable/653997 China since 1949. The Mao Years and Post Mao China, https://acienciale.ku.edu/communicatio nssnce1917/chro.html. Ellis Joffe, Between Two Plenums, op.cit. Clayton D. Browne, China’s Great Leap Forward, Education Asia: Online Archives Vol.17:3 (Winter 2012). US, Asia, and the World: 1914–2012. https:// www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/chinas-great-leap-forward/ Ivan D. London, Miriam London, The Other China: Hunger Part I—The Three Red Flags of Death, https://www.carnegiecouncil-org/media/series/ 100-for-100/the-other-china-part-i-the-red-flags-of-death. The Great Chinese Famine, https://www.alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/great-chinese-fam ine/ China Since 1949, the Mao Years and the Post Mao China, University of Kansas, https://www.acienciala.ku.edu. Ellis Joffe, Between Two Plenums, op.cit.

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45.

46.

47.

48.

49. 50.

51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56.

57.

58. 59.

63

Mun C. Tsang “Education and National Development in China since 1949: Oscillating Policies and Enduring Dilemmas,” op.cit. Michael Schoenhals, Brewer S. Stone (1990) More Edited Records; Liu Shaoqi on Peng Dehuai at the 7000 cadres conference. CCP Research Newsletter (5), 1990. China Since 1949, The Mao years and the Post Mao China, op.cit. , Julia Kwong, “The Educational Experiment of the Great Leap Forward, 1958–59: Its Inherent Contradictions,” Comparative Education Review, October 1979, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 443–455. Pepper, pp. 346–393, op.cit. Nalini Mathur, pp. 47–54, op.cit. Munemitsu Abe, “Spare-Time Education in Communist China,” The China Quarterly No.8 (Oct.-Dec, 1961) pp. 149–159; https://www.jstor.org/stable/ 651672 Fumio Kobayashi, “The Great Cultural Revolution and Educational Reform— The Image of Socialist Man,” The Developing Economies December 1971, Vol. 9, Issue 4, pp. 490–501; https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1746-1049.1971.tb00686.x. Nalini Mathur, p. 123, op.cit. Hung-mao Tien, Occasional Papers/Reprints Series in 13 Maryland Series in Contemporary Asian Studies, Vol. 1984: No. 2. Article 1; HYPERLINK "sps:urlprefix::https" https://www.digitalcommons. law.umaryland.edu. Resolution on Certain questions in the history of our party since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, op.cit. Nalini Mathur, op.cit. p. 132. Nalini Mathur, pp. 135–138; pp. 152–153, op.cit. Xiazhou Xu, Weihui Mei, Educational Policies and Legislation in China. Springer, 2018, loc. 419. William G. Saywell, “Education in China Since Mao,” The Canadian Journal of Higher Education, Vol. X-1, 1980. Xiazhou Xu, Weihei Mei, Educational Policies and Legislation in China, op.cit. loc. 433; 436 Nalini Mathur, op.cit. p. 140. Nalini Mathur,op.cit. pp. 141–143. Ibid., p. 132; p. 151. Ibid., p. 154. Ibid., p. 155. Ibid., p. 156; Jianmin Gu, et.al. Higher Education in China, op.cit. loc. 686–712 Xiazhou Xu, Weihui Meii, Education Policies and Legislation in China, op.cit. loc. 859. Xu, Mei, Education Policies and Legislationi in China, op.cit. loc, 1599;1624; 1659–1781 Jianmin Gu, et al. Higher Education in China, op.cit. loc. 1386– 1393. Xu, Mei, Educational Policies and Legislation in China, op.cit. loc. 727–1683. Shuangmiao Han, Xin Xu, “How far has the state ‘stepped back’: an exploratory study of the changing governance of higher education in China (1978–2018), Higher Education (2019),78: 931–946; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-01900378-4

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62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75.

76.

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Jianmin Gu, et al., Higher Education in China, op.cit. loc.1440, 1474, 1556– 1588 Xu, Mei, Educational Policies and Legislation in China, op.cit. loc. 1743– 1758. Nalini Mathur, op.cit. p. 173; Xu, Mei, Educational Policies and Legislation in China, op.cit. loc. 5874–5895. Nalini Mathur, op.cit. p. 174; p. 177; Jianmin Gu, et al., Higher Education in China, op.cit. loc. 1681–1689; 1707– 1743. Mok, Ka Ho, Lo, Yat Wai, “The Impact of Neo-Liberalism on China’s Higher Education,” The Institute for Education Policy Studies, University of Northampton, School of Education Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, May 2007, Vol. 5, Number 1, http://www.jceps.com Kinglun Ngok, “Chinese Education Policy in the Context of Decentralisation and Marketization: Evolution and Implications,” Asia Pacific Education Review, 2007. Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 142–157; https://www.link.springer.co. Nalini Mathur, op.cit., pp. 179–181. Ibid., pp. 176–177. Ibid., pp. 190–195. Ibid., pp. 203–206. Jianmin Gu et. al. Higher Education in China, op.cit. loc. 1556–1566; 1682–1689. Nalini Mathur, op.cit. p. 213. Ibid., p. 221. Ibid., p. 226. Ibid., p. 233; p. 236. Ibid., pp. 236–238. Ibid., p. 245. Ibid., pp. 238–240. Ibid., p. 240. Ibid. Outline of China’s national plan for Medium and Long -term Educational Reform and Development (2010–2020) July 2010, Beijing; http://www.nce e.org Report on the Work of the Government: Delivered at the Fourth Session of the 13th National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China on March 5, 2021; http//en.moe.gov.on/Specials/Specials_twoSessions_ /twosessions_focus/201803/1201803_330681.html.

Chapter 3

Evolution of Higher Education Policy in India

Taken in perspective of the historical context, India’s subjugation to the West, in particular to the UK was that of a colonized nation, systematically stripped of all self-respect and deliberately kept in ignorance. But for the first war of independence in 1857, the Presidency universities of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras would not have been established. However, they were colonial establishments serving colonial aims. Even earlier, the Mughals, who made India their home, were prouder of their Timur ancestry, which was a source of inspiration rather than the land of their adoption. In crucial moments harked back to it as a source of strength and inspiration. In education, except for Akbar, they followed discriminatory policies towards the Hindus and by and large deprived them of it. By the time India became independent, the Western system of higher education had already got entrenched in India and the English language had been established as the language of governance, commerce, and judiciary. In effect, an Indian ruling elite had been created which followed the structures and systems of these colonial masters and naturally carried them on post-independence. This was true also of education even though dissatisfaction with the colonial system had been an important strand in the freedom movement. The discussion of the education policies in India begins with its independence in 1947. India, like China, was aware that it had a huge young population that needed education and employment to carry the country forward. However, unlike China, India did not explicitly make education the cornerstone of its economic growth and development. In his Presidential address to the Central Advisory Board, the first education minister of India, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad emphasized that, a fresh outlook was needed to meet the aspirations of a new India. He emphasized that the first and foremost task of the National Government was free and compulsory basic education for all. This was in keeping with what he had said earlier at the All India Education Conference on January 14, 1948, “We must not for a moment forget, it is the birth right of every individual to receive at least the basic education without which he can’t fully discharge his duties as a citizen.” This was a bold promise keeping in view the meagre resources that the country had at that time.1 New education © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 K. A. Sharma, India and China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5628-9_3

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policies were to be defined by the Centre and the States working in collaboration with each other. However, not much attention could be paid to education between 1947 and 1950 as cataclysmic events were taking place like the partition of India and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Horrifying violence had erupted and refugees in millions arrived into the country, in dire straits, who had to be settled. The new government too had to settle down, and the Constitution had to be written and finalized. The Constitution of India itself dealt extensively with education as can be seen from entries 63, 64, 65, and 66 in List I of the Central list and entry 25 in List III of the Concurrent list. There were separate provisions for the education of religious and linguistic minorities who were given the right to establish their own institutions. Besides, there were separate provisions for the prevention of discrimination against the weaker sections of society and against women, which applied to education too; in fact, the government could formulate affirmative action policies for them. Despite the baptism by fire after independence, the government took the significant step of setting up a University Education Commission in 1948, under the chairmanship of Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan. It was to make recommendations to improve higher education, keeping in mind the prevailing situation and future requirements. Up to then, education had only been the responsibility of the provinces or the States, but the Centre had the responsibility of coordinating the HEIs throughout the country and ensuring the maintenance of standards. The Education Commission made certain pivotal recommendations:

1. Education be placed in the Concurrent list to give the Centre the necessary authority to fulfil its responsibility. 2. Higher education needed to be made more flexible and fluid so that those recruited in universities should be free to move to laboratories and other research institutions and vice versa. 3. While universities had to be autonomous, they had at the same time be sensitive to enlightened public opinion. 4. The universities to play leadership role in society and address its grave concerns. 5. The administration of universities had to be streamlined and improved to prevent procedural bottlenecks. 6. The President of India should be the visitor for the universities under the Centre, and their Acts needed to be amended accordingly. Similar function was to be performed by the governor in the states. 7. Importance of education of women and rural education.2 To implement the recommendations of the University Commission, a Bill was brought to the Parliament in 1951 to enable the Centre to regulate the standards of HEIs. However, the Bill met with stiff opposition from different States on three grounds. • Universities should be free to maintain and coordinated their own academic standards.

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• The Bill would impinge upon the autonomy of the universities. • Standards in universities were low because of scarcity of resources, and hence the situation could be rectified if adequate funds were made available to them.3 The situation of higher education in India was dismal during the First Five Year Plan (1951–1956). Only 0.9% of the population or only one out of a hundred people in the relevant age group had access to higher education. Therefore, to begin with the existing facilities in higher education needed to be improved and consolidated. Teachers had to be trained and research facilities established together with facilities for technical and vocational education put into place.4 The recommendations of the University Education Commission had to be implemented. Keeping issues of access and equity in mind, the Commission had recommended that at least one rural university be set up together with several other rural institutions in different parts of the country. Also, accepting the recommendation of the University Education Commission, the University Grants Commission (UGC) was inaugurated by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad on December 28, 1953, and given the responsibility of coordination and maintenance of standards of higher education throughout the country.5

3.1 The University Grants Commission In 1956, the UGC became a statutory body. It was established as an autonomous body, which was to work in close coordination with the Ministry of Education. In addition to its earlier responsibilities, it was given the authority to enquire into the financial needs of the universities and allocate and disburse grants to universities under the Centre for their maintenance and development. It also had an advisory role. It was to advise the government on matters pertaining to the establishment of a new university. It was also to advise the State or central government on questions pertaining to higher education that were referred to it and collect any information required on university education in India and abroad. The Commission, however, was rendered fairly toothless because in the final legislation under which it was established as it was not given two major powers that had been proposed for it in as early as in 1951: • The power to advise the Central government on whether to disapprove or approve a university established by a state legislature. In the absence of this proposed provision the State legislatures had the power to establish universities, without reference to the UGC. • The authority to advise the Central government to derecognize any degree conferred by a university if that university failed to carry out the directions given to it. This too was not given to the UGC.

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Consequently, the UGC was left without teeth to demand accountability directly from the universities except through the release or withholding of grants which too, eventually had to be given.6

3.2 Growth in the Five Year Plans Higher education expanded rapidly in post-independence India, as was evident during the Second Five Year Plan from 1956 to 1961. This plan continued with measures that had been initiated in the First Five Year Plan but it also incorporated recommendations given by several committees in the meanwhile like the Three-Year Degree Course Committee, Experts’ Committee on Establishment of New Universities, and others. The emphasis was on raising standards, improvement of college and university infrastructure; social, educational, and cultural programmes; and adequate provision for technical and vocational education.7 Since education, including technical education, expanded rapidly during this period, the main task in the Third Plan, from 1961 to 1966, was to provide scholarships at different levels including research scholarships and fellowships. To reduce the pressure on colleges, it was proposed to establish evening colleges and correspondence courses on a large scale. Also, several schemes proposed in the Second Five Year Plan for the qualitative improvement of higher education were to be implemented in the Third Five Year Plan.8 Members of the UGC, however, did not want rapid expansion without proper planning. At the same time, regional disparities, particularly in professional education, had to be reduced. Both physical and academic infrastructures had to be provided for, while the economy of the country needed to be considered to avoid graduate unemployment. Despite all efforts at consolidation, education kept expanding in the 1950s and 1960s because it was seen as a tool of upward mobility. Private colleges multiplied tremendously. Out of 1783 colleges at the end of 1962, 1203 were private colleges and only 453 were government colleges.9 The rapid increase in enrolment put a great strain on the staff and material resources, besides creating the problem of widespread student indiscipline. A committee formed to suggest solutions to the problem proposed: • Students should only be enrolled in higher education according to their merit, although concessions had to be made to accommodate rural and Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) students. • The age of entry be revised to 17 years from 16 years. • No college should be allowed to have more than 1000 students. • In the selecting faculty, the chief criteria should not only be qualifications, but it should be ensured that teachers were people of highest integrity. • The practice of having the governor of the State as the ex-officio chancellor of universities needed to be discontinued as it posed a serious threat to university autonomy.

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• Students should be associated with the various bodies of the colleges and institutions.10 One of the most important steps taken at this time was the introduction of the three-year undergraduate course. The pattern until then had been 10 years of school, followed by two-year intermediate or junior college and two years of undergraduate. For the better students, it was proposed to introduce an honours course that was academically more challenging. The issue of affiliated colleges has been a recurrent one as it is much easier to introduce educational reforms in a compact unitary university, rather than in numerous colleges affiliated to the university. After deliberation, however, it was realized that with the country’s size and its burgeoning student population, the system of affiliated colleges would have to continue. One practical method to improve the standards of education without dispensing with the affiliated system was to select some colleges based on their work, tradition, maturity, and academic standards and give them an autonomous status. They would not get degree-granting powers, but they could frame their own syllabi in consultation with the university and thus be able to experiment and innovate.11 Merely introducing the three-year degree course was not enough. For over 80% of them, the undergraduate degree was terminal. Therefore, students completing the course needed a broad-based education to enable them to take an intelligent interest in the world and become capable of taking rational decisions. This purpose could be achieved through the introduction of general education that would also help in strengthening the curricula.12 To strengthen higher education, Centres for Advanced Studies and Area Study Programmes were set up in the early 1960s. Departments in universities doing exceptionally good work were given more facilities and resources and designated as centres of advanced studies. Centres of area studies were established to develop expertise about other countries and regions especially their history, culture, and language. Of particular interest were countries of the Far East, the South, West, and Central Asia, and Africa.13

3.2.1 Kothari Commission The Government of India established an Education Commission in 1964 under the chairmanship of Prof. D.S. Kothari, who was also the chairman of UGC at that time. Popularly known as the Kothari Commission, it made several important recommendations. It stated that some meritorious universities could be designated as major universities. The idea met with resistance at that time and was dropped. However, the seeds remained. After some decades the same idea was brought back when some universities were recognized as universities with potential for excellence. The Commission also emphasized that universities needed a permanent planning and evaluation machinery detached from the day-to-day administration. It recommended Academic Planning Boards be appointed by the chancellor in consultation with

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the vice-chancellor, comprising few academics from the university, few from other universities, and some persons from public life. To avoid undue litigations involving universities two suggestions were made: • Value education be imparted to all stakeholders so that they could collectively create a congenial teaching–learning environment. • The university administration be made as democratic as possible by associating teachers and students in various committees so that most issues could be resolved within the system itself. The help of the Supreme Court could possibly be taken in framing a suitable policy for dispute resolution.14 Some other important recommendations were: • Improve the quality of teaching with a better student–teacher ratio and strengthened pedagogy. • Provide opportunities to teachers through symposia and summer schools where discussions on pedagogy could take place. • Encourage short-duration exchange of teachers in universities and colleges. • Funds be made available to institutions to invite distinguished teachers and experts from various universities. • Resources for research be given in colleges and universities together with finance to meet travel. • Grants to organize extension lectures by university and college teachers as also for research publications. • Senior and junior fellowships be instituted to enable scholars to do research.15 Regarding affiliated colleges, the Commission made some important recommendations: • Universities grant affiliation to colleges, in consultation with the State governments, as affiliated colleges could be eligible for aid. • While granting affiliation, both the time for which it was being granted and for the courses that would be recognized, needed to be specified. In case of science students, even the number of students to be admitted could be spelt out. • State governments should involve the universities for the operation of the system of grant-in-aid. • Councils of affiliated colleges in every affiliating university, to be constituted to deal with the issues of arising in them. By and large, it was felt that State governments should not run or administer colleges directly.16 Among the recommendations of the Education Commission some were rather challenging as they needed a radical shift in policy. For instance, the Education Commission found higher education to be very fragmented, divided into different sectors and compartments. Hence, it recommended that a single body like UGC should deal with all the different sectors including technology, agriculture, medical science, and others to integrate the whole. This recommendation was later repeated

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in different forms in the reports of the National Knowledge Commission, the Yashpal Committee, and now in the latest National Education Policy of 2020 (NEP-2020).17 With the rapid growth in student enrolment there was great pressure to start more universities and colleges. However, the UGC felt that State governments needed to prepare, in consultation with it, a 5-to-10-year perspective plan for expansion, considering the available resources and facilities. Students could not be admitted indiscriminately. They had to be screened for the necessary aptitude and ability. Instituting correspondence courses would relieve the pressure of numbers.18 In the Third (1961–1966) and Fourth (1969–1974) Five Year Plans the emphasis was on science, medicine, agriculture, engineering, technology, and research. All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), that had been set up in 1945 as an advisory body under the Department of Higher Education, was asked to advise UGC on maintaining standards and improving technical education in the country.19

3.2.2 The National Policy of Education, 1968 Following the Kothari Commission, in 1967, the Government of India constituted a committee in the Parliament to draft a national policy on education. The Central Advisory Board of Education reviewed the draft after consulting all political parties. The result was the National Policy of Education 1968, which became the basis of educational reform. It re-iterated the resolve to provide education for all children up to the age of fourteen years as envisaged in the Constitution. Greater attention had to be paid to regional languages and so it outlined the use of the three-language formula in secondary education. The three languages were Hindi, English, and a regional language. The teaching and learning of Sanskrit too had to be stimulated as it was an essential part of India’s culture and heritage. The policy attempted to promote national progress, a sense of common citizenship and culture, and strengthen national integration through education. The 1968 policy emphasized: • • • • •

Radical reconstruction of the education system. Improvement of quality at all stages. Attention to science and technology. Cultivating moral values. Developing a close relationship between education and the lives of people.

If further recognized that facilities were needed to improve the standard of training in higher education and increase the support for research. Part-time education and correspondence courses had to be developed on a large-scale to increase access. Greater resources were required to be spent on education, and it proposed that 6% of the national income be spent on it.20 International collaborations and exchange programmes with other countries were the highlights of the late 1960s up to the middle of the 1970s. These have been discussed in detail later while we review the internationalization of higher education.

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The centres for science received additional grants from the UN expanded programme of technical assistance for the purchase of specialized equipment, training of Indian scholars in the former Soviet Union, and for obtaining the services of Soviet scientists for short periods of time. Similarly, UNESCO provided grants for equipment required in the centres of science at various universities like Delhi, Madras (Chennai), and Calcutta (Kolkata). The Asia Foundation, USA, pitched in with financial help for some departments of humanities and social sciences and for a few centres of advanced study.21 At the end of the Fourth Five Year Plan in 1974 and during the Fifth Five Year Plan (1974–1978), efforts were made to consolidate the expansion that had taken place. The growth of enrolment had risen by about 11per cent per annum in the previous years. Efforts were now made to contain it to about 5%. The undergraduate programme was set for three years, and schooling increased from 11 to 12 years. Although higher education had expanded rapidly, it was still inadequate. On the other hand, the expansion had to be regulated because of limited resources. This was a dilemma as the weaker sections of society looked upon higher education as a means of upward mobility and to deny them the access to it, amounted to social injustice. At the same time, education could not be viewed only in terms of the labour market. Due consideration had to be given to its social, cultural, and humanistic aspects as well. Therefore, the diverse demands of quantity, quality, social justice, and rootedness in culture, all had to be balanced.22 It had been expected that the implementation of the Educational Policy of 1968 would lead to an all-round expansion of educational facilities throughout the country, but political change at the Centre disrupted that. The Janata government came into power in 1977 and tried to revise the policy of 1968. Hence, a decade after the National Policy of Education of 1968, the UGC prepared a policy framework on higher education in which it outlined the basic philosophy and strategies for the development of universities and colleges. The aim was to improve the standards of higher education and research over the following 10 to 15 years. It called for coordination and cooperation between the Centre, the States, and the people to create a new educational system.23 This policy framework was not placed before the Parliament. The draft of a new revised education policy was released in 1979.24 It aimed to re-organize the system of education in the light of contemporary Indian realities and requirements to ensure the growth of the individual through a truthful life without detriment to the welfare and progress of society and the ideals of freedom, equality, and social justice. The draft policy stated that education must strengthen the values of democracy, secularism, and socialism. It should promote national unity, pride in India’s cultural heritage, and faith in the country’s future. Efforts should be made to inculcate scientific and moral values and facilitate the pursuit of knowledge. Higher education plays a crucial role in national development. It was suggested that the government must review the policies every five years. However, nothing was done because once again the government changed at the Centre. In the late 1970s the focus turned towards postgraduate education. It was felt that, as far as possible, it should be consolidated in university departments rather than in colleges unless the latter were well established. Several programmes were developed

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to continue with the upgradation of faculty. Among them were university leadership projects; refresher and short-term courses, each of about six weeks duration, during the holidays and summer vacations; refresher courses through correspondence with a two-week contact programme for laboratory or allied work; all-India advanced-level institutes in specialized topics or subjects; English language teaching institutes as allIndia level programmes of approximately six weeks; and fellowships for teachers of affiliated colleges with the provision to visit outside institutions and see specialized laboratories.25

3.3 The National Policy of Education, 1986, and Ramamurthy Committee The most important development of this time was the NPE that was formulated and then adopted by the Parliament in 1986. It was stated that higher education played a crucial role as it enabled people to reflect on the critical social, economic, cultural, moral, and spiritual issues facing humanity. It contributed to national development through the dissemination of specialized knowledge and skills. Also, being at the apex of the education system it was incumbent upon it to produce teachers for the entire education system.26 The UGC felt that an operational plan for the implementation of the policy of 1986 needed to be worked out with clear, short- and long-term measures to be adopted. In 1989, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) constituted a task force on higher education under the chairmanship of Acharya Ramamurthy. The committee submitted its report in December 1990. It was guided by the philosophy of equity and social justice, of decentralizing educational management at all levels, establishing a participative educational order, inculcating values indispensable for the creation of an enlightened and humane society, and empowering work. The Committee had certain differences in perception with the NPE of 1986. Higher education as envisaged in the policy emphasized reflection rather than action. The Committee felt that while reflection on critical issues facing humanity was important, action was invaluable for the recipients, and the curriculum and the entire educational process in colleges and universities needed to be dynamically and integrally linked to critical issues facing humanity. The HES, largely funded as it is by the public exchequer, should strive for a balance between regional acceptance by the people and the global activities in education and research. The Committee was also of the opinion that while the perception of the NPE 1986 for consolidating higher education facilities, which had already undergone vast expansion over the years, and for protecting the system from degradation was understandable, the approach had to be forward-looking and dynamic rather than passive. Consolidation could not be at the cost of those living in the backward areas. It was not merely a question of preventing the degradation of the system, but also

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of formulating innovative programmes for transforming the system into an effective instrument for excellence. The Committee further pointed out that it was not enough to redesign courses and programmes merely to better meet the demands of specialization. The academic life in colleges and university campuses would have to be completely re-organized and a fresh direction given to the faculty and students. This was not merely a matter of performing certain extension functions. Colleges and universities should have the capacity to guide in planning and assisting peoples’ initiatives. The Committee reviewed the existing situation that showed some very serious weaknesses, such as unplanned entrance of students into colleges and universities, inadequate infrastructure facilities, mismatch between education and employment, slow pace of examination reforms, and wastage as was evident from the high failure rates.27 Certain important centres were set up. One unique initiative was the establishment of autonomous centres within the university system called Inter-University Centres (IUCs) to provide common advanced facilities and services to universities that could not make heavy investments in infrastructure and other inputs required for advanced research.28 After approval of the Planning Commission and the Prime Minister, in October 1984, the UGC had set up the Nuclear Science Centre, as the first Inter-University Accelerator Centre (IUAC), the first IUC. Its construction started in December 1986, and it was completed on December 19, 1990. Several other IUCs were also set up such as, the Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (1988), the Inter-University Consortium for Department of Atomic Energy (IUC-DAEF in 1989), the Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET in 1989). INFLIBNET became a registered society in 1996, to network all university libraries through the electronic media. The Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS) was designated an Inter-University Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences, in 1991. The important thrust area at this time was media and education technology. To take advantage of the rapidly expanding communication infrastructure, the UGC started to beam countrywide classroom programmes on television. These were enrichment programmes meant for teachers and undergraduate students. The UGC also supported educational media research centre and seven audio–video research centres for training and production of software. A university centre for science, information was also established at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. During 1991–92, a Consortium for Educational Communication was proposed to be set up, and it was established in 1993.29 The principles of the NPE 1986 were incorporated into the Seventh Five Year plan (1985–1990). Apart from strengthening the teaching and research activities in various departments, the scheme of autonomous colleges was followed up. For the first time, the concept of accreditation was put forward. This was to help colleges in self-evaluation, so that they could come up to requisite standards. In 1989, the UGC accepted, in principle, to set up a National Accreditation Council for higher education. However, the Council could only be set up in 1994.30

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3.3.1 Janardan Reddy Committee In 1991, the Congress government came to power, and under the changed situation, the Ramamurthy report failed to receive government patronage. Hence, a meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) was held in March 1991, to examine the procedure to be adopted for consideration of the report of the Review Committee of 1990, and decided that a CABE Committee be constituted. Therefore, the Janardan Reddy Committee was appointed on July 31, 1991. The aim of this committee was to review the implementation of various parameters of the NPE 1986, taking into consideration the report of the previous Review Committee of 1990 and other relevant developments since the policy was formulated in 1986. It was essential to make recommendations regarding modifications that were needed. The Janardan Reddy Committee submitted its report in January 1992 in which it made 23 recommendations. Of these, the most important were: 1. Re-examine the feasibility of a national level, statutory mechanism, for strongly discouraging non-standard and substandard universities and colleges. 2. Universities to become instruments of development in their respective regions and modify their curriculum accordingly. 3. A National Testing Service to be established only as a resource institution; the testing of competencies to be left to the concerned institutions. 4. No need to set up a Central Council of Rural Institutions; the functions envisaged for the Council could be performed by the UGC and the State Councils of Higher Education. 5. No need to setup a National Council of Higher Education as the same objectives could be achieved by two-tier structure, a Council of Ministers, and a Council of Secretaries. The Committee stressed that unplanned proliferation of colleges and universities was the bane of higher education. The Committee members were of the view that proliferation of colleges without adequate facilities must not be allowed. The existing powers of the UGC to control such proliferation were inadequate. This could be achieved if the universities exercised rigorous control and insisted on the necessary infrastructure and educational facilities before granting affiliation and if the State governments respected the decision of the universities in these matters. State Councils of Higher Education would go a long way in ensuring a planned development of higher education.31 The Eighth Five Year Plan (1991–1996) continued the policies of the Seventh Five Year Plan while re-affirming the National Policy of Education, 1986, which had been finalized in 1992. It sought to build linkages of education with employment and productivity, consolidate higher education, and give financial help to those who lacked the resources to pursue higher education. Efforts were made to strengthen the management systems in universities together with the upgradation of both physical infrastructure and research facilities. To this end, the UGC identified a large number of institutions to review the performance of universities and decided that one-third of

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the total Plan grant would need to be allocated to them according to their performance evaluation, based on identified indicators.32

3.3.2 Gnanam Committee In 1993, some far-reaching recommendations emerged from a vice-chancellors’ conference to get rid of the rigidities of the Indian Higher Education System (IHES). Many of these found a place in the National Education Policy, 2020 (NEP-2020). The Gnanam Committee was set up in 1993 to review the management of higher education, including the structures, roles, and responsibilities of the various university bodies; to develop alternative effective models; and to set criteria for the assessment of the performance of educational institutions. This was in recognition to the fact that higher education had an important role to play in national development; therefore its governance needed to be based on sound and scientific principles. The Committee made some valuable recommendations. It emphasized that education required participatory management involving all stakeholders, including some well-known figures from public life. Education administration was different from that prevalent in the government or corporate sector since it was based on principles of decentralization, autonomy, participation, and accountability. Power in a university has to be delegated to deans and heads of department to make faculties and departments powerful instruments of the advancement of knowledge. A university needs to be flexible to adapt to the changing needs of the country. An institution must have full administrative, academic, and financial autonomy exercised through its Board of Management and Academic Council. Therefore, it was accepted that autonomy of thought and action was essential to ensure academic excellence and development. Politicization needed to be avoided, and elections were not the proper means of constituting university bodies. For developing higher education and research in universities, it was necessary to take advantage of special resources and facilities available. Finally, accountability had to be maintained at all levels. There was considerable lack of consciousness in the universities about the need for and importance of planning. It was, therefore, essential for universities to establish a statutory planning process like a planning or monitoring board so that the goals and objectives were clearly defined and linked to development plans at the national levels. This would serve two purposes—short- and long-term planning and continuous monitoring and evaluation of the university system. The planning and monitoring board would consist of members drawn from the faculty, State government, the State council of higher education, colleges, and other bodies. The State Councils of Higher Education would be constituted through acts of State legislatures in every State to plan, monitor, and coordinate the functioning of the universities and other institutions of higher education within the State. The role and function of such a body would, however, not infringe on the autonomy of the university. It would predominantly be composed of academics with a UGC nominee on it. The council would have a full-time chairman, an eminent educationist with

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considerable working experience in higher education and research, preferably having served as a vice-chancellor. This committee too, like the vice-chancellors’ committee recommended that the concept behind “community” should be incorporated in the existing degree programme by increasing its duration by one year. The first two years should be devoted to vocational and job-oriented courses, and in the following year or additional two years, students should be allowed to pursue subjects in which they wish to specialize. Considering the constraints in Indian higher education, the committee felt that the vocational of education at the undergraduate level could be strengthened as an alternative to establish independent community colleges, but the courses should be technical and diverse enough to serve the needs of the changing economy. Instead of following the suggested four-year format, the vocational courses could be at the undergraduate level in a three-year format. They could be evaluated after five years and restructured if required. It was also proposed that the existing infrastructure in colleges could be used for offering job-oriented programmes in the morning or evening and on weekends, allowing flexibility in the time and duration of the programme, so that students could complete the course at their own pace. The credit system needed to be introduced for this purpose.33 The UGC continuously emphasized the pivotal role of teachers and education. To that end it evolved schemes and projects to help them keep abreast of the latest developments in their subjects. It provided opportunities for interaction, so as to enable them to find the programmes, innovations, and the efforts being made in other universities and colleges. To ensure quality and a certain uniformity of standards at the recruitment level, the UGC introduced a National Entrance Test (NET) for Junior Research Fellows and Lecturers, now known as Assistant Professors. This was also in pursuance of the programme of action of the NPE 1986 that had stipulated that the teachers of universities and colleges should be recruited based on a common qualifying test, the details of which would be formulated by the UGC. Those who qualified in NET could pursue research in science, humanities, and social sciences in any university of their choice and also apply for the post of a Lecturer. This was challenged in the Delhi High Court, which upheld that NET, as prescribed by the UGC, was valid and mandatory, and that Delhi University was obliged under law to comply with the directions of the UGC. In a landmark judgement the Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the High Court in its judgement delivered on September 8, 1994. The thinking was that the maintenance of high standards by universities was important because democracy itself depended upon their doing so.34 In 1994–95, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) was set up by the UGC as an IUC, with its headquarters at Bangalore (Bengaluru) after deliberating the matter in nine regional seminars and finally at a national seminar. The five main objectives were: 1. Grade institutions of higher education and their programmes.

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2. Stimulate the academic environment and quality of teaching and research in these institutions. 3. Help institutions realize their academic objectives. 4. Plan to promote the necessary changes, innovations, and reforms in institutions. 5. Encourage self-evaluation and accountability in higher education. The role of NAAC in ensuring academic quality has been dealt with later in the context of quality in higher education.35 During the Ninth Five Year Plan (1997–2002), between the years 2001 and 2002, the UGC identified five universities with potential for excellence. They were to be given substantial financial support to enable them to optimize their potential. Since then, the scheme was extended to colleges also. The emphasis in the Plan, however, remained the consolidation of higher education and expansion only in underserved areas. It continued with the programmes in the earlier plans but with a special emphasis on access to the underprivileged and to women. The gap needed to be filled.36

3.4 Inculcating a Scientific Temper The MHRD communicated to the UGC that the Department of Science and Technology (DST) had decided to declare 1993 as the Year of Scientific Temper. A committee under the chairmanship of Prof. Yashpal made certain broad observations and recommendations in this regard: • Scientific temperament cannot be inculcated overnight or in isolation from several other factors that are part of an individual psyche, outlook, or approach. • It is not an appendage or device that can be given to all or something that an individual could lose or discard at will. • The human mind, psyche, and temperament are very complex, and factors and forces that influence its state could be many and varied. • It is, therefore, very difficult to design a practical, action-oriented strategy to stimulate and promote scientific temper among people. It was, however, recommended that the media could be used for this purpose because of its outreach. Interpersonal and interactive communication using local and folk forms would be effective. The involvement of teachers and students was crucial for mass mobilization. Institutions like the NCC and NSS, Nehru Yuvak Kendra, and other youth organizations could be used to create awareness, bring about attitudinal changes, and work in small local community-oriented schemes. The immediate beneficial fallout would be improvement in the quality of life of the deprived and the disadvantaged. A more gradual and long-term benefit would be the promotion of a rational approach, a philosophy of self-help, and reduced dependence on God and government. In urban areas, it would help reduce crime and deprivation.

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Through its Countrywide Classroom Programme, the UGC could telecast capsules of about three-to-four minute duration every day before the beginning of every programme and ask universities to encourage programmes on scientific awareness. Based on the recommendations of the UGC and the Indian National Science Association (INSA), a high-powered committee approved national lecturerships and adjunct professorships to rejuvenate science education and research in universities. From 2000 to 2001, the positions of national lecturers were to be offered as an incentive to talented students who got first divisions and first positions in their respective universities in the master’s in Science (MSc) programmes and were committed to continue research in science. Adjunct professorships were to be awarded to suitable persons from industry, research establishments, and other relevant institutions to promote and encourage greater interaction between universities and industry and research centres in scientific and technical areas.37 The 21st century saw high aspirations being spelt out in the Tenth Five Year Plan (2002–2007). It was a sobering thought that while India had one of the largest networks of educational institutions, it could only provide higher education to 6.9% people in the eligible age group. Higher education therefore had to be rapidly expanded. Although its sheer size might pose a challenge, mere numbers without quality would not do. The lack of infrastructure, facilities, and resources had often led to compromising quality and excellence. The funds made available during the Tenth Plan were almost one-and-a-half times that of the Ninth Plan. Universities needed to be encouraged to take innovative measures in the use of both physical and academic resources so that the challenges of numbers, relevance, quality, better governance, and optimization of resources could be met. For this, all stakeholders in the system—teachers, managers of education, vice-chancellors, principals, and funding agencies, needed to make the best effort. The Tenth Plan was slated to achieve a profound transformation of higher education so that it became an effective promoter of sustainable human development. At the same time, both the teaching and relevance of curriculum had to be improved for it to effectively forge links with the world of work. Teaching, research, and community extension functions needed to come together to make learning a lifelong adventure. The Plan provided a frame of reference for various steps to be taken to make this vision a reality. Several initiatives were taken to implement the goals of the Tenth Plan: An EJournal Consortium of universities was launched by the UGC on October 6, 2003, to be implemented by INFLIBNET. The aim was to provide electronic access to scholarly literature in all areas of learning to universities that came under the purview of the UGC and gradually to extend it to colleges. The access to the E-Journals formally began on January 1, 2004.38

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3.5 National Knowledge Commission Recognizing that knowledge would be the key driving force in the 21st century and that India’s ability to emerge as a globally competitive player would substantially depend on this knowledge resource, the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) was set up on June 13, 2005, as a high-level advisory body to the Prime Minister. Sam Pitroda, a renowned Indian inventor, telecommunication engineer, and entrepreneur, was in the chair. The objective was to transform India into a knowledge society. Its terms and reference were to recommend how to build excellence in the educational system to meet the knowledge challenges of the 21st century and increase India’s competitive advantage in the fields of knowledge; promote creation of knowledge in science and technology; improve the management of institutions engaged in intellectual property rights; promote knowledge applications in agriculture and industry; promote the use of knowledge capabilities in making governance effective, transparent, and accountable; and promote widespread sharing of knowledge to maximize public benefit. To take its mandate forward, the Commission concentrated on five key aspects of knowledge from which several focus areas emerged. These were: • • • • •

Enhance access. Good rating for institutions where the concepts of knowledge are imparted. Enable a world class environment for the creation of knowledge. Promote applications of knowledge for sustained and inclusive growth. Use knowledge applications in the efficient delivery of public services.

The Commission submitted around 300 recommendations on 27 focus areas during its three-and-a-half-year term. The NKC recommended that legislation be enacted to enforce the right to education. This was made a fundamental right in the Constitution. In HE, the NKC emphasized the use of ICT and Open Distance Education, together with open access materials and open educational resources. Their use could be vital in achieving the objectives of expansion, inclusion, and excellence but their quality needed improvement, and they had to be made more appropriate for the needs of society. A National Knowledge Network had to be established to facilitate research through live consultations and data and resource sharing. Open access materials and educational resources could also be developed and disseminated through it. It could be used for enhancing health care and facilitating the development of health information network. Further, interconnectivity would facilitate governance, which was not just a matter of computerization, but also a step towards rethinking systems and processes to ensure greater efficiency and citizen orientation. Web portals could be created to become decisive tools in supporting the right to information, decentralization, transparency, and accountability by ensuring people’s participation. The NKC stressed vocational and professional education. While vocational education had to be brought into the mainstream, it required greater flexibility in order to remain relevant. As far as professional education was concerned, recommendations

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were made for engineering, medical, management, and legal education. Legal education had to be justice oriented for the realization of the values enshrined in the Constitution. A comprehensive appraisal of medical education would be required to make it nationally sensitive and globally competitive. It was recognized that the contemporary global trends in the health sector suggested that medical pluralism would shape the future of health care. India could emerge as a world leader because of its strong foundations in evidence-based biomedical sciences, as well as an immensely rich and complex indigenous medical heritage. But strategies were required to promote the knowledge systems of traditional medicine. Similarly, recommendations were made for management education, agriculture, and on how to improve the well-being of the people in rural areas. The Commission identified innovation as one of the key factors in India’s economic growth, as it facilitates competitiveness, improvement in market share, and quality as well as reduction in costs. However, since innovation is a complex activity that requires interaction across the entire economy, from the grassroots to the large firm level, a comprehensive campaign is needed to spur efforts in this area. For this, incentives have to be provided to increase innovations, collaborations, licencing, and commercialization. A uniform legal framework is needed to give government-funded research universities and research institutions, ownership, and patents rights. With innovation, the creation and protection of intellectual property are critical as competition as now knowledge-based and global. Therefore, an infrastructure of international standards is needed for intellectual property rights. This will ensure that it serves the best national interest for more extensive innovative research, technology transfer, wealth creation, and overall benefit to society.39 Unfortunately, the NKC got mired in controversies, and hence its recommendations although valuable were not pursued. Another committee was set up on February 28, 2008, by the MHRD to advise on the renovation and rejuvenation of higher education, with Prof. Yashpal as its chairman. This was the second Yashpal Committee. The first one was formed in 1993 to develop a scientific temper in the country. The committee was originally supposed to only review the UGC and AICTE, and various other councils connected with higher education, but it was felt that the mere listing of the limitations and faults of these two organizations would not be very productive. Instead, the committee believed rather than expend energy in suggesting minor and major modifications in the structures of these bodies, it might be wiser to explore some fundamentals of the system itself. The mandate of the committee was accordingly expanded. The Yashpal Committee was convinced that the India’s HES was facing enormous challenges and needed drastic overhaul. Apart from various short-term issues, there was a serious threat to the very concept of a university and its values of knowledge generation. Among other concerns, the Committee tried to deal with the basic one, of the fragmentation of higher education that had taken place over the years. It recommended setting up a National Social Science Foundation (NSSF) so that all disciplines could be interwoven into a seamless entity rather than function individually in silos. This would provide the much-needed interdisciplinary approach and make education a

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vehicle to find holistic solutions to the challenges and innovate meaningfully. Further, it pointed out that India had a rich heritage of abstract thinking and scientific discoveries, but gradually the number of students studying pure science and mathematics had declined since more lucrative opportunities were available in professions related to commerce and professional courses. Immediate course correction was needed. Also, the number of students pursuing Ph.D. had to be increased, and the quality of research that they produced had to be improved. These steps were essential to transit to a knowledge- and skill-based economy. A holistic view of knowledge demanded a regulatory system that treated the entire range of HEIs as an integrated whole. Professional education could not be detached from general education. It was, therefore, imperative to bring all higher education, including engineering, medicine, agriculture, law, and distance learning within the purview of a single, all-encompassing, higher education authority, the National Council of Higher Education and Research (NCHER). Such a body had been envisaged even earlier, in the NPE 1986 and the Plan of Action of 1992. It has been re-iterated in NEP-2020. It now seems on its way to being implemented. The objectives of the proposed Council were recorded in detail. It was meant to give greater freedom to the universities. One of its first tasks was to identify the 1500 best colleges across India and to upgrade them into universities. In addition, it was supposed to create clusters of other potentially good colleges so that these too could evolve into universities. It was accepted that all universities need a live relationship with the real world outside and develop capacities to respond to the challenges faced by the rural and urban economies and culture. The proposed Council was to move away from the existing regulatory bodies to control and impose bureaucratic interferences in the functioning of universities and colleges. New governing structures were needed to enable universities to preserve their autonomy in a transparent and accountable manner. This would ensure greater coordination and integration in the planning and development of the HES. Educational institutions needed to be freed from the control of both, the government and for-profit agencies, not only in the matter of academics, but also of finances and administration. Collectively, they could frame a transparent set of rules to guide them in their regular functioning and submit themselves to an internationally recognized process of evaluation. They need to evolve and foster a culture of independent assertion of ideas, guarding of institutional prerogatives from external interference, transparency, and accountability for decisions taken. The Yashpal Committee stated the foundational principles on which Indian universities needed to be restructured. Complete autonomy of institutions of higher learning is essential for free pursuit of knowledge. While in practice, autonomy of any institution is closely linked to structural factors such as its sources of finance, the legal framework in which it operates, rules and regulations it is subjected to, and on the overall culture prevailing. Undergraduate programmes must provide the students with access to all curricular areas with a fair degree of mobility. No single-discipline specialized university is viable. The vocational education sector, outside the purview of universities and colleges, could be brought under the purview of universities by

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providing necessary accreditation to the courses available in polytechnics, industrial training institutions, and others. A national testing scheme for admission to the universities, on the pattern of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) should be evolved and be open to all aspirants of university education. It should be held more than once a year and students be permitted to send their best test score to the university of their choice. This recommendation made its way in the NEP-2020, and its implementation for Central Universities was begun in 2022. The practice of according the status of Deemed University should be stopped forthwith till the Council takes a considered view on it. It was said that it would be mandatory for all existing deemed universities to submit to the new accreditation norms to be framed on the lines proposed in the Yashpal Committee report within a period of three years, failing which the status of university should be withdrawn. A modern HES requires extension facilities, sophisticated equipment, and highly specialized knowledge and competent teachers. It is not possible for every university to have the best infrastructure. One of the Council’s primary tasks would be to create several intrauniversity centres in diverse fields to enable several institutions of higher learning to participate and avail themselves of their facilities. The quantum of central financial support to state-funded universities needs to be substantially enhanced on an incentive pattern, keeping in view the requirements for their growth. The expansion of the HES should be evaluated and assessed continuously so that it excels and responds to the needs of different regions in India and ensures not only equity and access, but also quality and opportunity of growth along the academic vertical. A National Educational Tribunal with powers to adjudicate on disputes among stakeholders within institutions and between institutions is needed to reduce litigation in courts involving universities and HEIs. Finally, a task force is needed to follow-up on the implementation of this agenda for action within a definite timeframe.40 In keeping with the recommendations of the Yashpal committee, five bills were introduced in Parliament: • • • • •

The National Commission for Higher Education and Research. Unfair Practices Bill. Educational Tribunal Bill. Foreign Education Providers Bill. Accreditation Authority Bill. But there was no outcome as the Bills could not be passed in the Parliament.

3.6 Expansion and Challenges The Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007–2012) was hailed as the education plan. It was to usher in a second wave of development. The unprecedented expansion in institutional capacity was reflected in the Plan of setting up about 1464 educational institutions

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comprising 30 central universities, eight IITs, seven IIMs, 20 IIITs, 10 National Institutes of Technology, 5 Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs), 2 schools of Planning and Architecture, 374 model colleges, and 1000 polytechnics. Several new initiatives of the fundamental nature were identified under the Eleventh Plan. The initiatives taken by the MHRD included setting a target of 30% GER, reform of regulatory authority, reforms in the deemed university sector, quality assessment mechanisms, and qualification framework for vocational and legal education together with the internationalization of higher education. The Plan set out to address the following issues: • • • • • •

Lower enrolment. Interstate and interdistrict disparities and rural urban differences. Intercaste, inter-religion, male–female, poor, and non-poor disparities. Quality. Academic reforms. Regulation of private educational institutes.

Several major policy decisions were taken by the Prime Minister, chiefly for expanding the institutional capacity in higher education, including setting up 30 central universities during the Eleventh Plan. Out of these, 15 universities were to be set up in those States that did not have a central university. He also announced the setting up of model colleges in each of the 374 districts where the enrolment rate was lower than the national average. The announcement included scholarships to cover 2% of undergraduate and postgraduate students. Further, the Prime Minister advised the UGC to work closely with the Planning Commission and the MHRD to develop the strategy for higher education under the Eleventh Plan, which the UGC did. It also interacted with the NKC and considered some of its recommendations. One major hurdle in the expansion of higher education, apart from resources, was the shortage of faculty. The basic problem was the inadequate number of qualified persons; while the demand for teachers increased, not many were attracted to the profession. Academic careers were unattractive, due to unrealistically low salaries, non-congenial work environment, rigid service conditions, and the absence of a uniform incentive policies, particularly for outstanding performance. This situation was aggravated by the absence of a uniform, transparent, and scientific system of regular performance appraisal. The problem was even more acute in those sectors where students with plain graduate degrees could earn comparatively attractive salaries working in non-academic sectors. There was a severe resource crunch in institutions of higher learning, particularly those funded by the States because the budgetary allocations for higher education had been practically frozen for decades and the institutions found it difficult to meet the running expenditures even for the salaries of teachers. The question of providing other facilities did not arise. This adversely affected the recruitment of new faculty. The regulatory bodies were not able to control the functioning of institutions, particularly in professional education, because of vague laws and norms without any punitive measures for violations. This severely diluted the quality of education.

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Introducing self-financing courses led to a skewed situation with some departments within the same institution being flush with funds and faculty, while others lacking on both counts. New private universities and other institutions of higher education aggravated the faculty shortage as they poached on teachers in state-run institutions by offering them better incentives and higher scales of pay and promotions. Some major reasons for faculty shortage were identified. Despite the massive expansion of higher education and an oversupply of Ph.D.s, many of them were not actually up to the mark. There had been a ban on recruitment by most institutions for several reasons diverting talent to other professions. The situation worsened because of the lack of flexibility in the process of recruitment, procedural delays, communication gap and poor outreach, the absence of a common forum to recruit faculty for various institutions collectively, and over-caution because there was no way to root out the incompetent. When they were rejected, the job seekers got frustrated and created obstacles. Often, they fought court cases and obtained legal injunctions, because of which posts lay vacant over long periods of time.41 To improve the academic environment in the university system it was essential to promote collaboration and formal links with other universities, national laboratories, and institutes of national importance through programmes of teaching, research, and training. A system of joint appointments was seen to be a solution to the problem of severe shortage of faculty, even in the most premium institutes of higher learning. Besides addressing the issue of faculty shortage, this would also encourage faculty from metropolitan cities to have first-hand experience at the universities and institutions from rural and remote areas. Under this scheme, the UGC supported up to five awardees in a university each year. The UGC started the scheme of Shodh Ganga, a digital repository of theses and dissertations submitted to universities in India. The objective was to help researchers to review the related literature apart from avoiding duplication of efforts and resources. The UGC made it mandatory for all universities to submit soft copies of their M.Phil. and Ph.D. theses and synopses to INFLIBNET, which was entrusted with the responsibility of maintaining the electronic repository.42 As a phased intervention towards curriculum reform, the UGC mounted the exercise of developing content for 77 postgraduate programmes under the National Mission on Education through ICT to provide the needed technological orientation to the pedagogy of curriculum transaction. Under this initiative the idea was to create high-quality, curriculum-based, interactive content in different subjects across all disciplines of social sciences, arts, fine arts and humanities, natural and mathematical sciences, linguistics, and languages. The content of a course was in four quadrants, and it had the facility for students to self-assess their learning.43

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3.7 RUSA It was essential to fast track the expansion of higher education. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) schemes, centrally sponsored by MHRD, Government of India, had successfully expanded primary and secondary education in public schools throughout India. It was felt that a similar effort was needed for higher education in the form of Rashtriya Uchchtar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) or the National Higher Education Mission.44 This was initiated in 2013 primarily to improve the higher education in State universities where over 85% of higher education takes place and which were, by and large, in poor shape. Its apex is the RUSA Mission Authority which is chaired by the Minister of MHRD. RUSA’s mandate is up to 2026 when it will be reviewed. The RUSA Mission Authority is assisted by the Project Advisory Group, Technical Support Group, and Project Directorate. In each State the State Higher Education Council is envisaged as the main agency through which RUSA works. The State Higher Education Council is an autonomous body that is supposed to function at arm’s length from both the State and Central governments. It may be created through an executive order but must be accorded statutory status within five years of its inception. It has monitoring and capacity-building functions, and, in keeping with these, it plans, executes, and evaluates the projects being undertaken. It is assisted by the State Project Directorate and the Technical Support Group but it is the main instrument to guile the entire transformative process in the State higher education sector. In every institution, the Governing Body and a project monitoring unit are required to oversee the progress of the projects that have been undertaken. The effort is to plan from the grassroots to the top, rather than the reverse, as usually happens. The idea is to ensure as much participation as possible at all levels to give a sense of ownership to all stakeholders and agencies to ensure the success of the scheme. Many of the problems in the State universities are due to archaic systems and regulations that govern them. It would not be possible to unleash their potential without initiating reforms in the existing governance and regulatory systems. It was believed that the reforms initiated under RUSA would introduce a self-sustaining momentum that would urge greater accountability and autonomy of State institutions. It would re-emphasize the need to improve the quality of education. To be eligible for funding under RUSA, the States would have to fulfil certain prerequisites. These would include creating a State Higher Education Council; setting up accreditation agencies; preparing State perspective plans; committing certain stipulated funds towards RUSA; academic, sectorial, and institutional governance reforms; and filling of faculty positions and some other prerequisites. Under this scheme, an initial amount would be provided to the State government to enable it to comply with these primary requirements. RUSA took note of the enormous challenges that the higher education sector posed and the efforts that were being continued from the Eleventh to the Twelfth Five Year Plan. The aim was to make higher education more relevant to the global needs and to remove the inequalities in access to education among various social groups. Such

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objectives were sought to be realized by providing adequate inputs and implementing the much-needed governance and regulatory reforms. Greater emphasis was laid on improving the quality of the teaching–learning processes to produce appropriately qualified, employable, and competitive graduates, postgraduates, and Ph.D.s. With respect to the planning and funding, some keys changes were envisaged: • • • •

Funding to be more impact- and result-oriented. Equity to be integrated for higher impact. Consolidate and develop the existing system instead of unplanned expansion. Improve capacities and direct greater focus on research and innovation.

The most significant paradigm shift was in the State HES. Strategic funding was strongly recommended because of extremely inadequate resources in this sector. New academic institutions were needed, the existing ones had to be expanded, but the focus was to make these institutions self-reliant in terms of quality. They must provide education that is relevant to the students in the contemporary environment and to the nation. The entire system of education has to be professionally managed and characterized by greater inclination towards research and creation of knowledge. With RUSA a completely new approach towards funding HEIs of State universities evolved. It had to be based on the key principles of performance-based funding, incentivizing well-performing institutions, and decision-making through clearly defined norms, which would establish and rely on a management information system that would gather the essential information from institutions. It would provide greater autonomy to universities, as well as colleges with a sharper focus on equity-based development, as well. RUSA was the new flagship scheme of the government that sought to pave the way for far-reaching reforms at the State level. Once eligible for funding under RUSA, and after meeting the prerequisite requirements, the States would receive funds based on achievements and outcomes. The yardstick for deciding the quantum of funds for the States and the institutions would be the norms that reflect the performance in key result areas of access, equity, and excellence. The State education was required to capture the current position of the States and the institutions with respect to these indicators, as well as the targets that needed to be achieved.

3.8 Private Sector and the Narayan Murthy Committee Efforts were also made to involve the private sector. A committee headed by Narayan Murthy was formed in 2013.45 Its terms of reference were: • Review the international and national experience of corporate involvement in creating and supporting education and innovation hubs and clusters and institutions of national importance, together with centres of excellence. • Assess the key constraints the corporate sector faced in investing in Indian higher education and the associated legal and regulatory challenges.

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• Delineate the role of the public sector undertakings and the private sector. • Assess the policy measures and institutional mechanisms necessary to increase the involvement in higher education; to develop guidelines for the development of national education hubs and clusters around new and existing centres of excellence and models for industry institute interaction. • Delineate details of what was specifically required. • Identify potential public sector undertakings and corporate partners willing to participate in this process. • Define a roadmap for implementation. The Committee recognized that the corporate sector was a direct beneficiary of the HES. It argued that the corporate sector played an important role in HEIs around the world, and it could do so in India as well. It could bring in financial resources, provide support for research and collaboration opportunities, help in faculty development, support students with scholarships, and offer opportunities to complement learning through internships. Its engagement could range from being a passive provider of capital to the most active in terms of directly owning and running some institutions. As an end stakeholder, the corporate sector could also play a key role in activities beyond the institutional aspects. To adequately leverage the corporate sector, it was important to look at the entire set of engagement models to ensure significant participation as well as diversity.

3.9 Divergent Policies and Their Implementation China and India present a contrast in their educational vision, the policies enunciated by them, their decision-making, and hence their implementation. Of course, the underlying aim of both is to educate their young population and create a knowledge society but their paths are different. One important reason is the difference in the systems of governance in each country—one being a communist country and the other a diverse democracy—and therefore the paths taken by them for policy formulation and implementation are naturally different. Unlike China, India did not make education the pivot of its growth and development. Education was important for it, but it was a part of all the competing demands all requiring the attention of the State. This made the attention of India on education less focused than China’s. Besides, as Furquan Qamar has analysed, the implementation policies in India are very poor and highly politicized. For instance, the recommendations of the first comprehensive Education Commission of India, the Kothari Commission (1964– 1966), were not implemented with any degree of seriousness because, according to him, partly because these were based on eight premises, which did not really hold good: stable political conditions; declining birth rate; the growth of national income at 6% per annum; a lessening of social tensions due to effective development; a strengthened and revitalized bureaucracy; a committed and competent body of teachers; and a community of students dedicated to the pursuit of learning. The

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Public Accounts Committee of the Sixth Lok Sabha said that the UGC’s approach to it was perfunctory and insubstantial. But the UGC cannot be wholly blamed because although it is an autonomous body, it is really an arm of the government. The Ministry of Education itself implemented it only piecemeal. The result was that after two decades, as has already been discussed, in August 1985 it presented to the Parliament, a document outlining the crisis in Indian education with its recommendations, the National Policy on Education 1986. However, before these could be implemented, the government fell in 1989 and was defeated in the general elections. The National Front Government that came into power set up its own committee, the Ramamurthy Committee, that has been referred to earlier. By the time, this Committee submitted its report in 1990, and this government too had fallen. This proved to be a tragic saga of missed opportunities. China’s implementation of its educational policies, on the other hand, had been single minded. Naturally, the consequences were also bound to be different. Now with the enunciation of the NEP-2020, after thirty-four years of the last policy of education, the hope is that it will be properly implemented. Given the trajectory of the evolution of education in the two countries, it is not surprising that while the two countries started at almost the same levels at around the same time, China surged ahead. Can India level up or even aspire to surge ahead? That is in the realm of speculation, which we will be ruminate over in the final chapter. Endnotes and References 1. “Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: An Architect of Modern Education in Independent India.” https://www.thepolicytimes.com/maulana-abul-kalam-azad=anarchitect-of-modern-education-in-independent-india/?amp=1. See also, Kuldip Kaur, Higher Education in India (1781–2003}, New Delhi and Chandigarh: UGC and Centre of Research in Rural Development; 2003. 2. Kavita A. Sharma, Sixty Years of the University Grants Commission, New Delhi: University Grants Commission, 2013, pp. 16–18. The University Education Commission (1948–1949), https://www.yourartic lelibrary.com 3. Kavita A, Sharma, Sixty Years of University Grants Commission, op. cit. pp .18–20. 4. Kuldip Kaur, Higher Education in India (1781–2003) University Grants Commission Delhi and Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh, December 2003, pp. 31–32. 5. Genesis University Grants Commission, https://www.ugc.ac.in For full report of the Radhakrishnan Commission, http://www.academicsindia.com/2016/12/Radhakrishnan-commission,-Part-.2.html. Radhakrishnan Commission/University Education Commission 1948–49 (Part2) https://www.tetsuccesskey.com. 6. Kavita A. Sharma, op.cit., pp. 39–42. 7. Kuldip Kaur, op.cit., p. 33. 8. Ibid., p. 34.

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9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41.

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Kavita A. Sharma, op.cit., pp. 49–52. Ibid., p. 53. Ibid., pp. 55–57; 68. Ibid., pp. 57–58; 64–65. Ibid., pp. 68–69. Ibid., p. 79. Ibid., pp. 89–90. Ibid., pp. 79–81. Ibid., p. 83. Ibid., pp. 96–97. Ibid., pp. 106–107. Kuldip Kaur op.cit., p. 112;” National Policy on Education”, 1968, https://www. education.gov.in Kavita A, Sharma, op.cit., pp. 108–109. Ibid., pp. 111–112; Ibid., pp. 122–124; Kuldip Kaur, op.cit., p. 16; p.117. Kuldip Kaur, op.cit., p. 17, pp. 117–118, p. 148; “Draft National Policy on Education” 1979, http://14.139.60.153 Kavita A Sharma, op.cit., p. 145. Ibid., pp. 158–159. Kuldip Kaur, op.cit., pp. 20–21; Reshma Nandha, “National Policy on Education 1986: Programme on Action,” 199, https://www.reshmanaandha.weebly.com. Kavita A. Sharma, op.cit., p. 138; p. 166. Ibid., pp. 167–168; p. 206. Ibid., pp. 159–162; National Policy on Education—1986, New Delhi: Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India (Department of Education), New Delhi: May 1986; https://www.ncert.nc.in. Kuldip Kaur, op.cit., pp. 22–23. Ibid., p. 40. Kavita A. Sharma, op.cit., pp. 178–184. Ibid., pp. 177–178. Ibid., p. 162. Ibid., p. 195; p. 197. Ibid., pp. 200–202. Ibid., pp. 254–261; For an overview of the development of higher education from the first to the tenth five- year plans, see Higher Education Through the Five Year Plans—I; http://egyankosh.ac.in Higher Education Through the Five Year Plans—II, https://egyankosh.ac.in Kavita A. Sharma, op.cit., pp. 307–319; National Knowledge Commission (NKC) of India: An Overview—E– LIS http://eprints.rclis.org Kavita A. Sharma, op.cit., pp. 312–319. Ibid., pp. 261–270; Eleventh Five Year Plan: Education Sector; www.aicte-ind ia.org

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42.

43.

44.

45.

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11th Five Year Plan India’s Education Plan—Digital LEARNING Magazine, digitallearning.eletsonline.com Partha Roy, “A Critical Review of 11th Five Year Plan on Higher Education in India;” https://www.academia.edu Shodhganga:a reservoir of Indian theses@INFLIBNET shodhganga.inflibet.ac.in. P. Sankar, S. Sudha, Dr. E.S. Kavitha, “Approaches to Shodhganga: A reservoir of Indian theses,” International Journal of Applied Research 2015: 1(13):95–99. National Mission in Education through ICT, Department of Higher Education, Government of India. https://www.education.gov.in/en/technology-enatled-lea rning National Mission on Education Through Information and Communication Technology, https://www.aicte.india.org Kavita A. Sharma, op.cit., pp. 302–304. Rashtriya Uchchtar Shiksha Abhiyan, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Education, Government of India, rusa,nic,in. Amita Devi, Bharat Bhushan, “Rashtriya Uchhatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) and its significance and challenges on inclusive growth of higher education,” International Journal of Advanced Educational Research, Vo.3, Issue1; January 2018; pp. 87–89; www.educationjournal.org Dr. A. Balu, Mr. P.R. Rajkynar,”Rusa-Present Higher Education Trends in India,” International Journal of Scientific Research, Vol. 4, Issue 1, November 2015, pp. 240–241; www.wurldwedejournals.com Kavita A. Sharma, pp. 319–322.

Chapter 4

Higher Education and Equity and Affirmative Action in China

The State must formulate policies that ensure that marginalized sections get equal opportunities in higher education. Otherwise, higher education can accentuate the inequalities in society instead of reducing them. The extent to which the State is proactive depends upon its vision and goals. In China, the emphasis is on the ethnic minorities. They are measured against the preponderant Han Chinese population, which has always dominated the mainland. It has been considered culturally superior to the other populations who have been regarded as being in varying degrees barbarity according to their distance from the Han majority areas. With the domination of the Communist Party, the emphasis has shifted from cultural, linguistic, or religious differences to the Marxist rubric of economic production and development. The policies have had to keep in mind two factors: one, that while the minorities are only about 9% of the population, they are spread over a land area of about 64%, and two, that some minorities are concentrated in border areas and so require careful handling. The ethnic minorities are important for China for at least two reasons: security and natural resources. The minorities live in 80 to 90% of the frontier areas. Hence, the Chinese make conscious efforts to prevent any mobilization of the ethnic minorities that can turn into nationality movements. This is to try and ensure that the minorities in order national security and unity. In this context, two issues must be taken care of: one is the preservation of identities by the minorities, and the second is to safeguard that the neighbouring countries do not provoke turmoil and secessionist tendencies. Some minorities have accepted the Han Central rule, while others seek independence from it. The latter has been encouraged by the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang have shown varying degrees of peripheral nationalism and have been trouble spots for the Chinese. The minorities occupy about 64% of the total land in China that gives them control over vast expanse of natural resources. The importance of this factor has been highlighted: “These areas possess fabulous wealth in the form of coal, iron, petroleum, and nonferrous, and rare metals. China’s chief livestock-producing areas, representing two-fifth of the total area of the country, are in minority areas, the forest

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reserves in the national minority areas are also exceptionally rich, amounting to onefifth of the country’s total forested areas.”1 Hence these areas are vital for China’s economic growth. China has had basically two contradictory policies towards the minorities: accommodation and assimilation. The minority policy of the CCP can be examined across three stages: (1) The period of 1947–1957 was one of accommodation. (2) The period of 1958–1976 was a time of forced assimilation. This was the time of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The Communist Party did not recognize differences between different ethnic people, and the emphasis was on one of the people of China who were all required to participate equally in the revolution. (3) However since Xi Jinping became the President of the People’s Republic of China, he has moved towards greater assimilation than accomodation. Many positive measures have been taken under Xi Jinping since 2012, but he seems to have maintained a tighter control with shades of Mao Zedong. Another reason why CCP leaders took a positive position on minority nationalities was probably the pragmatic need to ensure their survival during the Long March between 1934 and 1935. The CCP had to strategically select routes of the Long March to avoid the KMT. For this they had to pass through some of the most inhospitable and unfriendly terrains in the west and north. These areas were inhabited by various minority nationalities. The minority people in the west and north were hostile towards the Han Chinese because of the unfavourable policies of the KMT. The CCP needed to convince them that although they were Han, they were different. They were not greedy nor did they want to steal their lands or goods. Hence one of the underlying principles in the Long March was respect for the minorities and their customs. The effort was to gain goodwill, present a positive image, and to assure them that they were different from the KMT.2 After coming into power in 1949, the CCP quietly dropped the right to cede. Many Chinese scholars have articulated that the attitude towards self-determination had to necessarily change. Earlier it was based on pragmatic political considerations: “In October 1949, the New China has been established. To achieve the great cause of unification by thwarting imperialists and their followers’ conspiracy of splitting China and undermining national solidarity, we should no longer emphasize the minority nationalities’ right of self-determination. Instead, we should highlight the friendship, cooperation, mutual aid, and unity.”3

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4.1 Stalinist Approach with a Marxist Overlay Initially, for the classification of the minorities, China adopted and adapted the Stalinist approach that came to be known as the Chinese Stalinist approach. According to Stalin, a group constituted a distinct ethnic group or nationality when it had a common language, economy, locality, and culture.4 These criteria do not really apply to Chinese minorities. The Hui, for example, live mainly in the northwestern provinces and in the Zhongyuan Region or the Central Plains, but they can also be found throughout the country. Further, they do not have a distinct language of their own. They speak Mandarin with some Arabic and Persian phrases thrown into it. They are also distinct from other Muslim groups like the Uyghurs. The difference between the Stalinist definition and the ground reality was that Stalin was talking about a nation and not of an ethnic group. Perhaps that was why he called them nationalities, which is translated as Minzu in Chinese. However, Minzu can also mean an ethnic group. Scholars like Ma Rong feel that the term “ethnic minorities” was preferred because “nationality” encouraged separatist tendencies. According to Stalin, those communities which fulfilled his criteria for nation would be given the right to secede, and they could then separate states and those who did not would be subsumed within the nation state. The Communist Party of China (CPC), following the Stalinist model, had declared since 1922 that China would be a federation under which the different “nationalities” would be unified to form the Chinese nation. This would then be a kind of federation. The Chinese Stalinist approach was overlaid by another classification along an evolutionary scale, which stemmed from a long-standing tradition and its modification. The Marxist ideas of economic production and development were grafted on to it. China always had a very centralized State form. Before the Opium Wars, the Chinese cosmology centred on cultural transformation, which emphasized levels and processes of excellence together with embellishments of literacy, humanity, and tranquillity. From the time of Confucius, the Han Chinese mainstream judged people according to their cultural accomplishments and obedience to social norms rather than in terms of their ethnicity. The literal translation of “China” is “central kingdom,” which essentially means being at the centre of Chinese culture and in a position of moral authority. There is no reference to racial purity or superiority.5 Western notions of ethnicity together with ideas of race, nation, state, and citizenship began to enter the Han social discourse after the defeat of the Chinese naval fleet in the Sino-Japanese war of 1894. Between the 1950s and the 1980s, Chinese ethnologists officially classified the ethnic groups in three phases. Following the Marxist framework, they grouped ethnicities according to their attributes and modes of production rather than on their ethnicity and culture. This was according to Mars’s evolutionary scheme of development. Marx was supposed to have delineated five progressive stages of human socio-economic formations: the “classless” primitive community, the slave-based society of classical times, the feudal society based on serfdom, the modern bourgeois society based on capitalism, and lastly the advanced “classless” society of the

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future, communism. The Han people were seen to be the most developed in Marxist terms, and the others were examined in relation to them. Some minority groups were even labelled as being in the stage of slave or primitive society.6 By 1979, 56 groups including the Han were recognized. Of these fifty-five of them were said to be lower than Han in the evolutionary process of development. But according to the Constitution, all fifty-six groups are equal and notions of the Han superiority have been firmly discouraged. This is an obvious contradiction because in actual practice, the inequality is evident. Over 400 groups had applied for recognition after 1949 as distinct Minzu or ethnic group, but most were not successful although they continue to have cultural features, which make them distinct from other groups. The difference between them may not be visually evident but can be seen in various aspects of their lives.7 The notion of autonomy went back to imperial times. It was re-introduced by Mao in connection with ethnic minorities as an expediency. Early Muslim settlers during the Tang and Song dynasties who had come to trade in China were allowed to live in separate, discrete quarters, known as foreign zones. They elected their own Arabic officials who exercised considerable autonomy in judicial matters. The practice of granting autonomy to minority groups continued under the Ming dynasty, and the Muslim, Tibetan, and Mongol communities operated autonomously if they accepted the authority of the king and did not threaten the integrity of the imperial state.8 Thus, autonomy and ethnicity intersect and autonomous regions were carved out in China based on distinct ethnic habitations. There are five autonomous regions: Mongolia, Guangxi, Tibet, Ningxia, and Xinjiang; thirty autonomous prefectures; and 113 autonomous counties. Together they cover around 64% of China’s territory although their total population is only about one-tenth of the entire population. Only about 70 minority groups live in the autonomous regions, and the rest are spread throughout the country.9

4.2 Affirmative Action Affirmative action policies in higher education are mainly based on ethnicity. Intertwined with it are binaries of rural and urban; poor and rich; and underdeveloped and developed. The ethnic minorities are commonly regarded as rural, poor, and underdeveloped. In 1950, these minorities were 6% of the population, but in terms of attendance in educational institutions of higher learning and in middle and primary schools, they accounted for only 0.9, 0.4, and 0.2%, respectively. There was not a single formal institution of higher learning for ethnic people.10 After the formation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Constitution, the law regarding Ethnic Regional Autonomy, the law regarding Compulsory Education, and the law regarding Ethnic Education were some of the statutes that had clauses for helping and supporting the ethnic people in the development of education. Administrative organs were set up both at the Central and the local level in the departments of education to implement principles and policies for education and to solve the

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problems that ethnic minorities encounter in the pursuit of education. Ethnic education had two major goals: one was to sustain ethnic languages and culture, and the second was to develop ethnic and outlying regions economically with the help of the educated ethnic minorities. Of these, the first is undergoing change as ethnic languages are being marginalized in favour of Mandarin, and greater emphasis is being placed on the second objective of development.

4.3 Legal Rights of Minorities The State gives a constitutional guarantee to ethnic minorities to protect their lawful rights and interests. Article 4 of the 1982 Constitution of China spells out the rights of minorities: • All nationalities in the PRC are equal. • The state protects the lawful rights and interests of the minority nationalities and upholds and develops a relationship of equality, unity, and mutual assistance among all of China’s nationalities. • Discrimination against and oppression of any nationality are prohibited; any act, which undermines the unity of the nationalities or instigates division, is prohibited. • The state assists areas inhabited by minority nationalities in accelerating their economic and cultural development according to the characteristics and needs of the various minority nationalities. • Regional autonomy is practised in areas where people of minority nationalities live in concentrated communities; in these areas, organs of self-government are established to exercise the power of autonomy. • All national autonomous areas are integral parts of the PRC. • All nationalities have the freedom to use and develop their spoken and written languages and to preserve or reform their folkways and customs.11 The Constitution also deals specifically with the autonomous regions. It reinforces the rights of the ethnic minorities to manage their educational, scientific, cultural, health, and sports undertakings; protect and restore their cultural heritage; and to develop ethnic cultures. The State is committed to providing financial, material, and technical assistance to ethnic minorities to accelerate their economic and cultural development. It must assist in training officials at all levels, different types of specialized personnel, and technical workers among that area’s ethnic groups to develop the ethnic minority areas with the help of their own trained personnel. While they can use their own spoken or written languages, classes for teaching Chinese, that is the Han language, are to be run for senior grades of primary schools, and in secondary schools to popularize Mandarin or Putonghua, the common speech based on Beijing pronunciation. A special subsidy is offered to develop education for the minority nationalities and overcome their education problems. The Ministry of Education maintains a Department of Education for minority nationalities to concentrate on their education, while

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the relevant provinces and regions all keep a similar division under their respective education commissions. Provinces and regions that do not have a big population of minority nationalities usually have designated personnel in charge of education.12 Articles 36 to 42 of the Law on Regional National Autonomy, 1984 incorporate the various aspects of minority education. According to them, the different organs of government in the autonomous regions are entitled to establish various kinds of schools at different levels, follow their own enrolment procedures, formulate their curricula, and use their regional language for instruction. They may develop textbooks and literature in that language. They may also set up printing facilities for their publication. They can broadcast on radio, develop their own film industry, and follow their culture in different aspects and phases of their lives. They can preserve their cultural relics and other historical cultural legacies. The local government in the ethnic minority regions must deal with illiteracy through compulsory primary education; develop secondary education; and establish specialized schools such as teacher’ schools, secondary technical schools, vocational schools, and institutes of nationalities to train personnel from among the minority nationalities. Hence, public primary and secondary boarding schools have been set up in pastoral areas and economically underdeveloped and sparsely populated mountain areas inhabited by minority nationalities. The local government must keep in mind the local conditions to develop science and technology. To this end it must develop exchanges and cooperation with others and promote interdisciplinary studies. It can also conduct exchange programmes with foreign countries in various fields of science, technology, the arts, sports, and public health. However, there is an important caveat to this freedom. All initiatives and activities must be taken in accordance with the guidelines of the State and the various stipulations of the State law.13 The supremacy of the Communist Party cannot be questioned as it is believed that stability is a precondition to development. Hence, the autonomy law, while it gives a wide range of rights, is a weak law. Autonomy implies a degree of independence, but as can be seen, the powers of autonomous regions with respect to the Central Party and the State are quite weak. These regions have a degree of independence in determining and implementing policies appropriate for local needs but their administrative bodies must fall in line with the Party principles and policies. In fact, even in their day-today activities, all administrative bodies are required to function in accordance with the policies of the Party whether they may be autonomous regions, prefectures, or counties. This has been ensured in several ways, including by placing restrictive caveats in the law itself. Most of the articles in the 1984 Law on Regional National Autonomy have restrictive clauses that limit the governments of autonomous regions to implementing State plans. The administrative bodies of the autonomous areas deal largely with relatively safe issues such as education, cultural development, family planning, management of the floating population, technological and scientific advancement, health care and disease prevention, sports and physical fitness, interregional cultural exchanges, and environmental protection. Laws regarding the age of marriage, property rights, family patterns, and educational participation can be developed to suit the region,

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but increasingly, Central influences have tried to bring the minority regions in line with the policies of the Central government even in these areas. For instance, in 1982 the Central Authorities in Beijing initially gave the autonomous administrative units the right to develop family planning policies for the minorities; but in 1984 the Central government ruled that the one-child family norm had to be encouraged among minorities with more than 10 million members. By the early 1990s, minority populations were made to conform completely to the Han family planning policy of one child. Administrative restrictions: Often a Han person is appointed as Party Secretary in the autonomous regions where he or she is on top in the political hierarchy. There are provisions in the law for sending technical and skilled personnel to autonomous regions irrespective of their nationality or ethnicity. This allows the State to send Han Chinese and PLA units into strategic geopolitical areas. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has also established Han-dominated cities or enclaves within the autonomous regions for administrative purposes as part of Leadership and Assistance from the State organs at higher levels in keeping with articles 54 to 66 of the 1984 law. These articles have authorized the Central government to send in professionals, managers, teachers and trainers, doctors, scientists, and technicians. The PLA has provided many of these professionals. More advanced eastern regions have been enlisted to assist with economic and technical progress. The aim is to develop roads and other infrastructure and provide an administrative layer, which includes varying proportions of minority nationalities. It has been claimed that Han Chinese people are required as administrators because the ethnic minorities do not have enough educated people among them who can be trained and hired as cadres. Since cadres have to be Party members, it ipso facto means that the ethnic minority people have to be allied to the CPC. Other than government officials, skilled workers, and army personnel, Han Chinese have also moved into the autonomous regions. Many have done that because they do not have the hukou or the permit required to stay in a city; others have moved because of natural catastrophes in the places where they lived. Still others have relocated to take advantage of business opportunities in the newly developing regions. The combined effect of all these movements is to change the nationality mix of the population in autonomous regions.14

4.4 The Development of Minority Education Policies After the formation of the PRC, the new government encouraged the minorities to have pride in their traditions, heritage, and languages. The Eighth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, in 1953, set up a network of bodies from the Central level down to the local level to take care of the special needs of the minorities.15 But most of these policies got reversed during the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1962, when Mao Zedong introduced radical leftist reforms including the formation

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of communes. Although the pace of reforms was slower in the autonomous regions they had to conform. During the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, all social contradictions were seen in class terms rather than through the lens of ethnicity. Although autonomy was retained in principle, many cultural relics, symbols, and institutions were destroyed. Minority nationality leaders were imprisoned and ill-treated. Temples were ransacked, minority schools were shut down, and people were tortured to death after being falsely accused of attempting to split from China. Cultural pluralism was abandoned in favour of the class struggle, and the Han Chinese became very high handed towards the minority groups. Consequently, the minority regions that were already behind in economic development suffered a further setback.16 After Mao’s death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping’s policies towards the minorities softened, an acknowledgement that they had been treated badly during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Deng Xiaoping re-emphasized nationality and equality provided there were no secessionist moves. Deng was not interested in a political struggle with the minorities. His focus was on economic development, and he saw education as the key to that. Educational institutions had to be nurtured to train experts and develop science. Scientific research in universities needed to collaborate with industry for economic growth and nation building. Because education was lagging, Deng Xiaoping opened China for educational exchanges and for borrowing foreign expertise to accelerate economic development. He initiated market reform set the country on the path of modernization and development. An open-door policy replaced the old one of insulation and isolation to bring in foreign investment together with exchange of ideas, people, and technology.17

4.5 Gaokao The Gaokao or the national entrance examination for admission to universities and colleges, which had been suspended during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution periods, was resumed in 1978. This was important because affirmative action in China is primarily based on the following policy measures: • Preferential admission by which ethnic minorities can get admission to universities and colleges on lower scores than those required for the Han majority students. • Set quotas for the number of minority students to be enrolled. • Permit students of minority nationalities to enter universities and colleges with lower marks scored in the Gaokao. • Offer special training to such students. • Assign the graduates to work in areas where they come from. Education slots are also available subject to fulfilling various obligations like: • Residing in a specific region. • Following a specific major.

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• Taking on a specific profession, or a combination of those things.18 This is known as Dingxiang, following a certain direction. A Dingxiang sheng is a student who undertakes to fulfil the required obligations. At times the need may or may not be waived. A Dingxiang sheng may or may not have the tuition covered. Naomi Yamada, working on the preferential policies in Qinghai in Tibet, points out that most Dingxiang slots require working there or in the Tibetan Autonomous Region after graduation. In this sense, the preferential policies are in line with the long-standing notion that those with higher education are key to the development of autonomous areas and regions.19 However, the rules regarding eligibility and fees vary from year-to-year as they are enacted through the point system that rely on ethnic designations and the prefectures together with other factors. Local and provincial authorities who work within guidelines make modifications as established at the State level. Therefore, students face certain ambiguities. Applications to college are centralized. It is compulsory for all students to take the national college entrance exam, or Gaokao, and complete preference decision forms to indicate which universities they prefer. Completing these forms involves a series of guesses as the students do not know the required minimum entry scores for that year. Some may not even know their own personal scores when filling in the form. Universities first take the qualified students who have listed them as their first preference. Therefore, students who do not get their first preference often compromise their chances of getting their second preference as the slots may have already been taken up by students who listed those universities as their first preference and qualified for them. To ameliorate these difficulties, the Ministry of Education established the Sunshine Project in 2005, which publicizes information regarding enrolment policies, procedures, and results.20 Those who meet the residential and ethnic identification guidelines are admitted to the College Preparatory Programme or Yukeban with lower scores.21 This is the second measure fundamental to affirmative action after preferential admission policies. It is not open to Han Chinese students. This programme entails a year or two of extra time, after schooling, to be spent to complete the undergraduate degree but those students who complete the College Preparatory Programme are assured admission to the undergraduate programme. Post-1978, the Preparatory Programme was expanded and continues at select national and regional universities. A moral training component has been added to it. The curriculum for the Programme is determined by the State, and there is greater emphasis on the spread and universal use of Mandarin in order to aid in national building and development. During the Hu-Wen Administration in 2002, the political education component was reduced and in the case of many science programmes eliminated altogether.22 A fee has now to be paid for the College Preparatory Programme, which was earlier free. This has resulted in a degree of hardship for some students of the ethnic minorities. The National College entrance examination is administered in Mandarin Chinese. However, six language versions of the National College examination are also available in Tibetan, Uygur, Mongolian, Korean, Kazakh, and Kirghiz, but not in other minority languages. The rest of the minority students must take the Chinese version

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of the National College examination. One reason for instituting the exam in the languages mentioned could be that the speakers of these six minority languages are in border areas and hence have been given special privileges by the government to win their support in case of war or disturbance.23 In addition to the minority rights in mainstream education, in 1950, the State established the University of Nationalities (UN), called the Central Minzu University (CUN), to foster the training of high and midrank cadres. They were to support regional autonomy and contribute to the political, economic, and cultural development of the autonomous regions. This is in keeping with the vision of the State that educated and talented people belonging to ethnic minorities must play a major role in developing autonomous regions. To this end, 279 Tibetan recruits were granted entry to a cadre training class at CUN in 1951. However, many of them were found to have a relatively limited educational foundation and a relative lack of cultural foundation. They could not, therefore, join the regular classes. They had to be first sent to classes covering general high school material to bring them up to speed. The University since then has come a long way. Today, it is a high-ranking university, counted among the top universities in China. It specializes in social sciences, dance, and fine arts and does extremely valuable research on issues pertaining to ethnic minorities.24 Apart from the Central University for Nationalities, the State also runs a network of minority institutions, including 12 colleges for minority nationalities. These are only open to students of the 55 minority nationalities. A total of 157 normal universities, colleges, and special secondary schools have been established in 19 provinces and autonomous regions, mainly for training teachers of minority nationalities. There are also 124 colleges of education and schools for advanced studies.

4.6 Language and Culture Mette Halskov Hanson, dealing with Naxi speakers in Yunnan, talks of the beginnings of affirmative action in education in terms of bilingual education. She says that in 1980, the Ministry of Education and the Commission on Nationalities Affairs evaluated the state of minority education. They realized that minority Minzu were very backward, with low literacy levels, and their schools were in a very bad state. Inevitably, their numbers in higher education were also dropping. The government decided that these regions had to be modernized for which special educational measures were required. Therefore, the central and local governments decided to establish special primary and secondary minority schools for which funds were earmarked. In addition, the government tried to strengthen teacher training and re-establish bilingual education, especially among the Tibetans, Mongols, and Ugyurs. Koreans in Yanbian autonomous area had already established bilingual education on their own, even at the college level.25 The right of local governments to establish minority education in accordance with local demands and special conditions was confirmed in the 1984 Law on Local

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Autonomy. Of course, they had to conform to the laws of education passed by the central government. It had already been decided in 1978 that minority students who successfully concluded that higher education would be allotted jobs in their home counties to help in the development. This was in keeping with the stated goal of minority education is that students become proficient in both bilingualism and biculturalism. In fact, for ethnic minority students, it is a policy of trilingualism because in addition to their own language, they need to study Mandarin and English. Provisions exist for compiling and publishing textbooks and teaching materials in the languages of the minorities. Eight provinces and autonomous regions have established organizations for compiling and translating textbooks and teaching materials and had set up publishing houses to produce books in languages other than Chinese. Such organizations, publishing houses, and supervision committees are to ensure bilingual teaching and learning. Supervision committees for producing teaching materials have been set up under the guidance of the relevant departments of the State.26 Although the government encouraged bilingual education, it constantly issued statements that the study of Chinese would benefit the cultural and technical proficiency of the non-minorities. The dominance of Mandarin Chinese exerts a negative influence on minority languages. Mandarin Chinese is the official language in mainland China. Article 19 of the in 1982 Constitution of the PRC, in contrast to the article 37 of the minority nationalities law, stipulates, “The state promotes the nationwide use of Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese)…”27 This means that while Mandarin Chinese is nationally promoted, the minority languages are not. Also, because of China’s strong economic development, Mandarin Chinese has become essential in national and global contexts. It offers much better employment opportunities. Therefore, Mandarin Chinese prevails in all aspects of public life in minority regions and prompts students to neglect their own language. In 2003, learning English language became compulsory from primary school itself. The minority students faced certain disadvantages in this language policy because it meant that they had to learn three languages: the local language, Chinese, and English as opposed to Han students who had to learn only Chinese and English. Since knowledge of both Chinese and English was necessary for further study and employment, many minority students opted to go to schools where the medium of instruction was Chinese. The additional problem in many schools was the acute shortage of teachers who could teach in multiple languages. All these factors led to a diminishing demand for ethnic language learning. These languages were also not seen to provide upward mobility. This encouraged many schools to follow only Chinese and English. This leads to the question whether the language rights of the minorities are individual rights or State rights. The question becomes even more pertinent when Mandarin is imposed and education in the local language is abolished, as it happened in Tibet.28 If language rights are individual rights, then individuals have the right to ask the State to fulfil its commitment to the minority groups to ensure language rights. But it is obvious that the right of the State has consistently overridden individual rights. This is because national unity and stability have always been prioritized

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over all rights in China and any right can be sacrificed if the government perceives a danger. If there is any conflict between the laws of the central and local governments, the will of the central government prevails.29 Thus, the minority languages have remained at a disadvantage. This manifests itself at different stages of higher education, beginning even from the Gaokao. For example, a Tibetan student from an autonomous prefecture in northwest China, who speaks Mandarin as a second language, may not only have fewer economic resources compared to a Han student from Beijing, but also less cultural access to the kind of information that appears in the questions asked in the Gaokao. Stories of cultural heroes known widely among Tibetans or Hui, for example, are mostly unknown to the Han students, and thus they do not appear in the school curriculum or in the entrance exam. According to Yuxiang Wang and Jo Ann Phillion, even when minority students find placement in HEIs because of preferential policies, they find themselves at sea at the college or university because the preferential treatment ends with enrolment. English is particularly problematic as the grade in it is now counted in the final GPA. Therefore, like the Han students, the minority students must also sit for the College English Test (CET) or for the Test of English Major (TEM). These tests are compulsory for all university students. Lacking proficiency in English, the minority students often must repeat these tests several times before they succeed. This makes them frustrated, anxious, and even depressed as they develop a lack of self-worth.30 As Wang and Phillion point out, the positive discrimination policy, which lowers the benchmark for admission, ironically ends up with feelings of negative discrimination as the non-minority students fail to keep up with the course requirements. The universities that enrol these students too face their own challenges. It is left to them to enhance the English proficiency of students in a matter of two-to-four years so that the students can meet the requirements of the national curriculum and graduate comfortably. This may not always be possible given the gap between the low threshold of college admission and high threshold of graduation. What accounts for the lack of English language proficiency among the minorities? One reason, according to Wang and Phillion, is that English education for the minority students begins much later than it does for the Han students. The main problem is the lack of resources required to develop language proficiency. Then there are socioeconomic factors as well. Most ethnic minority families do not send the children to school in the “busy seasons” as they must help their parents with farming work. Therefore, fewer children of the minority people get a chance to study English, or for that matter any foreign language in either the primary or secondary school.31 The situation then is that those who can study only in their regional language and for whatever reason they are pushed into departments of ethnic literature. They are unable to pursue science or even the social sciences. In the ethnic literature departments, their classmates usually also belong to their own ethnicity and thus they miss out on socializing with other ethnicities, and their educational experience remains narrow and limited. With the consequent spiralling effect, these limitations make it difficult for them to find well-paid jobs. They are left with almost no scope for career growth because they lack in mainstream skills and face prejudices in

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the job market. This exacerbates the already existing problems of finding lucrative employment. The situation became critical when the government changed its policy and stopped assigning jobs to students after graduation, leaving it to them to look for appropriate job opportunities for themselves. If the minority students are from rural or poor family backgrounds, they do not even have the resources or social or familial support required for job hunting. Although the state continues to pursue preferential policies towards the minorities, there remains a homogeneity agenda which is my work against them. This is evident in the concept of an “educated” person in China. A person may have mastered a certain set of skills and may view the world through a particular cultural lens, but eventually the focus is on his or her capacity to contribute to economic growth and development. All education must lead to that end, and unless that happens, he or she is not “educated.”32

4.7 Factors Overlapping with Ethnicity While preferential policies are essentially based on ethnicity, these are overlaid with other factors like language skills, the rural urban divide, the divide between the poor and the affluent, and even the impact of geographical divisions.33 These are significant in determining access to opportunity and an individual’s capacity to succeed in the secondary and higher education sectors. The factors are also related to the unequal development in various regions. The students from rural areas are usually poor and inhabit a particular part of China that may not give them the required opportunities to succeed. A survey was conducted in 2011 on equity issues in higher education. It was found that there are differences in access to HE, depending on whether the students belonged to the rural or urban areas. The rural areas are mainly in the southern and coastal region and in the northwest and western regions. Many ethnic minorities live in these areas. From 1997–2001, the enrolment rates for HE grew modestly for students from lower income families in rural areas but more rapidly for students from the urban areas. After 2001, the situation changed somewhat, as applicants from urban and rural areas showed the same rate of increase. During 2000–2003, however, there appeared a paradox in some findings. The number of students from large and midsize cities decreased steadily while the number of students from counties, towns, and villages increased. In 2003, the percentage from large- and middle-sized cities was below 40%; from counties, towns, and villages it exceeded 60%. But this shows only a part of the picture. If the financial background of the students is analysed, the numbers of those who belong to the top two income groups are higher in national universities than of students from the two lowest or poorer background, while in local institutions there were more poor students than the affluent ones. This kind of disparity widens the educational gulf between the rich and the poor students because national universities get more public funding and

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command stronger academic prestige and brand recognition then the local universities. Therefore, the kind of institution that the student attends impacts his or her academic growth and job potential. This survey clearly shows that far less opportunities were available for the lower socio-economic groups than for those in the upper groups, although the situation was gradually changing.34 Disparity in income levels was linked to geographical locations. Lining He and Faye Duchin have pointed out that the thin belt of coastal provinces in the eastern region is economically the most advanced and most of the elite universities that are situated here. The central region is less affluent, but more heavily populated. It is abundant in natural resources. The vast western area is the poorest part of China. The cost of living and level of education was considerably higher in the eastern and central regions than in the western regions where the ethnic minorities mainly live. Hence, students from western regions with poorer financial resources hesitate to study in the more prestigious universities in the East.35

4.8 Market Forces A revival began in the early 1980s, with emphasis on quality and economic growth. The push was towards economic, social, and political development. However, economic development was not even. The coastal areas were first opened to the outside world. Special Economic Zones (SEZs) were created around Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Tianjin and then expanded into other areas. This was the so-called East–Central–West strategy of favouring the eastern region over the western sectors in the allocation of development funds. The decision to do this assumed that investment in the east would bring better returns than elsewhere since it had better infrastructure, more educated population, easier access to export markets, and greater knowledge in dealing with the outside world. Overall, there was less economic development in the minority areas although massive allocations were made by the State to overcome inequality. There was significant expansion and improvement in industry and agriculture in many areas, and communications, health, and education services improved markedly. Despite these improvements, the minority regions in the west had far less economic and social development than the rest of China. As has been mentioned earlier, some areas in the west had deposits of oil, coal, and minerals, but the minorities could not actually benefit from these natural resources. Markets and ports were far and the cost of transportation was high. Consequently, mining and other related activities were gradually taken over by non-minority interests. The inequalities with Han Chinese increased. Deng Xiaoping introduced neo-liberal policies, although within a socialist framework. This exacerbated the situation of the minorities. In the field of education these policies particularly impacted those who were less affluent. As has been discussed while dealing with evolution of policy, the introduction of market forces led to HEIs implementing cost-recovery and cost-sharing policies from 1997. Tuition revenue, as a percentage of the total higher education financing, increased annually.

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The average per cent of return from students’ fees was less than 1% in 1992; it went up to 27% by 2002 and to 34% in 2008. Because of the annual hike in fees the burden of education increased exponentially, leading to a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, with the general increase of household earnings, the net price paid for higher education also increased; but on the other hand, this net price exceeded the ability of the low-income families to pay for higher education in some institutions.36 Several policy reforms have been initiated since the introduction of fees to assist those who are unable to meet educational costs. The government’s student loans scheme provides loans to qualified students from low-income families. The financialaid programme focuses on scholarships and fellowships for qualified students based on their financial needs. Preference is given to HEIs and students in the Western provinces and institutions with students majoring in farming, forestry, water conservation, teacher education, geology, minerals, petroleum, and navigation. Aid is provided for alleviating poverty by direct assistance to those below the poverty line. Because of the shortage of qualified teachers for minority regions, new policies have been enacted that provide incentives for college students who volunteer to teach in minority areas. HEIs are authorized to take out 10% of tuition revenue for financially assisting needy students from low-income families.37 Around the time of the establishment of the open-door policies and the introduction of market forces, China also began to establish state-of-the-art research universities that would be able to compete with the best in the world. This was done through schemes of Project 211, Project 985, and Double First-Class Universities, discussed in detail later in the context of quality of higher education and China. These universities were mainly in the affluent eastern part of China in keeping with the economic development of this area. Heavy investment was made in them inevitably to the detriment of the rest. The central government shed its responsibility towards around 300 universities. By the mid-1990s, the universities administered by the central government fell from more than 400 to only about hundred. The elite universities that were set up were beyond the reach of most students from ethnic minorities. They could neither afford the higher tuition fee nor the high cost of living. They also usually did not have proficiency levels which were high enough for them to be able to find a place in them. However, to give the State its due, simultaneous efforts were made to raise the standards of the universities in the western regions. A programme linked the more elite, coastal institutions with counterparts in the minority areas to enable them to develop joint programmes, further scientific research in the institutions, and to avail of teaching assistance. This was called the counterpart-aiding project. Through the project, funding was made available and incentives were given for exchange opportunities for students and faculty members that would otherwise be impossible. After the fourth National Conference on Education for Minority Nationalities in 1992, the State organized the economically and culturally developed coastal provinces and cities and other more developed areas to support educational development in 143 poverty-stricken counties inhabited by minority nationalities. In 1998, 52 universities were engaged in training minority personnel in Xinjiang.38

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Finally, education administrators and policymakers from the minority area were made a part of the central government plan to ensure context-appropriate avenues for improving education and development in the primary, secondary, and higher education subsectors. This contrasted with the previous top-down approach to providing assistance in education to these regions. The Action Plan for invigorating education from 2003 to 2007 focused on developing educational institutions, finance, human resource management, leadership skills, and promotion of talents in the western region. Continual support was given to operate at least one high-level university in each province, autonomous region, and municipality of the western region directly under the Central government. Many of these reforms found their place in the 10th Five Year Plan for National Education. Policies and resources were especially earmarked so that educational development in the western regions could be given priority. The emphasis was mainly on the basic and secondary vocational education. Tertiary higher vocational education was emphasized to enable graduates to acquire the necessary skills for jobs in the western region. Government funding efforts in each province supported several secondary vocational schools and a higher-level vocational institution. Funding was also made available for normal universities in the western region.39 Currently there is a contrast in perception between what China claims to be doing for education and training in minority areas, particularly Xinjiang, and how the West perceives China’s actions. According to a report of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the whole endeavour is nothing more than the CCPs endeavours to build links between civilian universities and military and security agencies in these regions. An increasing number of universities are engaged in defence research, training defence scientists, collaborating with military, and cooperating with the defence industry. This is naturally being watched closely.

4.9 Evaluation Preferential policies have done some good for the spread of education. There has been significant progress in spreading compulsory primary education, and more emphasis is now being laid on developing vocational education and adult education, improving the quality of workers, and training primary- and secondary-level technical personnel. These reforms and adjustments are targeted at better serving the economic and social development in the minority areas and making education more relevant and attractive. The preferential policies, however, have their critics. Han students complain of reverse discrimination and protest about ethnic discrimination because they feel disadvantaged. Many believe that the policies foster an inclination among the minorities to depend on the special policies of the government and the preferential treatment given to them. They feel that this leads to certification, without the necessary educational quality. Since Han Chinese students cannot enrol in College Preparatory Courses, they feel resentful. They believe that their chances to get into college are diminished by lesser qualified students who have assured admission through the

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Preparatory Courses. Many are also vexed that some students, because of ethnic affiliation and prefectural residence, receive point adjustments on the Gaokao. The preferential policies are seen as reverse discrimination creating a majority–minority binary, rife with contradictions. This is not unique to China. It happens anywhere in the world where special treatment is given, for whatever reason, to any section or sections of society. In India as will be shown in the following chapter, it has led to massive amount of litigation. The National Strategy for Higher Education Reform and Development for 2010 to 2020 emphasized equality, structural adjustment, and educational quality. Since the accession of President Xi Jinping in 2012, the policies focused on educational equality at all levels and particularly in higher education.40 These, however, can work to the disadvantage of the minorities. If the minorities experience disparities in education and yet must excel in a system, which is the same for all, they are at an obvious disadvantage. Education then is bound to replicate and reproduce the structural inequalities prevailing in society, creating contradictions. The term “contradictions” is frequently used in China to describe tensions and differences, which are either non-antagonistic or antagonistic in nature. Nonantagonistic contradictions are internal, caused by differences felt by various sections of society but the unity of the system is not threatened. Such contradictions are tolerable if they do not transform into antagonistic contradictions. Antagonistic contradictions rise between enemies. When sections of society feel so discriminated against that they reach a point of conflict with the State and threaten its stability, the situation is antagonistic. Such contradictions are unacceptable, but both kinds of contradictions can be seen in Chinese society. The question is, how can contradictions be eliminated or at least rendered non-antagonistic? The answer seems to lie in the dissolution of poverty through ensured development.41 Perhaps that is why preferential policies exist alongside the emphasis on assimilation in language and culture. Preferential policies operate within the framework of enhancing economic development and uphold a specific concept of who is an educated person. This framework cannot be challenge. Disadvantaged students can only find ways to manoeuvre within the framework and derive the maximum advantage by finding loopholes in rules and laws. Education has only one definition and only one system that is considered suitable for all. The goal is to develop students so that they willingly conform to national priorities and aims for regional modernization and stability of the country. These ideas are specifically rooted in Chinese Confucian tradition but are not alien to discourse about the purpose of education and the duties of individuals in most of Asia where individuality has been traditionally frowned upon. Four maximums have been identified in the context of Confucian tradition that presents an alternative to individual-oriented education: 1. Community takes precedence over individual aspirations. 2. Human beings are by nature alike. Only learning makes them different because they attain knowledge and power through education. This holds good even in societies where there are rigid social stratifications. 3. The source of negative characteristics like contention and corruption is innate human tendencies that must be subdued through education and by

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developing positive virtues. Possibly, the notion of obedience, deference to age, and obedience to different societal hierarchies stems from this. 4. Societal interests must be placed over personal interests, which, at the end, can be sacrificed if required. These ideas have been absorbed into the Marxist-Leninist ideas of the transformative power of the State. There has been centuries of conditioning in Confucian ethics, and this tradition is difficult to uproot through Marxism. Whether it is spiritual and religious beliefs or faith in Marx and Lenin, the bottom line is that individual ambitions must be subdued for the good of the collective. Although contact with the West introduced liberal and democratic ideas, these are not part of the traditional educational make-up and have not really taken hold except perhaps in a small elite minority. Discourse about development has remained a constant throughout China. It extends from the infrastructural development of the external landscape to the internal spaces of the individual. Therefore, education must not only support external development but must also mould the individual psyche. The State control over curricula, examination, and the education structure can be seen as an attempt to foster individuals who embrace the vision of development in conformity with State policies and actively contribute to the goal of making China a global leader. Therefore, building a positive psychological disposition is not merely for individual well-being and mental peace. It must be channelled into the service of society. Endnotes and References 1. June Taufel Dreyer, “China’s Minority Nationalism in the Cultural Revolution,” Colin Mackerras ed, Ethnic Minorities China: Critical Concepts in Asian Studies,/Routledge, pp. 242–243. 2. Zhenzhou Zhao, China’s Mongols at University: Contesting Cultural Recognition, Lexington Books, 2010, pp. 59–64. 3. Guo Wu, “Continuity, Adaptation, and Challenge: The Chinese Communist ideology and policy on minzu 1922-2013,” Studi di Storia, 06, Words of Power, the power of Words. The Twentieth-Century Communist Discourse in International Perspective, https://hdl.handle.net/10077/29378; https://www.academ ia.edu. Da Lu,” The First Written Communist Constitution in China and Hungary and the Influence of the 1936 Soviet Constitution: A Comparative Perspective,” Hungarian Journal of Legal Studies, 2019, Vol. 60, No. 2, pp. 209–225, https:// akjournals.com. “The First Constitution of 1954,” China Knowledge. de—An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History, Literature and Art, https://www.chinaknowledge.de--An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History, Literature, and Art, https://www.chinaknow ledge.de/History/PRC/prc-event-cibstutytuib1954.ht. 4. Naomi C.F. Yamada, Preferential Policies in Multiethnic China: National Rhetoric, Local Realities (Education and Society in China), Routledge, 2022, loc. 533; 407.

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7.

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Bin Wu, W. John Morgan, China Higher Education Reform and Social Justice (China Policy Series), Routledge 2015, loc. 796–798. Rong Ma, “A New Perspective in Guiding Ethnic Relation in the Twenty First Century” ‘De-policisation’ pf ethnicity in China.” Colin Mackerras, ed. Op.cit., pp. 316–321. Rong Ma, “The Soviet Model’s Influence and the Current Debate on Ethnic Relations,” Global Asia, June 2010, Vol. No,2, https://www.glo balasia.org/v50002/the-soviet-models-influence-and-the-current-debae-onethnic-relations-ma-rong. Mette Helskov, Lessons in Being Chinese: Minority Education and Ethnic Identity in Southwest China (Studies on Ethnic Groups in China), University of Washington Pres,2015, p. 8. Rebecca Clothey, “China’s Policies for MINORITY Nationalities in Higher Education: Negotiating National Values and Ethnic Identities,” Comparative Education Revies, Vol. 49, No. 3 (August 2005), pp. 389–408. https://jstor.org/ stable/10.1086/430263. Uradyn E. Bulag, “Minority Nationalities as Frankenstein’s Monsters? Reshaping ‘the Chinese Nation’ and China’s Quest to Become a ‘Normal Country,’ The China Journal, Vol. 86, July (2021) https://www.jounals.uchica go.edu. Rong Ma, “Reconstructing ‘nation’(minzu) discourses in China,” International Journal of Anthropology and Ethnology (2017)1:8. https://ijae.spring eropen.com. Yash Ghai, “Autonomy Regimes in China: Coping with Ethnic and Economic Diversity,” Colin Mackerras ed., Ethnic Minorities in China, op.cit., pp. 299– 300. Zhenzhou Zhao, China’s Mongols at University, op.cit., pp. 3–6. Wang Linzhou, “The Identification of Minorities in China,” https://blog.haw aii.edu. Morris Rossabi, “Islam in China,” Education About Asia: Online Archives, Vol. 14:2 (Fall 2009):Asian Intercultural Contacts, https”//www.asianstudies. org/publications/era/archives/islam=in-china Nsomi C.F. Yamada, op.cit., loc. 1365–1374. The Common Program of the People’s Republic of China 1949-1954, Article 5, http://www.commonprogram.science, Adopted by the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People’s PCC on September 29th, 1949 in Peking. Naomi Yamada, op.cit., loc. 407. Zhen Li and John Lowe, “Social Justice and Chinese Higher Education,” in Bin Wu and W. John Morgan, Chinese Higher Education Reform and Social Justice, op.cit., pp. 21–22. Rui Yang and Mei Wu, “Education for Ethnic Minorities in China, a policy critique,” SA-eDUC JOURNAL Vol 6, Number 2, pp. 117–131, November 2009, Special Issue on Education and Ethnicity, https://www.researchgate.net. Carlos Gardin, “Rural Poverty and Ethnicity in China,” in Thesia I. Garner, Kathleen Short, (ed.) Measurement of Poverty, Deprivation, and Economic

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13. 14.

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16. 17. 18. 19.

20.

21. 22. 23.

24.

25. 26.

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Mobility (Research on Economic Inequality, Vol. 23,) UK: Emerald Group Publishing Ltd., 2015, pp. 221–247. Art. 4 of the 1982 Constitution of China, https://china-usc.edu/constitution=peo ples-rebublic-china-1982. Yash Ghai, Colin Macherras (ed.) op.cit., pp. 300– 302. “Education for Ethnic Minorities, http://www.mfa.gov.cm/ce/ceie/eng/Educat ion/EducationDevelopmentinChina/112966.htm. Art, 5 of the 1982 Constitution of China, https://china.usc.edu/constitutionpeoples-republic-china-1982. Art. 36–42, China’s Law on Regional National Autonomy, 1984, https://usc. edu/chinas-law-regional-national-autonomy-1984. Yash Ghai,:” Autonomy Regimes in China: Coping with Ethnic and Economic Diversity: Colin Mackerras (ed.), op.cit. pp. 296–297. Christine Larson, “China’s minority Problem- And Ours” Foreign Policy, 2009. https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/09/30/chinas-minority-problemand-ours/. “Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China,” https://www.mar xists.org/subject/china/documents/cpc/8th_congress.htm. The Common Programme of the People’s Republic of China 1949–1954: Art, 53, https://www.commonprogram.science/art53.html. Naomi Yamada„ op.cit. loc, 1056–1058 Yash Ghai, op.cit. p. 298. Bin Wu and W. John Morgan, Chinese Higher Education and Social Justice, op.cit. pp.4–5. Naomi Yamada, loc. 575–585; 1985–1991. Ibid, loc. 1969–1974. Rui Yang, Mei Wu, “Education for Ethnic Minorities in China,” https://www. researchgate.net. Mette Halskov Hansen, op.cit. p.19. Sai Ding, Samuel L. Myres Jr. and Gregpry N. Price, “Does Affirmative Action in Chinese College Admissions lead to mismatch? Educational quality and the relative returns to a baccalaureate degree for minorities in China,” International Journal of Anthropology and Ethnology (2017) 1:3. ijae.springeropen.com. Naomi Yamada, op.cit. loc. 586–587. Ibid., loc.1069–1072. Yuxiang Wang and JoAnn Phillion, “Minority Language Policy and Practice in China: The Need for Multicultural Education,” International Journal of Multicultural Education, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2009): Open Theme Issue, https://doi.org/ 10.18251/ijme.v11i1.138 Naomi Yamada, op.cit. loc. 1043–1051. Rebecca Clothey, “China’s Policies for Minority Nationalities in Higher Education: Negotiating National Values and Ethnic Identities,” Comparative Education Review Vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 389–409. https://www.journals.uchica go.edu. Mette Halskov Hansen, op.cit. pp. 18–19. Rui Yang Mei Wu, “Education for ethnic minorities in China: a policy critique:” op.cit.

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27. Naomi Yamada, op.cit. loc. 1078–1080; 2658–2664. Art. 19 of the 1982 Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, https:// china.usc.edu/constitution-peoples-republic-china-1982. 28. Naomi Yamada, op.cit. loc. 404–407. Yuxiang Wang and JoAnn Phillion, “Minority Language Policy and Practice in China: The Need for Multicultural Education,” op.cit. Mette Halskov Hansen, op.cit. pp. 160–161. 29. Yuxiang Wang and JoAnn Phillion, op.cit. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. Zhen Li and John Lowe, “Social justice and Chinese higher education,” in Bin Wu, W. John Morgan, Chinese Higher Education Reform and Social Justice, op.cit. pp. 25–27. 32. Naomi Yamada, op.cit. loc. 1095–1096. 33. Ibid., loc. 1240. 34. Junfu Li, Bin Wu, and W. John Morgan, “Employment equality in China’s universities: Perceptions of ‘decent work’ among university teachers in Beijing,” in Bin We and John Morgan,op.cit. pp. 56–63. 35. Lining He and Faye Duchin, “Regional Development in China: Interregional Transport Infrastructure and Regional Comparative Advantage,” Economic Systems Research, (21) 1 June 2007 https://www.researchgate.net John N. Hawkins, W. James Jacob, and Li Wenli, (2008) “Higher Education in China: Access, Equity and Equality,” in D. B. Holsinger and W. B. Jacobs (ed.) Inequality in Education: Comparative and International Perspectives, vol. 24, Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1oo7/978-90-481-2652 36. Bin Wu and Bernadette Robinson, “Social justice through financial distribution in China’s universities: A student survey in Shaanxi Province,” Bin Wu and W. John Morgan, op.cit. pp. 34–45. 37. Ibid., pp. 35–36. 38. Rui Yang and Mei Wu, “Education for Ethnic Minorities in China,” op.cit. pp. 122–123. 39. Report on the Outline of the Tenth Five Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (2001) http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Special_ 11_5/.2010-03/03/content_1690620.htm 40. Naomi Yamada, op.cit. loc. 1029–1037. Bin Wu and W. John Morgan, “Introduction: Chinese Higher Education Reform and Social Justice,” in Bin Wu and W. John Morgan, Chinese Higher Education Reform and Social Justice op.cit. 41. Ai Siqi. “Antagonistic and Non-Antagonistic Contradictions,” Lecture Outline on Dialectical Materialism, translated from Ai Siqi’s Complete Works, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2006, vol. 6, pp. 832–836. https://www.marxistph ilosophy.org.

Chapter 5

Higher Education and Equity and Affirmative Action in India

The most prominent among affirmative action policies in India is the caste-based quotas in government jobs and in higher education. Embedded within the caste are the various issues of rural and urban; in-caste and intracaste issues; occupation groups; and poor and non-poor. Paucity of government jobs and non-availability of quality higher education have led to fierce competition and contention among various castes. The issue is also highly politicized and taps firmly into vote bank politics. This often leads to violence within groups competing for scarce resources. People struggle and kill each other to be included among the “backward classes” (BCs) to access what they perceive as the privileges that go with it. Therefore, what is meant to help the underprivileged becomes a gateway to scarce opportunities in higher education and to secure prestigious government jobs, both at the entry level and even in promotions. As the Supreme Court observed in its interim order of 2006, pertaining to the expansion of quotas by 27% in favour of “other backward classes” (OBCs), in Central institutions of higher education, including the prestigious and elite Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), and medical colleges, that India must be the only country in the world where people line up to be counted among the backward. The expansion of quotas led to 49.5% reservation that included 15.7 for SCs, 7.5 for STs, and 27% for OBCs.

5.1 Background The reservation of posts in the civil services and of seats in HEIs has been contentious from the beginning. The expression “Backward Class” (BC) first appeared in 1870 in Madras Presidency where there had been a non-Brahmin movement comprising the “lower caste” (shudra) excluding the “untouchable.” The British government in Madras then grouped the shudras and the untouchables together under the label of BC between 1871 and 1920, swelling their numbers from 39 to 131. The aim was to provide positive discrimination. But in actual fact, the two belonged to two distinct © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 K. A. Sharma, India and China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5628-9_5

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groups. The stigma of untouchability made the depressed classes a separate group from the shudras. In 1925, “castes other than the depressed classes” were separated.1 Positive discrimination was being followed in favour of the lower castes, both in British India and in some princely states prior to independence, particularly where the sovereign himself belonged to a backward caste.2 For instance, in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, when the Maratha dynasty, which belonged to the caste of farmers ruled, an egalitarian policy was applied at the turn-of-the-century. When Shahuji Maharaj ascended the throne in 1895, he was concerned about the domination of Brahmins over the administration. By 1902, he had already reserved 50% of vacant positions for the backward castes. The most developed policy was in Mysore, where again the sovereign wanted to bring down Brahmin dominance in his kingdom.3 He asked the British Justice Miller of the State’s High Court to assess the problem and suggest remedial measures. The Miller Committee, although it was not called as such, was the first of the many backward class committees and commissions. It recommended reserving half the posts in the civil services to the BCs. At the same time, the British were trying to improve the representation of these groups in elected assemblies with ever-increasing powers. Some would see this as the usual divide-and-rule policy, but it led to the 1919 reforms because of which seven seats of the Bombay Legislative Council were reserved for the Marathas; in the Madras Council 28 out of the 65 seats assigned for the non-Brahmins were occupied by the untouchables and the shudras. The Justice Party of the Madras Presidency, that claimed to speak for the non-Brahmins, won the 1920 elections and formed the government in 1921, when it reserved 48% quota for non-Brahmins.4

5.2 Constituent Assembly and the First Amendment The issue of the BCs was raised at the time of the drafting of the Constitution. It was embodied in draft article 10. Dr. Ambedkar explained the use of the word at the Constituent Assembly on the November 30, 1948, stating that there were three points of view that had to be reconciled: • There should be equality of opportunity for all citizens. • If this principle was to be operationalized, there should be no reservation of any sort for any class or community at all. All public services should be placed on the same footing of equality. • While equality of opportunity was necessary, provision should be made for the entry of certain communities that had till then remained outside the administration. These were the backward communities.5 The third option was upheld by a large section of the constituents. This finally emerged as Article 16 in Part III of the Constitution, which deals with fundamental rights. Article 340 empowered the State to appoint a commission to investigate the condition of the BCs.

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As per a government order of 1950 admission to medical colleges was not only by qualification or suitability of the candidate, but also by his or her caste. The limited seats were to be allocated in consonance with the proportion of different communities in the population. Champakam Dorairajan challenged the order on the ground that it violated her fundamental rights (AIR 1951, SC 226). She contended that the order, known as the communal order, violated her fundamental right of equality guaranteed by the Constitution. Her contention was upheld by the Supreme Court. This prompted the government to bring about The First Amendment to the Constitution. Although Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to discourage casteism, piloting the amendment to the Constitution, he had to accept: We have to deal with the situation where, for a variety of causes for which the present generation is not to blame, the past has the responsibility, there are groups, classes, individuals, communities, if you like, who are backward. They are backward in many ways — economically, socially, educationally; sometimes they are not backward in one of these respects, and yet backward in another. The fact is, therefore, that if we wish to encourage them in regard to these matters, we have to do something special for them Therefore, one has to keep a balance between the existing fact, as we find it, and the objective ideal that we aim at.6

The amendment made it constitutionally valid for States to reserve seats for the BCs of citizens, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes in public educational institutions as well as to make any other special provisions that they may find necessary for their advancement.

5.3 The First Backward Class Commission: Kaka Kalelkar The First Backward Class Commission, known as the Kaka Kalelkar Commission, was set up in 1953 to look into the issues pertaining to BCs. It prepared a list of 2399 backward castes or communities for the entire country, and 837 of these were classified as the most backward. Some of the most noteworthy recommendations of the Commission were: 1. Undertake caste-wise enumeration of population in the census of 1961. 2. Relate social backwardness of a class to its low position in the traditional caste hierarchy of Hindu society. 3. Treat all women as backward. 4. Reserve 70% seats in all technical and professional institutions for qualified students of backward classes. In addition, minimum levels of representation were to be provided at different levels in public services to OBCs. The Commission could not present a unanimous report as its five members dissented on various issues. Three were opposed to linking backwardness with caste. One was passionate about equating caste with backwardness. The chairman, Kaka Kalelkar himself, was ambivalent. By the time the work of the Commission came to an end, he realized the dangers of recommendations based only on caste, and also that by so doing, the Commission had created an ambiguity

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about affirmative action programmes for religious communities like the Muslims and Christians who theoretically did not accept caste but among whom caste-based divisions persisted. However, by then he had no option but to go along and accept caste as the predominant criterion in ascertaining backwardness.7 The report was submitted in 1955 and laid on the table of both houses of the Parliament in September 1956. The Government did not accept the Commission’s report, although it laid it before each house of the Parliament, together with the Memorandum of Action taken. This was because the four criteria it set up to determine backwardness all found a common denominator in caste: a degraded status; lack of education; underrepresentation in civil services; and underrepresentation in the fields of trade, commerce, and industry. Regarding the issue of caste as criteria, the memorandum stated that while “it could not be denied that the caste system is the greatest hindrance in the way of our progress towards an egalitarian society, but the recognition of the specified castes as backward may serve to maintain and even perpetuate the existing distinction on the basis of caste.”8 On the issue of the recognition of a large number of castes and communities as backward, it was pointed out that, “If the entire community, barring a few exceptions, has thus to be regarded as backward, the really needy would be swamped by the multitude and hardly receive any special attention or adequate assistance…”9 After this, the government made efforts, “to discover some criteria other than caste which could be of practical application in determining the backward classes.” The Deputy Registrar General was asked to conduct a pilot survey to see if backwardness could be linked to the occupation of communities instead of to their caste. The survey failed to come up with the desired criteria. The matter was also discussed at a conference of state representatives on April 7, 1959, and was subsequently reviewed by the Ministry of Home affairs, but with no consensus. The Central Government ultimately decided an all-India list of backward classes that could not be drawn up, nor could any reservation be made in the Central Government service for any group of backward classes other than the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The Ministry of Home affairs sent a letter to all State governments pointing out, “while the State governments have the discretion to choose their own criteria for defining backwardness in the view of the government of India, it would be better to apply economic tests than to go by caste.”10 The then Home Minister, Govind Ballabh Pant, in fact argued that the developmental efforts would lead to, “the establishment of our society on the socialist pattern,” and evolution with which “social and other distinctions will disappear.”11 In 1961, Pant added another argument, informing heads of States not to initiate policies in favour of other backward castes at the federal level as positive discrimination measures would have the drawback of penalizing the most capable and deserving people and would therefore hinder efficiency in administration and business.12 As the First Backward Class Commission report was rejected, there was intense debate on the place of caste in Indian society and the role of positive discrimination policies in this context. The socialists were at the forefront of this debate. Drawing on both Marx and Ambedkar, Ram Manohar Lohia maintained that caste rather than class was the basic unit of Indian society. He did not agree that the Nehruvian vision of

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socialism would be enough to combat inequalities because even after collectivizing land and nationalizing industry, the upper castes would continue to dominate on the basis of skills that had been handed down from father to son for thousands of years. The lowest castes, according to Lohia, not only needed socio-economic redistribution, but also had to be encouraged to shed their own feelings of inferiority.13 Two visions were clashing here. One was to reduce the emphasis on caste, and the other was to insist on caste as a determining factor. Nehru coined the phrase “Other Backward Classes” (OBCs) implying classes other than the untouchables and the tribes.14 But he used the word classes rather than castes, and this paradigm about ambiguity and ambivalence has been at the core of the controversy arising out of reservation. While there is overall consensus on the issue of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the bone of contention is the category of Other Backward Classes, and this has spawned a plethora of litigation.

5.3.1 The Balaji Case Reservation in jobs and in admission to educational institutions was challenged before the court several times after the First Backward Class Commission was rejected. The first to be hit was Mysore in MR Balaji vs State of Mysore (AIR 1963, SC 649). The State set up an expert committee to identify the criteria for classifying backward classes but the committee felt that the only practicable method of doing this would be based on caste. Accordingly, the State divided the backward classes into backward and more backward. Mysore reserved 50% quota for OBCs, over and above the 15% reserved for SCs, and 3% for STs. The 50% quota for OBCs was split into 28% for backward classes and 22% for more backward classes. The total reservation came to 68%, leaving only 32% in the merit pool. All this was done under Article 15 (4) of the Constitution. The Government order was declared invalid on four grounds:

1. Caste, poverty, occupation, and place of habitation were relevant factors for determining social backwardness and not caste alone. 2. Caste, though relevant in the Indian society, could not be made the sole or dominant test to determine social backwardness, as that would perpetuate the vice of caste system in society. 3. Subclassification of backwardness into backward and more backward was not constitutionally permissible. 4. The total reservation of 68% for SCs, STs, and OBCs was excessive. A limit of 50% reservation was laid down.

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5.4 The Second Backward Classes Commission: BP Mandal The Second Backward Classes Commission was set up in December 1978.15 It was popularly known as the Mandal Commission after Bindheshwari Prasad Mandal, who chaired it. It gave its report in December 1980. It was aware that the First Commission had not formulated any objective criteria for classifying OBCs, but had made class synonymous with caste. Like its predecessor, the Mandal Commission equated caste with classes that were socially backward. It concluded that the low ritual caste status of a person had a direct bearing on his social achievements and hence also on his caste. In the absence of caste-based census since 1931, the Commission was forced to project its conclusions pertaining to the castes to be included as backward classes on the basis of that census. It identified 3743 castes, about 1500 more than in the First Commission, as OBCs, representing 52% of the country’s population. Noting that quota totals had to be kept below 50% and that there already existed 22.5% reservation for the SCs and STs, an additional 27% reservation was recommended. The Commission countered the constitutional guarantee of equality by explaining that equality was a double-edged weapon. “Equality of opportunity” and “equality of treatment” placed the weak and the strong on par and that amounted to denial of social justice. A higher rating in an examination did not necessarily reflect higher intrinsic worth of the examinee. Merit and equality had to be viewed in their proper perspective and the element of privilege duly recognized and discounted. It recommended reservation of 27% for OBCs in government jobs. The Commission dealt with the issue that the policy of large-scale reservations would cause great heartburn to meritorious candidates whose entry into services would be barred or limited as a result. It said that these were the arguments of the ruling elite, which was partisan. Government service is looked upon as a symbol of prestige and power. And so, although in real terms, very few OBCs may benefit from quotas in government jobs, it would send an important message in society. Besides, increasing the representation of OBCs in government services would give them an immediate feeling of participation in the governance of the country. The chief merit of reservation was that it would erode the hold of the higher castes on services and make them more inclusive.

5.4.1 The Indra Sawhney Case The report of the Commission lay in cold storage till 1989 when the Janata Dal came to power and its leader, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, popularly known as VP Singh, announced its implementation. As per an Office Memorandum issued on August 13, 1990, 27% vacancies in civil posts and services were reserved for the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) by direct recruitment. This Memorandum

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was modified in September 1991, and the candidates belonging to the poorer sections of the SEBC candidates for whom the 27% posts were to be reserved had to be given a reference. A further 10% of the vacancies would be reserved for other economically backward sections of people who were not covered by any of the existing schemes of reservation. These memoranda were based on the recommendations of the Mandal Commission. Seen as a political move, it caused widespread agitation and intense resistance. Multiple writ petitions were filed, and finally the matter came before a nine-judge bench in the pivotal Indra Sawhney case. (In Indra Sawhney vs Union of India, 1992, SCC (3) 20). Highlights of the Case: Fourteen questions were raised. The most relevant for our purpose were: • The meaning of the term backward classes. • The criteria for inclusion or exclusion. • A dedicated body to do the decision-making. By a majority judgement, the Court directed the Central and State governments and the Union Territories to constitute within four months, a permanent body for examining and recommending, upon requests, inclusion, and dealing with complaints of over-inclusion and under-inclusion in the lists of OBCs of citizens. The government was to also specify within four months, the relevant and requisite socio-economic criteria to exclude socially advanced persons/sections, called the “creamy layer,” from OBCs. The case was decided in 1992, and it was a split 6:3 judgement, leaving the room wide open for more interpretations and litigations. After the judgement, posts for OBCs were reserved in public appointments funded by the Central Government. However, the issue has kept coming up, and no finality has been achieved.

5.5 The 93rd Amendment of the Indian Constitution The issues of reservation in higher education, jobs in the government sector, and whether the private sector could also be compelled to follow the government’s reservation policy, once again reach the Supreme Court in 2002 in the Pai Foundation Case (TMA Pai Foundation and others vs State of Karnataka and others (2002 (8) SCC 481). Dr. TMA Pai founded the Academy of General Education in 1942 in Madras. After the re-organization of states, the institution became part of Karnataka. Later, several institutions were established under it including the Manipal Engineering College Trust for the establishment and administration of Manipal Institute of Technology. One of the objects of the Trust was to promote Konkani language and to encourage Konkani speaking students. Later, the trustees of the engineering college transferred the ownership of the college to the TMA Pai trust formed in the memory of Dr. TMA Pai. The Government of Karnataka issued as Ordinance, the Karnataka

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Educational Institutions Ordinance, 1984, to prevent educational institutions from charging excessive fees. An order was also passed fixing the number of students that an institution could admit and the percentage of seats within it to be designated as government seats. The engineering college owned by the TMA Pai trust fell into the category Minority Unaided Private educational institution as it was not receiving any aid from the government. The issue before the court was how far the ordinance infringed on the rights of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions. Apart from other related matters considered, one was to what extent could the government impose restrictions in the administration of minority aided and unaided institutions. On this point the court stated that quotas could not be imposed on the private sector institutions that received no aid from the government. The TMA Pai judgement delivered by an eleven-judge constitutional bench raised a plethora of questions, and courts were flooded by litigation seeking interpretations of various points in the judgement. Consequently, in the Islamic Academy Case (Islamic Academy of Education and Another vs. State of Karnataka and others, 2003 (6) SCC 697) a five-judge constitution bench was set up to clarify once again on whether the affirmative action policies could be imposed upon completely unaided private sector minority institutions. The judgement in this case reinforced the TMA Pai judgement. The matter came up again two years later in the P.A. Inamdar case (P.A. Inamdar and Others vs. State of Maharashtra and Others 2005 (6) SCC537). A two-judge bench reinforced the earlier judgement of the TMA Pai and the Islamic Academy cases. The government of the day overruled the judgements delivered by successive constitution benches by enacting the 93rd Amendment of the Constitution in 2006. Clause 5 was added to Art. 15 of the Constitution by which quotas could be imposed in the private sector also. Consequent to it, the Government of India indicated its intention to provide reservation for students from socially and educationally backward classes in HEIs. Therefore, reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), to the extent of 27% in all centrally funded HEIs, including professional institutions was mandated. This was in addition to the already existing quotas of 22.5% for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs). The intake strength was, however, expanded by 54%, so that the number of places available to the general category of students was not reduced. This led to the Ashok Thakur case. Ashoka Kumar Thakur Case: (Ashoka Kumar Thakur vs Union of India and others 2008 SCR (4) 1). Arjun Singh, the then Minister of Human Resource Development (HRD) announced an additional reservation of 27% of seats in HEIs including professional institutions after the enactment of the Act 5 of 2007 in the Parliament.16 This was challenged in the Supreme Court in the Ashok Thakur Case. One of the questions raised was whether the original framers of the Constitution intended to provide caste-based reservation only in jobs or also in education. The five-judge Constitutional bench led by the Chief Justice of India that heard the case handed down four different judgements. While there was broad agreement on several issues, there were also significant points of difference. Moreover, there was a lot of orbiter dicta (statements made in passing), leaving room for further challenge.

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Some issues were similar to those that had earlier been adjudicated upon in the Indra Sawhney case concerning definitions and criteria of backwardness; the merit factor; and economic factors in determining backwardness which had to be both social and educational. The disagreement was on the question of reservation of seats in educational institutions. Justice Bhandari agreed that article 15 (4) was only added to the Constitution after the First Amendment and was a deviation from the goal of a casteless society. He pointed out that the original framers of the Constitution put SC/ST in the Parliament and State assemblies and in government service, but did not reserve a single classroom seat. They preferred free and compulsory education and scholarships. Education was to remain reservation-free. Justice Dalveer Bhandari categorically stated that imposing reservation on unaided institutions would violate the basic structure of the Constitution by stripping citizens of their fundamental right under Article 19 (1) to carry on their profession and occupation. The right to select students on the basis of merit was an essential feature of the right to establish and run an unaided institution. Citing the Indra Sawhney Case, Justice Bhandari observed that reservation was to be given to backward classes until they ceased to be backward and not indefinitely. Justice Sawant had stated in the Indra Sawhney Case that society did not remain static. The Parliament and the legislature in the country could not transgress a basic feature of the Constitution, the principle of equality enshrined in Article 14 of which Article 16 (1) was but a facet. If the creamy layer was included, it would be the same as forward castes getting the benefit of reservation. The key question was whether Act 5 of 2007 was constitutionally valid in view of the definition of backward class and whether the identification of such a backward class based on caste alone could be constitutionally imposed on the completely unaided private sector. This remained unanswered, except by Justice Bhandari, because no private sector institution had approached the court. The judgement pointed out that the National Commission for the Backward Classes and the State Commissions for Backward Classes had prepared lists based on elaborate guidelines that had been framed after studying the criteria/indicators given in the Mandal Commission and the Commission set up by different State Governments. The question of the exclusion of the creamy layer and the SEBC had been identified by applying different and multiple criteria, although the lists were based on caste for convenience. Justice Ravindran’s argument in the Ashok Thakur case represents a paradigm shift from the purely caste-based quotas being advocated to the inclusion of other criteria. He pointed out that the Supreme Court in a series of judgements had explained social and educational backwardness. All had laid down one common principle that caste cannot be made the predominant test to determine backwardness. The other important question was the mandatory educational qualification, beneath which a class could be considered educationally backward. Certain individuals in a backward class may have completed schooling. The Chief Justice’s judgement did not really provide a conclusive answer to this problem. It only raised the question to Justice Pasayat, another judge in the Ashok Thakur case, recommended that while determining backwardness, graduation (not technical graduation)

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or a professional qualification should be the standard yardstick for measuring backwardness. He felt that out of the permissible limit of 27% seats for the SEBC, it was necessary to earmark certain percentage of seats for OBCs in order to strike a constitutional balance. Justice Bhandari pointed out that school education had been neglected and that the primary and secondary education had to be looked after, if reservation in higher education was to be effective. He also felt that once a candidate graduated from a university or a college, he was educationally forward and thus was ineligible for special benefits for further studies. Following the Indra Sawhney case, Justice Bhandari acknowledged that while caste had to be accepted as a valid criterion, it could not be the sole one. If reservation in education was to stay, it should not take only caste into account. Caste, pointed out Justice Ravindran, had already divided the country for ages and hampered its growth. Reservation seemed to perpetuate caste. Before reservation, people wanted to get rid of the “backward” tag, but after reservation, there was a tendency even among those who were “forward” to seek the “backward” tag to benefit from reservation. The different opinions expressed seem to indicate a paradigm shift from caste alone to include parameters that had always existed, but had got submerged in castebased reservations. After the Supreme Court upheld the validity of Act 5 of 2007, subject to the exclusion of the creamy layer in the determination of OBCs, the Ministry of Human Resources (MHRD), now renamed as the Ministry of Education (MoE), issued an Office Memorandum on April 20, 2008, to implement reservation for OBCs in accordance with the judgement. PV Indiresan vs Union of India: (2011, ACC (8) 441) In the Indra Sawhney case, it was stated that “the maximum cut-off marks for OBCs … can be ten per cent below the cut-off marks for general categories, candidates.” Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) interpreted this to mean that the difference in cut-off marks for OBCs and general category candidates should not be more than 10%. Even after this concession, if the reserved seats meant for OBC candidates remained vacant, these would be declared as general or unreserved seats. The judgement delivered by the Supreme Court in the PV Indiresan Case on August 18, 2011, stated that the confusion had been caused by the loose and interchangeable use of terms “eligibility,” “qualifying marks,” and “cut-off marks.” It clarified that the 10% differential had to be in the eligibility or qualifying marks. This means that eligibility or qualifying marks may be 45%, but the cut-off marks could be 90% or even higher. Then, if the 10% differential is used to determine the cut-off marks for OBC candidates, it would be 80%. This would defeat the purpose of reservation, and the result would be contrary to what was intended in the judgement. The court removed the uncertainty of the eligibility criterion for OBC students by delinking it from the cut-offs for the general students. It also clarified that the OBC students who got admission in the general category by the merit to their marks would not be counted as part of the 27% reservation.

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5.5.1 Outcomes There is paucity of data on the outcomes for the category of students who get admission under reservation. Not much work seems to have been done on this. However, this information is vital for further policy development. Being a faculty member at my institution, I tried to analyse the outcomes for the SC and ST students beginning 1998 and attempted to compare these with those for the general category. Since the information was often incomplete, I could only indicate trends. A tabulation was done for a period from 1998 admission year to 2005 admission year as the results of the 2005 batch were declared in 2008. The OBC students could not be tracked as reservation under this category had only been introduced in 2008. While all the reserved category candidates were looked at, a sampling was done for the general category students, their numbers being very large. All students in colleges are divided into three streams—Science, Arts, and Commerce. Several students often dropped out in the first year of the science courses because they also qualified for medicine or engineering courses, which they preferred to move into. They had secured admissions in colleges on the basis of very high cutoffs. This is a common and on-going phenomenon for all categories of students. Courses in medicine and engineering are favoured over graduation in basic sciences, and the SCs and STs have reservation there too. It is more difficult to explain why students dropped out in the Arts or Commerce streams. The percentage of the reserved category students that graduated was calculated after subtracting the number of students who dropped out. It was generally in the range from 35 to 50% in the Sciences and Commerce, and a much higher percentage graduated in the Arts stream. However, if the overall pass percentage of the reserved candidates was compared to the overall pass percentage in the educational institute, it was low. In the Arts stream, while the failure rate of the reserved category students was not as high as in the Science and Commerce streams, the average academic performance deteriorated even taking into account the more conservative marking in college as compared to school. This was also, by and large, true of the general category students, although their performance was better than that of the reserved category students. One reason for this could be that most of SC and ST students came from the Hindi-medium schools or have studied in their regional languages, and so found it difficult to adjust to an entirely English-medium teaching and having to answer their examination papers in English. In the Commerce stream, the dropout/failure rate was high among SCs and STs as compared to the general category students. But those who did pass, their outcome was better than of those students who came from the general category. This indicates that reserved category students who survive in the system can do quite well.17

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5.5.2 2016 Study of N. V. Varghese and Others A study by N.V. Varghese et al. tried to determine the progress on equity in higher education in 2019.18 The study relied on data of the 52nd, 64th, and 71st rounds of the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), to track changes in the equity dimensions. The 71st round pertained from January 2014 to July 2014; the 64th was July 2007 to June 2008; and the 52nd was July 1995 to June 1996. However, other sources such as the All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) carried out annually by the MHRD were not taken into account here. The data in the two varied as the NSS based itself on a survey of households while the AISHE on educational institutions. The NSS was useful in capturing the correlation between the economic and sociological forces while AISHE for the factual position in higher institutions. The study found that access to education improved at all levels and most children were enrolled in schools. Ironically, however, this was accompanied by widening of income inequality while social inequalities continued to persist in many spheres. The disadvantaged groups continued to lag behind in their access to the “high value programmes” such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as very few among them study STEM subjects. These are mostly studied by the privileged students, belonging to the higher castes and higher economic classes, and residing in urban areas. The socially excluded groups and those residing in rural locations usually study subjects such as social sciences and agriculture. The difficulty increases because of the medium of instruction in STEM subjects being English instead of Hindi or regional languages. As per the Varghese study, the expansion of higher education is accompanied by the widening general disparities because of the varying rates of growth of HEIs among States. The density of higher education increases where in addition to public sector institutions, private institutions have also been encouraged. This enables greater access though at a cost. Interestingly, between 1995 and 2014, the increase of 21 percentage points in the aggregate GER was accompanied by an increase in the number of universities in India with the post-1990s being classified as a period of expansion of higher education. The number of universities increased from 177 in the early 1990s to 803 in 2015. Of the 803 universities in 2015, 45 were Central universities, 365 were State universities, 122 were Deemed universities, and 269 were private universities. There were 5748 colleges in the early 1990s; the number increased to 38,498 colleges between 2014 and 2015, with the largest growth in the number of private unaided colleges. Varghese shows that the individual’s social group has a strong influence on his or her access to higher education. For example, the GER of the higher castes was nearly twice than that of the socially excluded groups such as the STs and one and a half times that of the SCs. As an individual moves up in the caste/class hierarchy, the GER also moves up, which shows graded access to the resources that would enable entry into higher education, fewer resources being available at the lower level as compared to the higher levels of caste hierarchy. When social group and income levels come together, the impact is seen in access to higher education. For example, according to

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Varghese, the GER for the top quintile in 2014 was seven times higher than that of the lowest monthly per capita expenditure quintile (0 to 20%). The enrolment ratio is the lowest for the relatively poor vis-à-vis the rich. The access to higher education progressively increases with every quintile.

5.6 Current Situation In 2020, according to All India Survey on Higher Education, 2019–2020 (AISHE, 2019–2020) there were 1043 universities—85 Central, 386 State public, 327 State private, 126 Deemed, which included 36 Deemed government universities, 10 government-aided, and 80 in the private sector. There were 42,343 colleges of which 78.6% were privately managed, 65.2% private unaided, and 13.4% private aided. The remaining 21.4% were government colleges. Hence, although expansion of higher education in India has led to an improvement in participation rates in higher education, the overall disparities continue to exist as the disadvantaged cannot usually afford the private institutions. While all states recorded improved GERs in higher education, it was uneven. It had increased for example, threefold in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, doubled in many other states, but the increase was relatively lower in West Bengal. This enhanced interstate disparities. For example, in 2002–2003, the GER varied from a low of 4.33% in Nagaland to a high of 28.7% in Chandigarh. In 2016 it was 5.7% in Daman and Diu to 57.6% in Chandigarh.19 According to All India Survey of Higher Education 2019–2020, there are 30 colleges for every 100,000 of eligible population, but the spread is uneven varying from 7 in Bihar to 59 in Karnataka. In the 19 years between the 52nd and 71st NSSO rounds, that is, from 1995–1996 to 2014, the GER rose dramatically from 8.8 to 30.6% and from 17.8 to 30.06% between the 64th and 71st round, with all groups showing a considerable rise in their respective GERs. The higher education GER for STs and SCs rose from 3.42 and 4.84, respectively, in 1995 to 17.19 and 22.31 in 2014.20 According to AISHE, 2019– 2020, however, the GER was 18.2% for STs and 23.4% for SCs with overall GER being 27.1%. Therefore, the disadvantaged groups appear to be inching gradually closer to the overall national GER.

5.7 Inequalities and Disadvantages in Access The Varghese report indicates that inequalities in access get exacerbated when social and geographical disadvantages intersect.21 When members of the disadvantaged groups have to travel long distances to reach institutions of higher education, many of them are unable to take the economic burden of travel. Students from socially excluded groups such as the STs from rural areas had one-fourth the GER of the

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higher caste, urban students (NSS, 2014). Many factors cumulatively lead to disadvantages for the SC and ST students in accessing opportunities for higher education, which include coming from low social, economic backgrounds, being first-generation learners, and residing in rural areas that suffer from poor learning infrastructure. The first two decades of the twenty-first century have seen the revival and massive expansion of higher education. However, this has been facilitated mostly through the private sector and the privatization of public institutions. This means that access has to be mostly financed by households. The impact of lower probabilities of poor being able to access higher education is likely to go beyond the issues of equity because it can fuel even greater inequities. Employment of graduates depends upon the quality of education they have received and the skills they have developed. The rise of the private sector at the expense of the public sector education will make it more difficult for the poor to have access to well-paying quality jobs. The students from advantaged groups are more likely to: belong to urban areas, have greater resources; better accessibility to private institutions; already educated in the English medium; no hesitation in their deportment; have greater information about available opportunities; positive home environment; and have no inter- or intragroup tensions.

5.8 Uneasy Growth in Access While the spread of educational opportunities has been uneven and disparate, access has grown for the disadvantaged students because of at least three factors: 1. The prevalent reservation policies reinforced by the courts have put pressure on institutional managers to ensure participation from the disadvantaged groups. 2. Larger number of students are graduating from the secondary and higher secondary levels, and there has been a simultaneous growth in higher education that has created greater access to higher education. The adoption of rightsbased approach to education for all, with the implementation of programmes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, has increased the graduation rates from school so that more students from all groups are entering HEIs. 3. The incentive schemes put in place by the government, which, despite all their limitations, seem to attract students to pursue higher studies and refrain from dropping out. The consequence has been greater numbers of disadvantaged students in HEIs, and thus diversity on campuses has widened but this creates tensions within the institutions. The students belonging to disadvantaged groups often perceive themselves as discriminated against in three major domains of campus life—academic space, social space, and administrative space. They feel that it assumes direct and indirect forms at both the individual and institutional levels.

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• In the academic space, many teachers regard them as “unteachable” because they are not able to keep up with the class as a whole. These students feel discouraged in engaging in academic activities because they feel excluded in most activities and interaction. • In the social space, they tend to socialize with their “own” as they are less confident and secure when pitted against the general category of students. This leads to “ghettoization” and reduced interaction with other groups. • In the administrative space, some administrative staff seem to also indulge in discriminatory behaviour and are particularly rude to the SCs and STs making derogatory comments against reservation. Therefore, while access for the disadvantaged groups has increased there is a long way to go before, they can attain standards and confidence to enter elite institutions and to seek access to prestigious subjects which, in turn, would lead to prestigious employment.

5.9 Quotas and Implications for the Individuals Some questions arise when quotas are extended to institutions of higher education, and in some cases, they even exceed the 50% limit set by the Court. To what extent can individual rights be circumscribed by group rights without violating the principle of equality? Whatever may be the historical wrongs, it is an individual who enters an educational institution and not a group and it is this individual who has to cope. Justice Pasayat and Justice Thakker in the Ashok Thakur case pointed out that discrimination is not the only problem exacerbated by reservation because the general category students feel that they are victims of reverse discrimination. The other is that when individuals are given admission at much lower eligibility standards and if reservations are to the tune of 50% or more, the idea of merit becomes marginalized if not irrelevant. Is giving of group rights actually beneficial to those members of the group who need the most help? This question has been raised continuously in the case of OBCs and is also beginning to be raised in the case of SCs and STs because even among one group of people stratification occurs, some rising to the top while others get left behind. Those who rise are then able to corner more resources than those who get left behind. This aggravates the problem as benefits of reservation no longer go to those who need them the most in the group. However, Amartya Sen, the Nobel Laureate, points out that India has a terrible tradition of social asymmetry, in which caste is only one as it is not the only source of inequality. It has to be seen as part of a bigger picture that includes other divisive influences. There can also be a strong temptation to see deprivation only in terms of poverty but this can be quite misleading. In any case, there is a lot of confusion in defining poverty and the setting up of poverty line. Different factors can come together and lead to such severe deprivation that a big gulf is created between the comprehensive “haves” and the comprehensive “have-nots.”

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5.10 Two Alternatives for Affirmative Action The question arises whether any other method apart from caste-based reservations can be used to take the intended benefits to those who need them. At least two alternatives have been discussed in various judgements on the use of caste-based quotas for affirmative action. These are: • The use of mainly economic criteria although it is conceded that caste cannot be completely ignored • The use of diverse inputs to form a deprivation index as was done in JNU and later was also suggested by the Sachar Committee established by the government in March 2005 to study the social, economic, and educational conditions of Muslims. It submitted its report in 2006. Poverty as an Indicator of Social and Educational Backwardness The issue of affirmative action can be seen in at least two ways: is it compensatory justice for past wrongs or is it distributive justice in the current scenario? Justice Kuldip Singh in his dissenting judgement in the Indra Sawhney case agrees that the problem of BCs in India has been reduced largely to job reservation. However, their problems are too varied, deep-seated, and acute for this to be done. The BCs can never be identified in a way that ensures that every member can be seen as equally backward because there are bound to be disparities within the class itself. The members of the backward class, analyse Bateille and referred to by Justice Kuldip Singh in the Indra Sawhney case, can be differentiated into superior and inferior. The discrimination that the superior of “forward” class has inflicted is the same as practised by the affluent BC members on their poorer members. Justice Kuldip Singh wanted to use poverty as the dominant criterion for determining the socially and educationally backward, as it was the primary cause of all kinds of “backwardness.” In any case, all classes of citizens living below the poverty line would come under “any backward class.” Since there is a direct nexus between poverty and social backwardness, a rich BC person may or may not be socially backward, but a povertystricken Brahmin, belonging to the highest caste but struggling for livelihood, would invariably suffer from the same social backwardness. The hard reality today is that money confers social status on individuals. Poverty does not discriminate; it binds all castes and religions in its common thread. Those who live in chronic cramping poverty are per se, socially backward. It was high time, Justice Singh felt that the dogmatic approach of caste-based reservations in public services was given up. The court, however, has always been aware of the difficulties of drawing lines on the basis of poverty as the main determining factor of backwardness. In Justices Pasayat and Thakker’s opinion in the Ashok Thakur case, while they talked of economic criterion as the basis for affirmative action, they also agreed that backward castes could not be completely excluded from affirmative only on economic criterion unless the economic advancement was so high that it necessarily meant social advancement. The poverty line had to be realistic as well.

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5.11 The Case for a Diversity Index The pertinent question is whether poverty indicators would be reliable enough to enable the truly needy to benefit. Economists like Bibek Debroy talk of multiple indicators to determine the segment of population that needs to be helped. Caste cannot be the sole determinant.22 The Planning Commission, which has now been dismantled had put forward thirteen parameters. Whatever the method used, according to Debroy, the overall beneficiaries of a support or reservation programme should not be more than 20% for it to be truly beneficial. The index top cannot be very complicated. The UNDP, for example, has a simple human development index, based on per capita income, education, and health. Other alternate indices can be devised that are appropriate for education. Poverty, caste, gender, religion, region, occupation, and habitation are some of the factors that impact equality of opportunity and can deny or reduce access. JNU devised a deprivation index, which it used in its admissions policy till it was compelled to follow the Court judgements on reservation. Admissions on the basis of deprivation indices were directed to achieve a measure of social justice without compromising standards.23 According to a rough estimate, when the university followed its own deprivation indices, more than 10% of the students on the campus were Muslims. If other minority religious groups were included, the number of minority students would be greater. The OBC candidates were drawn from Government of India lists, excluding the creamy layer and the income tax payers. Women OBC candidates were awarded 10 deprivation points and the men five. Ten deprivation points were also awarded to all candidates, including the OBCs, who had passed the qualifying entrance exam. Together with the use of various other indices like place of habitation, family occupation, it resulted in 21% OBC students being admitted from the noncreamy layer. Equal Opportunities Commission The Sachar Committee, chaired by Justice Rajinder Sachar, was established by the Government of India, in 2005, to look into the social, economic, and educational status of the Muslim community in India. Following its recommendation to establish an Equal Opportunities Commission, two expert groups were formed. One was chaired by N R Madhav Menon to design an Equal Opportunities Commission and the other by Amitabh Kundu to design a diversity index to measure diversity in public spaces of education, health, and housing. According to the Kundu Committee affirmative action consisted of a set of positive, antidiscriminatory measures to increase the presence of under-represented groups in various social spheres, particularly in preferred positions and levels in the society. The expert group felt the need to bring together different kinds of exclusions into a common index that could respond to the requirements of specific policies. The Kundu Committee said that every institution needed to develop a non-discriminatory and non-exclusionary framework, for which it had to evolve norms and practices that would ensure greater diversity over time. The Kundu Committee report was never accepted.24

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5.12 In Summary The case for affirmative action for disadvantaged groups can be made both on account of historical deprivation and for the persistence of disparity and continuing discrimination. The SCs and STs in India have suffered the injustices, disparity, deprivation, and discrimination over centuries. Compensatory policies can certainly be followed for righting these historical wrongs, but over time, they become highly contentious and gradually do not even reach the individuals that require them the most. A diversity index becomes a set of secular indices to reach the most needy and to devise policies accordingly. It can be more effective and more nuanced besides being less contentious as it targets needy individuals rather than groups merely based on caste or religion. The continued use of caste can lead to further division in a society that is getting progressively fragmented.

5.13 Divergent Views While both China and India have implemented affirmative action plans, their approaches have been completely contrasting. Part of it is because the magnitude of the problem is different in the two countries; China has 9% minority population in contrast to the backward castes being at least 70% if not more in India. Apart from the divergent demographical, sociological, and political factors, the policies and their implementation are a part of how each country envisions the aim of education, and how each defines an educated person. While both China and India talk of values to be inculcated through education, the emphasis in China is on science and technology, research, and its application to economic growth. Leadership in the world polity is the primary aim of China, and all policies must conform to that. This means that there can be no compromise on merit; however affirmative action is implemented. Those who conform to this vision of the government succeed in China while the system itself marginalizes the others. The Party, which in effect means the Han Chinese, is supreme whatever may be the rhetoric. The question of power sharing in the country does not arise. In India, on the other hand, vigorous affirmative action policies are followed. Their genesis is to ensure that the marginalized sections get a piece of the governance cake. From this constitutional commitment flow the affirmative action policies in government jobs and in the public sector educational institutions. On the question of quality of education, India seems to concentrate more on affirmative action than on quality. China’s focus, on the other hand, is on achieving excellence rather than social justice. However, there are too many variables involved but certainly the energies in the two countries are differently focused according to their individual priorities.

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7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24.

Christopher Jeffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Low Castes in North Indian Politics, Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003, pp. 214–215. Christopher Jeffrelot, “The Politics of OBCs,” Seminar, 349, 2005. Christopher Jeffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution, op.cit. pp. 157–166. Ibid. Christopher Jeffrelot, “The Politics of OBCs,”op.cit. Cited in Indra Sawhney versus Union of India [192 Supp. (3) SCC, pp .20–772]. Parliamentary Debates (Part II—Proceedings other than Questions and Answers) Official Report, Tuesday 29th May, 1951; Third Session of the Parliament of India, 1950–1951, Parliament Digital Library, htps://www.eparlib.nic.in. Chistopher Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution, op cit., pp. 220–221. Marc Galanter, Competing Equalities, Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 159–161. Kaka Kalelkar Commission, 1955, Report of the India backward classes Commission—1, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, https://dspace.gipe.ac.in; also, People’s Archive of Rural India, HYPERLINK "sps:urlprefix::https" https://www.rural-indian-live.org. Marc Galanter, Competing Equalities, op.cit., pp. 167–173. Ibid., p. 173. Christopher Jeffrelot, “The Politics of OBC,” Seminar 549, 2005 Marc Galanter, pp. op.cit. 170–176. Also cited in Indra Sawhney vs. Union of India, (1992 Supp. (3) SCC, pp. 20–272. Christopher Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution, op.cit. p.228. Ibid., p. 227. Ibid., p. 228. Ibid., pp. 261–265. Ibid., pp. 215–220. Mandal Commission Report, http://www.ncbc.nic.in. Shankar Aiyar, Neeraj Mishra, “Aimed at garnering votes, UPA push for reservations in education, private sector,” India Today, May 14, 2006, https”//www.indiatoday.in/magazine/ cover-story/story/20060515-upa-pushes-for-reservations-in-edication-private-secgtor-jobs785395-2006-05-14. Kavita A. Sharma and Laura Dudley Jenkins, “India: beginning a new debate on reserved admissions for castes, tribes and ‘Other Backward Classes,” in Laura Dudley Jenkins and Michele S. Moses, (ed) Affirmative Action Matters: creating opportunities for students around the world, (International Studies in Higher Education) London and New York: Routledge, 2014, p. 3054. Alexander Lee, “Does Affirmative Action Work? Evaluating India’s Quota System,” Sage Journals, February 10, 2021, Vol. 54, Issue 9, https://doi.urg/10.1177/0010414021989755. N.V. Varghese, Nidhi S. Sabharwal, C.M. Malish,”Equity and Inclusion in Higher Education,” Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education, research papers 12, December 2019, http:// cprhe.niepa.ac.in. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Bibek Debroy, “Quotas are not the issue,” Indian Express, May 30, 2006, http://archive.ind ianexpress.com. Asha Butani, “What is JNU’s Unique Deprivation Points Model and Why Is It Important,” The Quint, 25th July,2022, https://www.thequint.com Raghu Malhotra, “Explained: What is JNU’ s deprivation points model for admissions?” The Indian Express. 19–07-2022, https://indianexpress.com. Report of the Expert Groupon Diversity Index, Submitted to the Ministry of Minority Affairs,2008, https://www.minorityaffairs.gov.in.

Chapter 6

Internationalization of Higher Education in China

There is no getting away from internationalization of higher education if a country wants its HES to be recognized in the global world of education. In a globalized interconnected world, the key is to build a knowledge society. Global leadership depends on a knowledge society, and fostering innovation and growth through science and technology. China, unlike India, understood this early, in fact immediately after Mao, although even Mao used the Soviet model. Internationalization fitted extremely well into the post-Mao vision in China. In any case, China was determined to become a world leader after the humiliation of the Opium Wars and its defeat by Japan. Deng Xiaoping, who led China after Mao, made education the pivot of growth and opened the education sector, determined to modernize its education, and develop science and technology, for which he was willing to learn from the West, irrespective of ideological differences. Therefore, the Western university structures were adopted in Chinese universities, students were sent abroad for study and training, and scholars were invited from abroad to teach in China. Academic collaboration with foreign universities were entered, to enhance the quality of education in China. In this endeavour, the Chinese diaspora was also leveraged. Since China made education the means of achieving its place in the world, it embraced internationalization of education, both in its inward and outward orientations. The two in any case intersect forming almost mirror images of each other. Inward orientation encompasses processes and activities of learning from foreign experience including import of foreign knowledge, culture, models of HEIs and norms, recruitment of overseas students, and scholarly exchanges. Outward orientation deals with the processes and activities of exporting domestic knowledge, culture, models of higher education, and norms to the world, primarily to increase their worldwide reputation and influence. It includes supporting international student recruitment, higher education-based programmes of cultural diplomacy such as China’s Confucius Institutes, and giving development aid in higher education. China has been consistently attempting to transform itself from inward orientation to outward orientation, or at least to balance the two.11

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 K. A. Sharma, India and China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5628-9_6

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While China sends the maximum number of students abroad for higher education, it has also succeeded in becoming a major destination for foreign students who come largely from Asia. Many come from the West too but mainly to study the language.22 As pointed out earlier while dealing with the evolution of policy, the process of opening education began after the Cultural Revolution in the post-Mao period, from 1978 onwards.33 The Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party held in December 1978, and the primary task of reform and opening was to develop the economy, for which quality education was vital. The country needed highly qualified and talented people to lead it towards social development. At the beginning, the internationalization of higher education meant sending students to study abroad and carrying out a few collaborative projects with foreign universities and home institutions.44

6.1 Students Studying Abroad In 1981, the State Council issued a document, Interim Provisions for Study Abroad with Self-Funding, which permitted students to study abroad at their own expense. It led to a dramatic increase in self-funded students going abroad for study. Since then, the number has increased dramatically. Between 1984 and 1988, there were an equal number of self-sponsored students and those sponsored by the State or an institution. From 1990, majority of China’s students studying abroad were selfsponsored. Most of the students who went to study abroad in the early 1980s returned to China because approximately 80% had been sponsored by the State or by some institution on condition of returning. With the increase in self-financed students the number of those returning decreased. The Tiananmen incident in 1989 proved to be a turning point for those Chinese nationals who wished to return because of the uncertainty in domestic politics. In a protective measure, the US government passed the Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992 that allowed Chinese students and scholars to stay and work in the US. Canada, Australia, and other Western countries followed suit. Consequently, approximately 50,000 Chinese students chose to stay back in the US, as did 10,000 in Canada, and more than 20,000 in Australia. This was the first large unexpected loss of highly educated talented Chinese who could have helped their country to develop in the fields of science and technology. The result was that the Chinese government became more conservative in its policies of sending students to study abroad and deliberately decreased the number of State- or institution-sponsored students. It also became mandatory for those who wanted to go as self-funded students to serve in China. For undergraduates it was five years and for graduate students, seven, failing which they had to return to the government what it had spent on their higher education. This measure was taken to prevent an inordinate outflow of foreign exchange on account of higher education from the country. However, recognizing the importance of foreign higher education, Deng Xiaoping, during his southern tour in 1992, said that students should not be prevented from going

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overseas for study because only even if only a few returned, it would be of help to the country. In 1993, a Guiding Policy Regarding Studying Abroad, Supporting Overseas Studies, Encouraging Return in Securing Free Movement was proposed. Since then the policies regarding study abroad became stable.55 The self-financed students going overseas for study are usually from cities and belong to affluent families because only they can afford the huge amount that has to be spent on their education. That is why, despite the desire to study overseas, many cannot as they do not have the means. Families must therefore, objectively assess their financial capacity before sending their children abroad keeping in mind that they must be supported for the full duration of the study period which could be several years. Although the USA is the preferred destination for at least half of the students going abroad, it is more expensive than other countries. The cost of studying in UK and other Western countries is less. Some change seems to have taken place though, as Singapore and Japan have also become popular. Why do students choose to study abroad? One because they think that they will not only gain academically but also their job potential will also be better. However, with time, their greater clarity of motivation has developed. Many more students have become more discerning about the majors they want to study. Instead of rushing headlong into any available foreign qualification, the students tend to base their choice on available job opportunities either in the present or in the foreseeable future. Some students nurture the desire to not only improve their professional qualifications but also their ability to speak in a foreign language and to improve their overall social skills.66 Language is a major hurdle when seeking to study overseas because students must rely almost exclusively on English in the classroom and even in everyday life. Theoretically, all Chinese students have studied English from primary school and have taken tests in English, like IELTS and TOEFL, but only a few can communicate confidently. The inability to communicate in English results in loneliness, anxiety, and even depression. The Western accents and colloquialisms, when coupled with deficient listening and comprehension skills in English, result in difficulties in understanding the lectures in class. The weak verbal communication makes them hesitant and diffident to seek clarifications from the teachers or from the peers. This causes significant decline in academic performance. Regional and cultural differences can also have an adverse impact. In the Western countries the stress is on autonomous learning with emphasis on team work and expression of independent opinion; in China, as in a large part of Asia, education is based mainly on the teacher transmitting the knowledge in the classroom, and the teacher–student relationship is more hierarchical, the student ranking lower than the teacher. The inability to adapt puts tremendous pressure on the student. In 2009, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the Measures for Education Subsidies for State-funded High-level Graduate students, to clarify measures being taken to aid public-funded graduate students to go abroad. The quantum of funding was also increased. The objective was obviously to enhance the number of students who could be funded by the government.77

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In July 2010, the Outline of the National Plan for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010–2020) alluding to the earlier Policy reemphasized that education had to consistently open up to the outside world through collaboration with foreign universities to enhance the development of high-quality educational resources in Chinese universities.88 Chiefly historical reasons have ensured Anglo-American linguistic and cultural hegemony in higher education. The USA and European academic labour market draws heavily from the doctoral students. It is therefore not surprising that some of the best minds globally choose to study in America or Europe and now increasingly in Australia too. However, since America remains the highest on the aspirational list of students it is the chief beneficiary of talent from other countries, mainly India and China. Statistical data reveals that up to 25% of the students stayed in OECD countries after acquiring their degrees, the maximum was from China and India. In their study of long-term international mobility of Chinese students, Zhang and Li found that only 14.1% of students who studied in the USA between 1978 and 2001 returned to China. Another study in 2001–2003 showed that more than 80% of Chinese and Indian doctoral students intended to stay back in the USA after graduation. Higher education is obviously a prominent means of migration for students from developing countries to migrate to the developed countries.99 While encouraging students and academics to pursue higher studies abroad, China sought vigorously to get them back so that they could aid in the country’s economic development. These returnee scholars, it was felt, would help to enhance the quality of research and fill the gap in capacity for the development of research in all fields. In practice, however, this does not happen because far more academics go outside the country than return.10

6.2 Efforts to Recruit Overseas Scholars Jiang Zeming, President of China, announced a new policy of revitalizing China’s economic development through science and education in 1997. Aggressive recruitment of scholars from abroad was done both by the government and by the educational institutions. The desire was to raise research capacity in China to international levels. Approximately 20% of the funding given to the prestigious Project, 985 universities the details of which will be discussed later, hired foreign trained academics.11 Measures taken by the government included seed-funding for research, competitive salary, and senior positions in universities or research institutes. Efforts were made to make relocation easier by providing subsidy for housing, and education of children. Return was made more attractive by favourable taxation policies, and special policies for Hukao registration which is a long-term residency permit required for foreign citizens. Many programmes were launched: The Hundred Talents Program, the Chunhui Scholar Program, the Program of Introducing Discipline-based Talent to Universities, also called 111 Project, the Project of Thousand Talents, and Project

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of Thousand Youth Talents, to name some, to encourage overseas talent to return. Of these the most important were the Project of Thousand Talents and the Project of Thousand Youth Talents.12

6.3 Project of Thousand Talents Launched in 2008, the Project of Thousand Talents offered handsome relocation packages to top overseas Chinese academics who were full professors or had an equivalent position. Senior managers in well-known companies and entrepreneurs who owned their own businesses or who had developed technologies, obtained patents, were the other favoured categories for whom return to China was made easier. Start-up funding was provided to academics to establish laboratories. This programmed had a greater outreach than the earlier ones. It was the first talent programme launched by the General Office of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party indicating the government’s seriousness in recruiting talent. Its success can be measured by the fact that more than 2000 top Chinese, over half of them being academics from returned to China.13 This was more than the response to the earlier efforts. Project of Thousand Youth Talents: this was launched in 2011,14 to attract younger talent in the age group of 40 years with doctoral degrees from top university, and at least three years of overseas experience in research. These two programmes were reasonably successful in hiring some of the best foreign-educated Chinese from abroad. Since both the Central Government and local governments were interested in attracting persons with foreign education and work experience, many local governments too set up their own talent schemes independent of those Central initiatives.15 Among them, Shanghai was the most successful in encouraging the return of overseas Chinese. It made several provisions for them like easy issue of permanent residence permits. From 2008 onwards it established and implemented the Eastern Scholars Programme and helped universities and research institutions to attract at least 50 scholars every year.16 The Chinese government was successful to a certain extent in its endeavours to bring back overseas talent. The political atmosphere too became more favourable as China became politically stable. Other factors that encouraged return were China’s rapid economic development, good governance, availability of funds to develop technologies, and the willingness of the government to support these endeavours. It appeared to be an exciting moment in the history of Chinese higher education to participate in the transformation of academic institutions and in development of technologies for which funding was being made available while it appeared to be shrinking elsewhere. What added to the attraction was that Chinese institutions were becoming more visible and important, and their research was gaining in prominence. Other factors which are common to most diasporas that made return to China a good idea were nostalgia, concern for families and home, and social recognition at home.17

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Academics like Cao have pointed out that government policies despite best efforts did not succeed in attracting first-rate academics to return because: • Salaries in China did not match those in developed countries. • The education of children was problematic. • Work culture was too different from what the scholars had got used to. Cao concluded that China could not attract the best academics unless the research culture in its institutions demanded first-rate research. Li found that of those who returned, about 61%, were only visiting scholars. Also, since their largely preferred destinations were Shanghai and Beijing, it became problematic for them to secure appropriate positions.18 Moreover, the challenges were different for senior and junior returnees. Even though the academic labour market in China had become increasingly internationalized, title and networks or guanxi continued to be important for professional advancement.19 While these two elements are necessary everywhere, they are particularly significant in Chinese society as in many Asian societies where academic opportunities are sometimes not based on only on merit, but also on personal connections, seniority, or authority. In such a context, junior returnees naturally faced more challenges than the senior academics because their network in China was weak or at least not strong enough for them to find suitable positions. Moreover they themselves were not senior or powerful enough to impact the existing system, which they found to be too hierarchical and bureaucratic for their liking. Seeing themselves in demand educational institutions in popular destination like Shanghai have taken the driver’s seat. Not surprisingly, that the three institutions in Shanghai have gradually given up special treatment to returnees and moved towards equity in hiring and promoting new faculty. Returnees looking for positions in research universities in Shanghai have to compete with domestic PhD graduates, although the chance for a domestically trained scholar to work at an elite Project 985 University is limited. In essence, the threshold for junior returnees is higher now. A fresh PhD does not get any special treatment. To sum up < • Junior overseas returnees find it increasingly difficult to find jobs, and their comparative advantages have weakened. • Their social network in China is weak if not broken because they had left at a young age. • Differences between Chinese and Western semester systems create a mismatch between the time when potential returnees look for jobs and the time of recruitment of the institutions. • Many students who had gone abroad had not done proper career planning and training. Hence, they were not clear on what career they should pursue after graduation. This has caused a mismatch in the jobs available and the subjects they have graduated in.20

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6.4 The Current Scene Individual institutions usually develop their own ways to interpret and manage State policies. Sometimes, they get incentives from the government to recruit overseas scholars but at other times, they must compete to attract highly qualified researchers who have published in international journals. Shanghai, being popular, as can be seen is choosy.21 Chinese universities have started competing with the top universities of the West. Therefore, many institutions, other than Shanghai, too have carried out significant internal innovations to create an organizational culture that is more conducive to attracting overseas scholars. They are interested because, as Choi and Lu have found, there is a strong relationship between faculty members who have come after serving abroad and the internationalization and diversification of curricula. Returnee scholars become a link between Chinese and the international academic communities. This helps China directly and indirectly to improve its research productivity and competitiveness and become a part of overseas professional and trade networks. This has led some proactive schools or departments to adopt Dual-track systems to manage returnees and the locally trained faculty differently. Domestically trained faculty may be paid lower. There is also a difference in their performance expectations and promotion requirements.22 This approach has not been without controversy. It has provoked debates on brain drain. The assumption behind the preferential policies is that the returnees are better than the locals. Local scholars feel aggrieved because they do not accept that many overseas returnees are especially talented or better. They feel that the contributions of the locals have been undervalued and that they have been marginalized. This feeling of marginalization is quite common.23 According to those who feel that internationalization leads to brain drain and describe the impact of developed countries on the source countries to be negative, it is after all the developed countries who have invested heavily in their students. This view has been challenged in recent studies. The notion of brain drain has been countered by the idea that globalization and the worldwide opportunities that it has opened, leading to academic mobility, do not necessarily result in brain drain. It can also lead to brain gain and brain circulation. Thus, lines are drawn between the two sides. One questions international mobility because it creates brain drain, and the other emphasizes its potential benefits in so far as overseas students and highly skilled people could return to their country of origin or even contribute to its development from wherever they are abroad. However, everyone is not convinced. Scholars like Rizvi claim that the concept of brain circulation does not take into account the more fundamental issue of mobility as mobility is not neutral. The dice is heavily loaded in favour of he developed countries from the West, especially the USA. However, it may be argued that in the context of China, it has helped it to develop from a country with relatively insufficient human resources to one of the world’s largest countries rich in human resources. At the same time, it is equally true that it has lost

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its top-ranking talent to developed countries in vast numbers, especially in science and engineering.24 Failing to accelerate the return of talent on a permanent basis, one policy initiative that countries like China and India take is to construct diasporic networks. This enables the emigrants to transfer their skills and expertise to their home country without necessarily returning permanently. China has been far more successful than India in leveraging its highly qualified scientific diaspora. It is an important example of reaching out to its overseas intellectuals to encourage them to return even for limited periods of time. As Chinese universities gain recognition in the world, it is but natural that many Chinese academics based in USA too are extending their diaspora networks with China by coming for short periods of time as they come to China as visiting professors or research counsellors. Many developed countries also continue to reform their immigration policies and increase their efforts to attract or retain talent.25 Thus there is a global tussle for talent. India too has drawn up schemes to encourage its overseas scholars to return to Indian universities, as will be discussed later but has had limited success.

6.5 Sino Foreign Collaboration After China joined the WTO in 2001, China’s international educational collaborations became more active. Both the Chinese government and the academics wanted this because of two main factors: • There was a need to find resources for the huge demand for education, and government funds were proving inadequate. Hence, other sources of funding had to be found, including the opening of the private sector. • Access to global networks, which would bring in both resources and expertise. Some watershed reforms resulted. Students were charged tuition fees, and revenue-generating courses were launched. Internal competition mechanisms between universities were also set up to motivate them to do better.26 These paved the way for the emergence of Shanghai World Class University Rankings which will be discussed in the following chapter. A fallout of being part of the WTO was that private players began to establish various cooperation programmes with overseas institutions. This drew the government’s attention and led to the promulgation of the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on Chinese Foreign Cooperation in operating schools in 2003.27 This was amended in 2013 and again in 2019. According to the Regulations, joint school-operating programmes refer to all collaborative programmes between Chinese institutions and their international partners, designed to deliver education service to Chinese students within the territory of China. These joint programmes are the most effective drivers of the internationalization of higher education in China. According to the Outline of the National Plan, China’s national strategy is to be rich in human resources by prioritizing education. A report released in 2015 by

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the China Education Association for International Exchange showed that among all universities and colleges in China, 93% had formulated an internationalization development plan. As a consequence, many joint programmes have come up in different universities.28 These are essentially of three kinds. The most fully developed are at the university level. They are commonly referred to as Chinese campus of the overseas university. The second is at the institute level. These are cooperative projects attached to local universities and do not have any independent legal status of their own. They operate like the traditional branch campuses in which the overseas university provides faculty and academic support, but infrastructure and administrative support are the responsibility of the Chinese university to which they are attached. The third kind is cooperative projects that operate at the degree level in the form of cooperative degree programmes run by Chinese universities. These are the double-degree programmes.29

6.5.1 Double-Degree Programmes Many students select the double-degree programmes because they see an added value in obtaining a foreign degree at a lower cost. They believe that this enhances their competitiveness in both the domestic and the global labour markets. Compared to the delivering countries, less importance has been given to the institutions in the host countries in conducting the double-degree programmes. In 2000, the State Council and the Ministry of Education issued several policy documents to standardize and support the implementation of double-degree programmes. For example, in 2013, the Ministry of Education, together with the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance, issued the Ideas of Further Graduate Education Reforms which mention that the nation supports the work of Chinese universities with high-level foreign universities to operate the double-degree programmes and joint-degree programmes. This was amended in 2017 and then 2019. As a result many elite public institutions of higher education established double-degree programmes at all levels—bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral. The double-degree programmes at the bachelor’s level are very popular but the Ministry of Education (MoE) only recognizes the foreign degrees from those institutions that have registered with it and been given approval. Therefore a degree from an unregistered foreign university would not be recognized in China although the university may be recognized in its own country.30 Some researchers believe that collaborations with high-ranking foreign universities can enhance the teaching or research quality of local universities but feel that most foreign universities participating in the existing double-degree programmes do not rank high in the world ranking lists. This situation, they argue, is not in alignment with the original purpose of establishing double-degree programmes, which was to bring in high-quality foreign educational resources into the country. They have suggested that local universities must be selective in choosing their foreign partners, to get a stronger and more worthwhile collaboration. Further, the local universities

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have certain misperceptions about double-degree programmes. They need to realize that they cannot be mere passive followers in the collaborative arrangements. They must bring their unique characteristics and advantages in the design and delivery of the programme to the table, to enable it grow in an equitable and sustainable way.

6.5.2 Branch Campuses The National Plan Outline discussed earlier, stressed upon the significance of developing international branch campuses. It stated that the central and local Chinese governments should collaborate with international institutions to establish Sinoforeign cooperative education institutions of excellence together with research centred colleges. It also noted that Sino-foreign cooperative universities should act as pilot programmes in t reformation of higher education institutions. Senior administrators desire internationalization as a way to develop an institution. But for it to succeed, both sides need to feel benefitted and agree on the vision and mission of the venture as also on the way to administer it so that the vision can be realized. One aim of the venture, according to the policy statement in the Outline is to explore how to educate and prepare students for internationalization and give them global vision. The second is to gain experience in developing collaboration between institutions belonging to two different cultures and educational systems. Developing international branch campuses in China is very different from setting up branch campuses in other countries.31 In China, only the Western model cannot be followed. It has to be a combination of the Western and the Chinese model to create a new hybrid model. Internationalization in China therefore means that a model has to be found which is suitable to both sides and benefits both the international and the local institutions. While supporting the development of international branch campuses China has also been evaluating foreign university presence. It seeks to align the provisions of foreign cooperation more closely with China’s national interests. Clear guidelines have been provided by the Ministry of Education that make it abundantly clear that the preferred model is of joint ownership and operation in collaboration with a Chinese University. This is really an assertion by China of its education sovereignty which it emphasizes in many ways. Educational sovereignty essentially means that the final executive power rests in the hands of the sovereign nation where the joint venture is being established. The venture must take into account the domestic issues of concerns in higher education in the host country and also act accordingly in its dealing with the international community. Therefore, international campuses in China are termed Chinese foreign cooperative universities.32 The difference in defining and naming the international branch campuses shows the policy boundaries set up by the Chinese government for Chinese foreign joint-venture HEIs. One of its manifestations is in the naming of the institution. For example, in China, Shanghai-New York University (NYU) is the official name of the New York University-Shanghai campus, and the official Chinese name

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for the Nottingham branch campus in China is Ningbo Nottingham University. This subtle difference in naming the branch campuses demonstrates that China is protective of its educational sovereignty even as it supports the development of international branch campuses.33 Another example of the Chinese government’s assertion of its sovereignty is that the chief aim of the collaborative projects is to provide education mainly to Chinese citizens.34 Hence, instead of attracting international students, Chinese educational policies require that the international branch campuses recruit mainly Chinese students. The government keeps a tight control on the campus by stipulating that the head of such a university must be Chinese. The obligations of the foreign partners are defined in policy documents. A foreign partner cannot contribute more than one-third of the total intellectual property input on the campus. Foreign universities and their faculty members cannot impart religious education or conduct religious activities. They are bound by Chinese laws, must implement Chinese policies, follow the ethics demanded by the Chinese government, and do nothing to imperil Chinese sovereignty and security. The policy document pertaining to the joint venture must clearly state that the purpose of the institution is to develop higher education in China. Joint ventures must ensure quality teaching while maintaining the socialist outlook. Of course, they also cannot offer programmes in military, police, and political education services. These collaborative policies have led scholars to raise certain issues.35 For example, Altbach has raised the concern about branch campuses not having the same infrastructure as the home campuses and so cannot treated at par with them.36 Other scholars have pointed to the radical cultural differences in the Chinese and Western systems approach to higher education and acquisition of knowledge. The Chinese, and in fact most Asian systems, have passive classroom learning; the Western system requires active and assertive engagement of the students. This raises the question whether it is possible to transplant and move one university model to a place with a totally different cultural context. Certain issues arise. There are some gaps in the understanding of the home and foreign institutions about what should be the norms for international branch campuses. According to the Chinese, branch campuses are only cooperative universities, controlled administratively by both the Chinese and the foreign universities. This difference of understanding brings with it challenges for both parties. These get aggravated by the opposite ideologies under which each side operates. In terms of quality many feel that it is difficult to ensure the quality of the branch campuses without a strong and stable academic team comprising of mature and well-respected professors. The institution itself is caught in a dilemma about which quality control system to follow that of the Chinese universities or of the universities of the partner country. While both the Chinese government and the collaborating universities consider quality assurance to be of vital importance, both sides need to clearly define what they mean by quality and how it is to be attained in the institution. Quality assurance in Chinese private higher education includes both the academic and administrative areas. All aspects of the institution have to be evaluated. This includes policies, attitudes, actions, and procedures that the institution adopts to

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ensure quality. Also, it must be accountable to all its stakeholders. The Regulation on Quality Evaluation of Chinese Foreign Collaboration and Educational programmes, 2009, and the Ministry of Education have systematic quality assurance mechanism to evaluate the quality of teaching and research, responsibility and accountability, and management of credentials. The problem perceived with the current quality assurance system in Chinese higher education is that it relies too much on administration. What is actually required is to ensure that the university produces quality graduating students. The proof of the pudding lies in the eating of it. Hence, the quality of the graduate students that the university produces is the key to its credibility and quality. Some faculty members think that it would be difficult in practice for the international branch campuses to simultaneously follow quality assurance systems of both the home and the host countries. Their question is how to follow the standards required by both without teaching and research getting caught in between two or more quality assurance mechanisms. Developing a quality standard accepted by both partners is an issue that requires efforts and long-term thinking.

6.6 Academic Freedom Some Chinese policy documents like National Outline for Medium and Long-Term Educational Reform and Development, 2010, mention removing the bureaucratization to ensure academic excellence in HEIs. They talk of separating government administrative control from academic quality to make it easier for HEIs to excel. However, most Chinese public universities are directly or indirectly affiliated with the ministries of the Central or provincial governments; most senior university administrators are directly appointed by the Central Government. Therefore, to separate administrative control from measures that academics must take to ensure quality is a very tough if not a near impossible task. So, when the Plan states that it has been decided to separate the two, it only suggests that the government is trying to give more academic freedom to the academic institutions and not necessarily that it will be able to do so. Some policy documents have also started including directives focusing on independent thinking, nurturing of free academic environment, and encouraging innovation and invention. The intent appears to be that the fostering of a free academic environment should also entail a corresponding emphasis on academic responsibility. One of the policy documents, Regulation of University and College Charters, 2011, has said that the teachers should have the freedom to teach and to research while the students the freedom to study. These freedoms must be respected by the institutions of higher education. In addition, the Regulation of Higher Education Institution Academic Committees, 2013, requires that universities and colleges establish academic committees to take independent and supreme academic decisions for the university. These must evaluate, discuss, supervise, and make suggestions and decisions on academic affairs. Thus, China is making some progress in allowing

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academics responsible for their own academic growth and quality but its system constraints it to understand it in the way that the West does.

6.7 Further Evolution of Internationalization As internationalization of higher education took root, the Chinese government realized its importance in exercising its soft power in several spheres and more extensively than earlier. In 2016, the State Council together with the General Office of the Chinese Communist Central Committee issued the Several Opinions on Promoting Education Opening up in a New Period.37 This document mapped out the aims of internationalization of education by the year 2020. The chief goal was the rejuvenation of the nation through improving the overall quality of education and capacity to innovate, exercise soft power through it, and gaining global influence. The 2016 document identified six key themes pertaining to the internationalization of higher education: student mobility, introducing quality education resources, forging first-class universities, promoting cross-cultural awareness, strengthening cooperation with various international organizations, and implementing the Belt and Road initiatives in education. The last was a specific addition to the global agenda. Another new initiative was the Double First-Class Project. It not only sought to bring selected universities to world-class standards but also the academic disciplines, by the end of 2050. This was a step further than the Project 211 and Project 985 universities. Issues of quality enhancement and the building of world-class universities have been discussed in greater detail in the following chapter. The Belt and Road initiatives were also to be implemented as these were designed to increase the academic competence of Chinese universities, enhance the economic growth of China, and increase its global influence. The Chinese government continued with the policies developed in the first stage of internationalization like student mobility, introduction of quality educational resources, and immersion in cross-cultural awareness. New initiatives were added in 2016. These were aimed to encourage those Chinese HEIs, with capacity to do so, to establish the study in China brand and prioritize joint programmes to help the nation to develop its science and technology on the one hand and spread its ideology on the other.38 To keep pace with the overall development goal set by China in the 13th Five Year Plan from 2016–2020, an Outline of the 13th Five Year Plan for the Educational Development of the People’s Republic of China was issued. According to it, China’s world-class universities needed to develop top-class expertise in a series of subjects associated with the national security and interests that were urgently needed by the country. These subjects covered various fields in engineering and technology, natural science, and social science. The State Council issued another policy document pertaining to education in 2017. The Outline for the Educational Development of the People’s Republic of China is to guide the Educational Practice.39 In it, China continued to emphasize opening

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to the world in general, together with concentrating on upgrading the quality of the academic structure. The 2017 Outline identified six themes. These included the Belt and Road education initiatives (BRI) which were seen as part of the Chinese Government’s infrastructure development strategy; student mobility; quality education resources; world-class university; global education governance; and culture exchanges. This was a step forward from the 2016 document. An obvious difference between the two documents was also the change in the order of the internationalization themes. The second document prioritized the BR or Belt and Road initiatives, to ensure that cooperation in education with the BRI countries. This, it was said, would enhance economic cooperation with them and thus grow China’s international influence. The BRI in education included jointly building an educational community with the BR countries; carrying out various studies about the BR countries, their languages, economy, law, culture, and policy-making; sharing educational resources and experiences with them; and setting up the BR Chinese government award. The 2017 Outline specifically put forward a new strategy pertaining to participation in global education governance. It required universities to strengthen cooperation with international organizations by recommending capable individuals to work for them. They were also required to give educational assistance to underdeveloped countries. The desire to be deeply involved in international education at governance level demonstrates China’s ambition to have a say at the international level. The aim is to have a voice in the power to make rules in the field of international education. For this, China has to strengthen the study of various significant education rules, take advantage of various international organizations, and actively advocate novel proposals and plans for the global educational development agenda.40

6.8 Geopolitical Outreach and Internationalization Chinese foreign policy seeks to provide a Chinese perspective to countries and influence foreign public opinion through cultural diplomacy initiatives. However, the credibility of cultural diplomacy in the eyes of different nations and hence its effectiveness depends on the relationship between the Chinese political system and its cultural institutions. Cultural diplomacy is a part of diplomacy as it seeks to exercise the influence that comes from greater understanding. For instance, there is a strong relationship between language and political domination.41 Indians have firsthand experience of the dominance of the English language, which was deliberately foisted by the colonial rulers. It is a different matter that the large English proficient population in India has greatly helped it in today’s world when English has become the lingua franca in international dealings. But languages in the contemporary world have been promoted as instruments of soft power as articulated by Joseph Nye, and that is why language issues are so contentious. America has been at the forefront of practicing soft power. Other Western nations have not been far behind. The British Council, the Alliance Française, and Goethe Institutes are found in many countries of the world.42

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Geopolitical influences have also shaped international higher education at the regional level. ASEAN countries initiated regional educational collaboration among its members to connect their universities to the global knowledge-based economy. In order to meet the demand of its internal labour market and political integration, the European Union (EU) conducted the ERASMUS Plus programme that aims at providing the EU citizens best practices in education policy at the national and regional levels.43 The exercise of soft power by China has at least four important goals: take China’s story to the world and promote Chinese culture; counter hostile foreign propaganda; counter Taiwanese independence; and propagate Chinese foreign policy. Chinese educational outreach has taken at least three forms in the pursuit of these aims: the Confucius Institute Programme; the outreach to its students, scholars, and highly trained skilled personnel abroad; and the Belt and Road strategic initiative.

6.8.1 Confucius Institutes The Hanban or the Confucius Institute (CI) Headquarters was established in 1987. Its full name is the China National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, and it is under the Ministry of Education.44 It launched its prestigious Confucius Institute Programme in 2004 to deepen friendly relations between China and other countries.45 These are usually joint ventures between a host university and a Chinese university or a leading organization connected to the China State bureaucracy but with some foreign representatives. These institutions are meant to satisfy the demands of people from different countries and regions in the world to learn the Chinese language and become familiar with Chinese culture.46 According to Xiaolin Guo, the Confucius Institutes benefit from the academic contacts of Chinese scholars and from the existing collaborative arrangement between Chinese and overseas universities.47 The CIs are governed by Confucius Institute Leadership Council which was formed in 2007 to give them proper direction. The Council has 33 members comprising senior Chinese politicians, representatives of the state bureaucracy, representatives from educational agencies, and foreign representatives. This includes a Chair, five vice chairs, 12 Executive Council members from related State Departments, and 15 non-executive members. Ten are foreign representatives, and five are from partner Chinese universities. The inclusion of foreigners is significant. They are heads of boards of CIs in their own countries and completely familiar with them. The Chinese representatives are from Chinese universities and from different state departments. The links to several state departments and there being a senior politician in the Chair show how important this soft power initiative is to China but it also leads to suspicions in the minds of partnering countries. Guided by the Leadership Council, the CIs have to respect both local laws and Chinese laws and customs. The language teachers and the teaching material come through the partner Chinese University, and the contribution of the host university is the office space and additional staff. Standard Mandarin is taught together with

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knowledge about doing business with China. Various guest speakers address the learners to familiarize them with Chinese culture.48 The CIs are therefore not a fully funded programme of the Chinese government. They collect a small fee from the students but necessarily often must minimize their expenditure. Hence, they do not usually build offices in the city; rather they lodge themselves in the premises of their partners. If that is not feasible, they may even get the foreign government to pay for their space outside. The teachers and teaching material being the responsibility of the Chinese organization, the same teacher or in addition to him or her, another teacher may be provided to upgrade the skills of the local Chinese teachers. The income generated becomes that of the CI. The funding apparently comes from the MoE in China but it is subject to the scrutiny of the external propaganda department of the CCP. It is expected that since the CIs are located in foreign countries they would not be in direct control of Beijing. However, the CIs are subject to various pulls and pushes because of their very inception and organization. On the one hand they are joint ventures between Chinese and foreign universities or educational organizations but they are administered by a Leadership Council representing diverse groups and are also subject to the administration and academic norms of partnering institutions. From the composition of the Leadership Council it is evident that on the Chinese side there is an interlocking between the Party and the State bureaucracy in China, and this introduces a different dynamics. Confucius institutes seem to meet with more resistance than similar institutions of other countries. The relationship between culture and politics has always been a complex one, and it is an important issue for state-sponsored cultural diplomacy.49 Culture can be unifying or contentious. Many governments grant a lot of political independence to their language institutes involved in cultural diplomacy. Institutions like the Alliance Française and the Goethe Institute are seen as politically independent, but they are necessarily an aspect of cultural diplomacy, which is part of the public diplomacy and building of soft power. They also carry out other activities apart from teaching of the language for their countries. China’s goal of growing its soft power often evokes adverse reactions, especially in the Western world because of the negative image of its political system. China’s political history is very different from that of the existing powerful states of the West and Chinese command, and control over its institutions is viewed with suspicion. In China, the supremacy of the Communist Party is maintained in every sphere at all costs. This is done through the mechanism of Xitongs.50 A Xitong is a small group of people within the Party that oversees various activities. The CIs ostensibly promote the study of Chinese language and culture, but this being a fraught subject because of the power of both these subjects being linked to propaganda, several Xitongs keep an eye on them. Foreign Affairs and Finance Xitongs are represented in the CI Leadership Council. The State Council Information Office which is supposed to be responsible for external government publicity, also functions as the CCP’s Office of Foreign propaganda and is a part of the Leadership Council Many of the State Organizations like the ministries of Culture and Publishing too are represented on it while themselves being under the authority of the Propaganda and Thought Work

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Leading Group and its administrative body, the Central Propaganda Department. The Xitongs are a mechanism to supervise and ensure that the Party policies are being implemented especially when they relate to sensitive areas of Chinese foreign policy of which the CIs are a part. The CI leadership Council reflects the Nomenklatura system which has been borrowed from the Russians. One person according to this system can wear two hats simultaneously, that is, can be in both the Party and in the State bureaucracy. The chair of the CI Leadership Council is also a member of the CCP’s politburo, while being a member of the State Council. While the inclusion of foreign representatives gives the Leadership Council greater autonomy and flexibility than if it consisted only of Chinese members but many see it only as an attempt to improve the public perception of the CIs. Of course, the presence of foreign members also helps to improve the functioning of the CIs. Thus, it becomes a complex mix of the academic and the political. The support given to the CIs by senior Chinese leaders make the links between the party and the CI evident. President Hu Jintao51 presided over the opening ceremonies of CI. Politburo member and propaganda chief Li Changchun saw CI as an important means to promote China to the world. In addition, the CI’s constitution too uses language similar to the official discourse. For example, the goal of the CIs is to construct a harmonious world. These strong links between the Chinese political governance systems and the CIs arouse suspicion. It has led to measures like the US Senate voting to deny funding to CIs on March 5, 2021, unless they met oversight requirements. Faculty has voiced concerns about their academic freedom. This coupled with US educational institutions facing budgetary constraints has led to the closure of many CIs.52 In a report on CI partnerships published in 2014 the American Association of University Professors raised concerns about a third party being allowed to control academic matters, as this they felt this compromised institutional autonomy. Hence, they wanted the CIs to be closed claiming that the Chinese were only using them for propaganda.53 The National Association of Scholars in its study of 2017 voiced many concerns that included transparency, academic freedom, and pressure on academics to selfcensor.54 It too wanted the closure of all CIs and ways to be found to compel those universities who wavered. It wanted the Congress to enquire and assess the security risks that the CIs posed. The 2018 study of Hoover Institution and the Asia Society’s Centre on US-China Relations on the Chinese influence in the US too articulated similar concerns. However they had to acknowledge that they had not found actual interference by CIs in the mainstream Chinese studies curricula in the USA. This view was supported by the study commissioned by the Congress which submitted its report in February 2019. Most CIs seemed to operate without controversy. China’s MoE, however, re-organized the CI project in June 2020, in response to the growing criticism of CIs. A reform plan approved by the CCP was implemented to develop CIs as a significant force for cultural and educational exchange with other countries. The Hanban was replaced by the Chinese Institute Education Foundation, CIEF, and the Centre for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC. This was

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supposed to be a non-profit professional educational institution for international Chinese language education, affiliated to the Ministry of Education.55 It was initiated by 27 Chinese universities, companies, and social organizations. It is registered with the Civil Affairs Ministry and supervised by the Ministry of Education. It is supposed to manage the CI brand and programme. This makes CIEF responsible for CIs and not the Hanban or the Ministry of Education with the CLEC only providing the teachers. Will this allay suspicions? Probably not because most Chinese universities that participate in the CIEF and those who are CI partners are state-funded. This, however, cannot be helped because that is a part of the Chinese political system.

6.9 United Front Work In the face of the rapid increase in the number of overseas students, academics, and skilled professionals, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) put forward a series of principal opinions on how to further improve the work of overseas students in 2011. This was known as the United Front Work which has also not been perceived very favourably by Western powers.56 Addressing a Conference on October 21, 2013, Xi Jinping stressed that the principal opinions reflected the need to take care of students who were studying abroad and of those who were working and living there. Their legitimate rights and interests needed to be protected while their connections with the home country had to be strengthened. The policy could be summed up in a few succinct words: “Support to study abroad, encourage coming home, come and go free.”57 The overseas Chinese are seen as part of China’s public diplomacy. As both the students studying abroad and the number of returnees grew steadily a strong positive energy developed between them. These students, academics, and professional began to be seen as China’s soft power that helped improve perceptions of China abroad, making it more politically influential in the international arena, its economy more competitive, and its image more ethical, moral, and charismatic. Through the study abroad diplomacy, the foreign nations came to know more about China and the communication of its culture became more effective. It is a means to influence international public opinion and safeguard national interests. Therefore, the study abroad diplomacy became increasingly prominent and effective in improving the national image. It strove for international understanding and help. In the process of studying abroad, students were extensively involved in cooperation and collaborative exchanges between countries. They played an important role in enhancing the understanding and friendship between the Chinese people and the people of other countries. Xi Jinping praised the Chinese students for being an effective soft power of China and saw an increasingly important role for them in China’s future civilian diplomatic activities. He hoped that they would retain their patriotism, study hard, strive for innovation and creativity, and actively promote foreign collaborative exchanges.58

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6.9.1 One Belt One Road or Belt and Road Education Strategy The policy announcements of 2016 and 2017 placed increasing emphasis on the Belt and Road (B&R) initiatives that needed to be taken, built upon and strengthened. These had been in the making at least since 2012.59 The initiative was mentioned in important policy speeches of the top leadership of China. The Chinese government believes that the development of Chinese international collaboration in higher education not only will continue to benefit its own higher education but will also enforce the Chinese cultural identity in a globalized world. This is the Chinese way of participating in global governance and taking a leadership role in it by being seen as an emerging power that must be heard in its own right. At the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, in November 2012, the One Belt and One Road strategy (OBOR) was written into the decision of the CPC Central Committee.60 Thus it became a part of the official national strategy and heralded a further opening of China to the world but on its own terms. On September 7, 2013, Xi Jinping delivered an important speech, in which he said that OBOR was the new Silk Road through which would flow policy communication as well as trade and currency just as trade, ideas, and religious ideologies flowed through the old Silk Road. In another important speech to the Indonesian Parliament on October 3, 2013, President Xi Jinping clearly emphasized that China through the OBOR wanted to develop maritime cooperative partnerships that would be a part of the New Silk Road of the 21st century. Thus, the strategic concept of OBOR was presented to the world.61 It amounted to heralding a new world order. In March 2014, Premier Le Keqiang pointed out in the Report of the Government to the State Council that the planning and construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century maritime Silk Road needed to be accomplished. The Government Work Report to the State Council in 2015 is also proposed to promote the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road.62 Three alliances were formed after this. One was the Universities Alliance of the New Silk Road in Xi’an initiated by the Xi’an Jiao Tong University. In the same year, 41 universities from eight countries formed the One Belt One Road University Strategic Alliance (OBORUSA) and in 2016, the China-Central Asia University Alliance (CCAUC) was established in Urumqi, Xinjiang. All these alliances have grown since then, although there are obvious hurdles because of multiple languages, varied academic traditions, and uneven academic standards. Also, there are issues of visas while access to research funds is lacking. China’s foreign education cooperation under the OBOR initiative is known as China’s second opening up, the first having taken place under Deng Xiaoping.63 While promoting the OBOR later renamed as Belt and Road or B&R or BR, it was seen that economic cooperation, cultural linkages, and people-to-people exchanges had to be promoted simultaneously. It meant covering a vast canvas of education,

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tourism, academics, and art. Since education plays an important role in the development of a country, the goal was to promote educational exchanges and cooperation among B&R to help them in their development.64 The Action Plan of July 2016 emphasized the opening of opportunities, peaceful development, and joint contribution, together with shared benefits.65 China’s foreign education cooperation under the BRI is seen by China as its opportunity to take the leadership role in the world as helping developing countries as most of the countries along the proposed New Silk Road belong to that category. China claims that it not only wants to help them build their infrastructure but also wishes to help them in their growth and development by aiding them to build their own educated talent pool through education. In offering foreign education cooperation China has guaranteed them various forms of education assistance and special scholarship programmes to broaden the development opportunities for the people as far as possible.66 There are 200 cooperation programmes and institutions in China with countries along the B&R. These account for nearly one-tenth of the total projects in Chin while collaborations with eight countries go in to make up a 12% of all projects with OBOR countries.67 The countries along the B&R have complex and strong cultural traditions together with a deep sense of nationalism. Both these have the potential to create cultural conflicts. The education policy is conscious of this. It emphasizes. • A spirit of solidarity, mutual trust, and cooperation beneficial to both sides. China’s interest in peaceful development and a shared community. • Enhancement of the international competitiveness and opening up of export of cultural products.68 China’s foreign education cooperation under the BRI is not only about study abroad plans, or cooperation in running schools, but is multidimensional. The cooperation as put forth by China needs to have four practical modes: 1. Strategic education cooperation in which the government plays the most important role. 2. Service-oriented education through which specific difficulties in implementation can be resolved. 3. Resource-based education cooperation, key promotion plans for overseas study, running schools collaboratively, teacher training and joint training programmest.69 Developmental educational cooperation requires both external and internal motivation. International development situations need to combine with internal factors of domestic needs and policy planning and international development. According to China, development-oriented education would be of immense value to both China and the participating B&R countries by opening up new opportunities for all participants. Education cooperation under the BRI could be built through a Silk Road Education Cooperation mechanism to deal with the challenges of the complexity of religious traditions and cultural differences. The care articulated for accommodating cultural and religious beliefs and practices shows an awareness that these might by

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important stumbling blocks that need attention. In addition, education in different countries was at different stages of development. This means that teaching, faculty qualifications, academic, and physical infrastructure all could be at very different stages in the B&R countries. To set up educational collaboration would then be a challenge and require a lot of preparation. Then there were questions pertaining to the mutual recognition of courses, credits, academic qualifications, and all other aspects. India, a key player in the Maritime Silk Road, has been lukewarm in its response to education cooperation with China.70 Among regional cooperation organizations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation or SCO University was established in June 2001 in Shanghai. Its members are Kazakhstan, Russia, Kirgizia, China, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Its observers are Mongolia, India, Iran, and Afghanistan. It provides a new platform for exchanges and cooperation. The priority is to train talent in region in science, ecology, energy, science, information technology, nanotechnology, economics, education, and other disciplines.71 All 31 provinces and municipalities except Tibet and Sichuan have issued policy documents related to the BRI of education services and made arranged to provide education service as part of the BRI,72 73 Shanxi province has issued seven relevant documents since 2015. Guizhou province seeks to put its attention to the strengthening the development of the languages that are not common. Qinghai province wants two-way study abroad programmes in education. Yunnan province wants to develop in the field of vocational education through collaboration.74 Chinese universities serve the B&R countries mainly by providing educational support which is relevant for them. At the same time, they also actively promote the exchange of young people. During the 13th Five Year Plan period, there was extensive in-depth international cooperation between the universities in China and overseas. Apart from the activities relevant to internationalization as a policy of Chinese higher education since 1978, many universities were also collaborating with institutions in the B&R countries since the policy of B&R initiatives taken by China. According to the Ministry of Education, by the end of April 2019, China had signed agreements on mutual recognition of higher education degrees with 24 B&R countries and 60 of its universities were operating overseas in 23 countries along the B&R. In May 2019, in order to enhance training of personnel along the B&R, Peking University launched the Future Leader International UG programme, a double-degree undergraduate programme jointly created by the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, and universities around the world to build high-level education cooperation. The aim is to cultivate international talent which is rooted in China but connected to the world. The Guanghua School of Management has established educational links with 14 universities from 13 countries and regions, including Moscow State University, York University in Canada, National University in Singapore, and Tel Aviv University in Israel. Students selected will spend two years in their home country and two at Peking University. In April 2018, Renmin University of China (RUC) announced the Silk Road College affiliated with RUC and located at the RUC Suzhou campus. At the beginning the University instituted a two-year master’s-level programme in contemporary

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Chinese studies for students from the B&R countries. At the end of the course covering subjects in Chinese politics, economy, law, and culture, the students will be awarded of master’s in law.75 Out of 60 countries to which 1207 national and regional research scholars were sent from China and 35 were B&R countries. A group of interdisciplinary scholars who understand the language and culture of these countries and the current situation of the local economic development have been trained. This has resulted in the compilation and publication of many textbooks, ranging from language teaching to country studies both in the print and electronic mode.76 Great emphasis has been placed on the training of senior translators. Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing International Studies University, University of International Business and Economics, and many other universities have successively opened master’s degree courses for translation in Korean. The master’s programme of translation of the Beijing Foreign Studies University also includes Thai. National and regional studies were started in 2012. In 2014, the Ministry of Education issued the plan for Promoting the Construction of New Type of University Think Tanks with Chinese characteristics. Their important area of research is public diplomacy.77 The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences published the Global Think Tank Evaluation Research Report, 2019, in which, 20 of the selected think tanks focused on B&R. Of these 12 were university think tanks. The Beijing (normal) University has set up an OBOR Research Institute. Tsinghua University has also set up a OBOR strategic research Institute, and Beijing Foreign Studies University, the Silk Road Research Institute. The Zhongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin University of China has hosted several international conferences on the theme of OBOR, conducted practical dialogues, and entered into research cooperation with think tanks of many countries. At the same time, experts and scholars of the think tanks present the Chinese perspective in international fora and conferences. On May 22, 2015, the New Silk Road University Alliance was initiated by Xi’an Jiao Tong University. Nearly 100 universities in more than 20 countries and regions actively responded to it. Its aim was to jointly promote exchanges and cooperation between universities and academic institutions along the Silk Road economic belt in the field of education, science and technology, and humanities.78 According to the information on the Supervision Information Platform of the Ministry of Education, as of December 1, 2020, more than 10% of all the foreign educational collaborations were between Chinese institutions and those in B&R countries. The trend seemed to be increasing. Russia has the largest number of institutions and projects with China, while Poland and Ukraine come second and third. The number of international students in China has also increased considerably because of the BRI. In terms of absolute numbers, from 2013 to 2018, the number of international students from countries along the B&R continued to rise from 140,000 in 2013, 170,000 in 2014, 180,000 in 2015, and 210,000 in 2016 to 260,000 in 2018, with an average annual growth rate of 12.8%. In 2013, there were 140,000 international students from countries along the B&R and 360,000 from all over the world, accounting for 40% of the total. In 2018, 260,000

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international students from countries along the B&R and 490,000 from all over the world came to China, accounting for 53% of international students, from countries along the belt and road, a substantial increase from 2013. In 2018, the number of foreign students came from South Korea, Thailand, Pakistan, India, the USA, Russia, Indonesia, Laos, Japan, and Kazakhstan. They accounted for 70% students in China’s top 10 provinces and cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Liaoning, Tianjin, Guangdong, Hubei, Yunnan, and Shandong province.79 The international students from B&R countries are mainly self-funded. They come to China mainly to study the language. Subjects pertaining to Science and Technology have not gained popularity. Confucius institutes have been set up in B&R countries as an important means of educational collaboration. According to Jian Li and Eryong Xue, in the “‘One Belt and Road’ and China’s Education Development: A Policy Analysis,” China set up 22 CIs and 17 Confucius classrooms with more than 10 countries in South and Central Asia between 2005 and 2015. The Chinese universities where the CIs were placed worked closely with the local universities in teacher training, curriculum design, textbook compilation, and student training. Their number showed a rising trend. China now has 123 CIs and 50 Confucius classrooms in the B&R countries, accounting for 24.6 and 0.05% of the total number of CIs and classrooms in the world, respectively, in 47 countries. Fifty-three of the 65 B&R countries have set up 155 CIs, accounting for 81% of the total. Russia has the largest number, 19, followed by Thailand. Their work is supported by 2000 international Chinese language teachers and volunteers trained for the purpose. Apart from the CIs 1000 teachers of the Chinese language and 400 volunteers have also been sent to teach abroad.80 The distribution of CIs in countries along the OBOR, however, is disparate. Logically, the larger the population of a country, the more should be the demand for language learning leading to the establishment of more CIs. However, apart from Russia and Thailand, the number of CIs in other countries is less than five. Nineteen countries have only one each in spite of a large population base which is otherwise actively engaged in international cooperation. For example, Vietnam has a population of more than 90 million but only one CI although it is a major trading partner of China. Perhaps the sheer geographical size of China, its military might, and its very transparent urge to be a leader in world polity all lead to a defensive attitude in the partnering countries. However, all in all, China has made concerted efforts to internationalize its education and to use it to strengthen its own education system and institutions. It has reached out but has always unwavering in its political goals.81

Notes 1.

Hantian Wu, China’s Outward-oriented Higher Education Internationalization: A New Typology and Reflections from International Students (East–west Crosscurrents in Higher Education), Springer Nature, 2022, loc 1050–1052; 1436–1482; 1602–2251.

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3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27.

28. 29.

6 Internationalization of Higher Education in China Deng Chen, “Internationalization of Higher Education in China and Its Development Direction,” Higher Education Studies, 2011, Vol.1, No:1, Canadian Centre for Science and Education, www.Ccsenet.org/hes. Ma Tian, Ganshu Lu. Lijie Li, Hongbiao Yui, “International undergraduate students in Chinese Higher Education: An Engagement Typology and Associated Factors,” Frontiers in Psychology, June 2021, Vol.2. art. 680,392. www.frontiersin.org. Jian Li, Four Branches of Internationalization of Higher Education in China: A Policy Perspective Analysis (Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts and Practices). Springer 2021, pp. 19–20. Ibid, 20–21. Qiongqiong Chen, Globalizationand Transnational Academic Mobility: The Experiences of Chinese Academic Returnees, Springer, December 2018, p. 42. Jian Li, op.cit. pp. 35–36. Bowen Zheng,” A Comparison Between Pedagogical Approaches in U.K. and China,” Journal of Comparative and International Higher Education, Vol.13, Issue 5, (2021), pp. 232– 242, https://doi.org/10.32674/jcihe.v13i5.2629. Jian Li, op.cit. pp. 37–39. Ibid, pp. 20–21. Qiongqiong Chen, op.cit. pp. 60–61. Jian Li, op.cit. pp. 34–35. Ibid, p.40 s. Ibid, p. 25. Qiongqiong Chen, op.cit. pp. 43–47. Jia Fu, “Moving Towards a Bright Future: Chinese Students in the EU,”EU-Asia at a Glance, European Institute of Asian Studies, February 2019, www.eias.org. Qiongqing Chen, op.cit. pp. 46–47. Ibid, pp. 47–48. Jian Li, op.cit. pp. 33–34. Qiongqiong Chen, op.cit. pp. 47–48. Ibid, p. 48. Ibid, pp. 49–50; pp. 74–75. Cao has been cited by Qiongqiong Chen op.cit. at pp. 49–50; Li has also been cited by Chen at pp. 50–51. Ibid, pp. 50–51. Jian Li, op.cit. pp. 32–33. Qiongqiong Chen, op.cit. pp. 82–84. Jian Li, op.cit. pp.35–36. Choi and Lu have been cited by Qiongqiong Chen op.cit. at pp. 50–59. Qiongqiong Chen op.cit. pp.50–51; p. 82. Ibid, pp. 60–62. Ibid, p. 61; p. 64. Ergun Gide, Mingxuan Wu, Xiuping Wang, “The influence of internationalisation of higher education: A China’s Study,” ProcediaSocial and Behavioural Sciences,2(2010)5675–5681, www.sciencedirect.com Christine T. Enneew and Yang Fujia, “Foreign Universities in China: a case study, “European Journal of Education, Vol. 44, No. 1„2009, https://www.researchg ate.net. Syed Nitas Iftekhar, Joel Jonathan Kayombo, “Chinese-Foreign Co-operation in Running Schools (CFCRS): A policy analysis,” International Journal of Research and Studies in Education, October 2016, Vol. 5, No.4, pp. 73- 82, https://www.researchgate.net. Hantian Wu, op.cit. China’s Outward Oriented Higher Education, p. 74. Ibid, pp.74–75. Yan Bingchen, “Chinese-foreign co-operation in running schools as a new normal— promote the construction a construction of a quality guarantee system,” Speech at “SinoAustralia Forum in Transnational Education and Student Mobility,” March 27, 2015, Beijing, https://internationaleducattion.gov.au.

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30. PRC Laws and Regulations Relating to Foreign Investment in Education (amended 2017) http://www.hkesnews.hk. 31. Honghuan Li, “Challenges of Implementing Internationalization of Higher Education in China,” Conference Proceedings 2019, Durham: Durham University, School of Education, pp. 46–58, https://dro.dur.ac.uk. 32. Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools, adopted by the 68th Executive Meeting of the State Council on February 19, 2003, promulgated by Decree No.372, of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China on March 1, 2003. And effective as of September 1, 2003; Arts. 3–8; 11; 21–23; 25; 30–31; 34–35; http://www.china’org/cn/english/education/184658.htm. 33. Christine T. Ennew and Yang Fujia, “Foreign Universities in China; a case study,” European Journal of Education, Vol. 44, No. 1, Part 1. 34. Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Chinese-foreign Cooperative as Amended on March 2, 2019, Arts. 3, 5, 7–8, 11,25, 30, 31–35; shttp://zyxy-en.zuel.edu.cn/2021/0317/ c10943a265794/page.htm. 35. William C. Kirby, “The Chinese Century? The Challenges of Higher Education,” Daedalus, Spring 2014, Vol. 2014, Vol. 143, No.143, No.2, pp.145–156, https://www.jstor.org. 36. Philip G. Altbach and Hans de Wit, “Rethinking the Relevance of International Branch Campuses,” International Higher Education, No. 102, Spring 2020, https://www.internationa lhighereducation.net. 37. Ingrid d’Hooghe, “China’s BRI and International Co-operation in Higher Education and Research,” in Florian Schneider (ed.) Global Perspectives on China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Asserting Agency through Regional Connectivity, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021, pp.35–58. https://www.jstor.org/stable. 38. Ibid, p. 40. 39. “China Releases Thirteenth Five Year Plan for Education,” https://internaleducation.gov.au. 40. Bora Ly, “China’s Quest for global governance overhaul,” Cogent Social Sciences, Vol. 7, 2021, Issue1, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311886.2021.1932031. 41. James F. Paradise, “China and International Harmony: The Role of Confucius Institutes in Bolstering Beijing’s Soft Power,” Asian Survey, Vol.49. No.4, (July/August 2009) pp. 647– 669. https://www.stor.org/stable/10.1525/as.2009.49.4.647 Christopher R. Hughes, “Confucius Institutes and the university: distinguishing the political mission from the cultural,” Issues and Studies, 2014, Vol. 50, Mo. 4, pp. 45–83. 42. Marcius Przychodniak,” Confucius Institutes: A Tool for Promoting China’s Interests,” China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe, May 8, 2009, https://chinaobservers.eu/confuciusinstitutes-as-a-tool-for-promoting-chinas-interests. 43. Speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping, to Indonesian Parliament, 2nd October 2013, http:// www.asean-china-center.org/english/2013–10/03/c_133062675.htm. 44. Hantian Wu, op.cit. p. 27. 45. Stephen J. Hoare-Vance, The Confucius Institutes and China’s Evolving Foreign Policy, Thesis for Master of Arts in Political Science, University of Canterbury, 2009, Chap. 1, https://ir.can terbury.ac.nz. 46. Hongqin Zhao, J. Huang, “China’s Policy of Chinese as a Foreign Language and the Use of Confucius Institutes” Educational Research Policy and Practice, June 2010, 9(2) pp.127–142 https://www.researchgate.net. Liudmilla Vasilievna Ponomarenko, Anastasia Zabella, “China’s Higher Education Cooperation Within the Framework of ‘The Belt and Toad Initiative,’”4th International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Humanities (ICCESSH 2019) Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research Vol. 329, https://researchgate.net. Stephen J. Hoare Vance, op.cit. Chaps. 2 and 6. 47. Xiaolin Guo, “Repackaging Confucius PRC Diplomacy and the Rise of Soft Power,” Asia Paper, January 2008, Institute for Security and Development Policy, Sweden, https://www.isd p.eu. 48. Constitution and Bye-laws of the Confucius Institutes, https://www.scribd.com.

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49. Hantian Wu, op.cit. p. 35. Stephen J. Hoare-Vance, op.cit. The Confucius Institutes and China’s Evolving Foreign Policy. Chapter 3. 50. Stephen J. Hoare-Vance, op.cit. Chapter 4. 51. Seung-eun Lee, “China’s Cultural Diplomacy in the Hu Jintao Era: The Geocultural Role of the Cunfucius Institute,” January 2009, https://www.researchgate.net. Hantian Wu, op, cit. p. 31. 52. James P. Horsley, “Its time for a new policy on Confucius Institutes.” Brookings, Thursday. April 1, 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/its-time-for-a-new-policy-on-confucius-ins titutes/. 53. Confucius Institutes US Centre, “Designated as a Foreign Mission, From an Officieal Website of the United States G, Government, 2017–2021, Archived content, August 13, 2020, https://2017-2021.state.gov/cconfucius-institute.u.s20-designation-as-a-for eign-mission/index.html “Many countries tighten grip on Confucius Institutes over CCP links.” https://www.aninews.in Confucius Institutes in the United States: Selected Issues, Congressional Research Services, Updated December 2, 2021 https://crsreports.congress.gov. 54. Rachelle Peterson, “The Confucius Institutes,” National Associations of Scholars, Summer 2019, https://www.nas.org. Marshall Sahlins, “Confucius Institutes: Academic Malware and Cold Warfare,” Inside Higher Education, July 26, 2018, https://insidehighered.com. 55. James P. Horsley, “It’s time for a new policy on Confucius Institutes,” Brookings, Thursday, April 1. 2021, https://www.brookings.edu. 56. Alexander Bowe, “China’s Overseas United Front Work: Background and Implications for the Inited States, August24, 2018, US-China Economic Review, https://www.uscc.gov. 57. Jian Li, op.cit. pp. 34–35. 58. Ibid, p. 34. Chang Ping, “Chinese Studyents Studying Abroad a New Focus of ccp’s ‘United Front Work,” China Change, June 9, 2015, https://chinachange.org. 59. Lyudmila Ponomarenko and Anastasia Zabella, “China’s Higher Education Cooperation Within the Framework of ‘the Belt and Road Initiative,’” 4th International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Humanities (ICCESSH, 2019), January 2019, https://www.researchgate.net. 60. Jian Li, Eryong Xue ‘One Belt One Road’ China’s Education Development: A Policy Analysis Perspective (Exploring Education Policy in a Globalized World: Concepts, Contexts and Practice,) Springer 2021, p. 38 Michael A. Peters and Xudong Zhou, “Education and Belt and Roasd Initiative (BRI),’ Beijing International Review of Education, 3(2021), pp. 1–3. 61. Jian Li, Eryong Xue, op.cit. pp. 19–21 Ibid. “Promote Friendship Between One People and Work Together to Build a Bright Future,” Speech by H.E. Xi Jinping Promote Friendship Between Our People and Work Together to Build a Bright Future,” Speech by H.E. Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic Of China at Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan, September 2013, https://hk.ocmfa.gov.cn. 62. Zhang Jiu, “Sharing Knowledge for a Sustainable Belt and Road,” China Today, 22–09-2021, http://www.chinatoday.com.cn. 63. Jian Li. Eryong Xue, One Belgt and One Road, op.cit. pp. 20–21. 64. Ibid. 65. Education Action Plan for the Belt and Road Initiative Issued by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, July 2016, http://English.scio.gov.com/on/beltandroad/201607/13/content_76329464.htm Lyudmila Ponomarenko and Anastasia Zabella. 66. Jian Li, Eryong Xue, op.cit. One Belt and One Road, pp. 21–22. 67. Ibid. pp. 23–24. 68. Ibid pp. 20–21. 69. Ibid, pp. 22–23. 70. Ibid, pp. 25–26. 71. Ibid, pp.23–24.

Notes 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79.

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Ibid, 25–26. Ibid, pp. 23–24. Ibid, pp.pp.30–31, Ibid, pp. 35–36. Ibid, pp. 65–66. Ibid, pp.39–40. Ibid, pp. 40–41. Ibid, pp. 32–34. Stephanie Hollings “The Perspective of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Internationaliation of Cfhinese Higher Educatin,” 3rd International Conference on Education (2020), Uzbekistan State World Languages University, (Virtual Presentation), Full-Papers-THE-PERSPECTIVE-OF-THE-BELY-AND-ROAD-INITIATIVE-OFTHE- INTERNATIONALIZATION-OF-CHINESE-HIGHER.pdf. 80. Ibid, p.32. 81. Ibid, p.42.

Chapter 7

Internalization of Higher Education in India

India took a different route from China although it has always been aware of the importance of the internationalization of higher education. Taxila and Nalanda are often cited in this context, but it is not necessary to go so many centuries back. Post-independence India was aware that bridges of understanding with the different countries of the world could only be built through culture and education. The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) is a testimony to this awareness. But over the years, the pressure of numbers in higher education mounted and both the physical and academic infrastructure was unable to cope. This made the universities increasingly inward-looking. The University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Ministry of Education (MoE) made continuous efforts to internationalize Indian higher education, but the impact was minimal. India has been unable to attract foreign students to the Indian higher education system (HES). This does not mean that it had no educational or academic contact with other countries. India took aid from different countries to set up educational institutions and to overall expand its education sector but did not really make internationalization a part of its university structures and systems. Its preoccupation was within the country as it turned more and more inward-looking. As the leader of the non-aligned movement, it took help from both the erstwhile Soviet Union and the USA. The imperatives of non-aligned movement also made it conscious of its responsibilities towards the developing world in Asia and Africa, in particular the countries where many Indians were present having been taken there as indentured labour by the British. Hence, it tried to help the nationals in these countries in education although it itself had meagre resources. The different aims of the two countries provide a key to the way the two countries chose to open their systems to foreign education.

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7.1 Internationalization Can Mean Different Things If internationalization is not only about foreign students and cross-border programmes but also about imparting knowledge and training through development projects with foreign participation, then India has not only entered such collaborative arrangements for its own development, but has also made significant contributions specially to developing countries. India has the third largest HES after China and USA. In 2020, it had 1,043 universities and over 40,000 colleges. The student enrolment was 38.5 million. India sends several thousands of students abroad for higher education. In 2021, 444,553 Indian students went abroad for post higher secondary education. Their preferred destinations were the USA, Canada, the UK, Singapore, Switzerland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Germany, China, Ireland, and the UAE. According to some reports India is set to lose USD 80 billion in foreign exchange due to the outflow of students. Even if this is somewhat exaggerated, the massive outflow cannot be denied. In contrast, only about 23,500 students came to India in 2021. Thus, the outflow of students in India is about twenty times the inflow. The incoming students were mainly from Malaysia, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Yemen, the Republic of Korea, Iran, and Iraq. In addition, of course, there were many students from Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bhutan for whom there are special schemes.1 While the number of foreign students in India is rather small, internationalization of education has taken a different form. The emphasis has been on developing countries, including those of Africa and Asia. The academic exchange comes not only in the form of the cross-border movement of students and delivery of education but also through collaboration in science and technology required for the development projects in developing countries. These also include appropriate skill development. India is very aware of the developmental aspect of international education because it has itself received a lot of aid from developed countries, which have collaborated with it to develop its tertiary education. After independence the USA replaced the UK in its impact on Indian education. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) were consciously established after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA. They received substantial overseas help from the outset. With support from four donor nations, the five IITs benefited with guest faculty from outside India; ability to send Indian faculty abroad for training; and contributions of modern laboratory equipment and facilities. Similarly, international links were also established by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and other state-sponsored open universities drew heavily from the UK experience in distance education and the concept of Open University. Why did so many Indian professionals adopt the USA? One important reason perhaps was that the USA contributed heavily to Indian higher education in the initial years. Education in the Indian middle-class was through the English medium and therefore language was no barrier. Thousands of Asians studied in the USA after 1960. Before the 1965 amendments to the immigration law of the USA, about 50,000 foreign students attended American universities. By 1981, the figure had reached

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approximately 300,000 Asians, with Indians, accounting for nearly half the number. Many stayed on and adjusted their resident status. In 1978, 10 years after the 1965 Act came into full force, over 18,000 non-immigrant students became immigrants, of which two-thirds were Asians. A survey of the National Science Foundation (NSF) of scientists and engineers immigrating to the USA in the first five years of the new immigration system, that is from 1966 to 1970, revealed that 60% had been in the USA on a temporary basis sometime before they had become immigrants and that a majority had lived there before they acquired a residential status. Ten years later, the NSF found that the number of foreigners earning PhDs in engineering, physical sciences, and mathematics had increased exponentially from the late 1960s. The Labour Department also reported that students who completed their education in the USA were more likely to stay on and work there. Among the Asians, Indians trailed the Filipinos, Chinese, and Koreans in number because few had emigrated before 1950 and not many possessed the kinship networks to take advantage of the 1965 law immediately. However, immigration from India increased substantially in the decade after 1965, when it crossed over 115,000 in that 10-year span. In 1976, immigration from India was over 17,000, went over 18,000 in 1977, and over 22,000 in 1980. Gradually, India became one of the largest source nations for skilled human resource for America. The first Indian immigrants after 1965 were predominantly males. They worked in American urban hospitals, universities, or businesses. Next to the Filipinos and Koreans, Indians made up the largest contingent of East Asian medical professionals, including nurses and physicians. Indian professionals however, were not only physicians but also included scientists and engineers. In 1978, the NSF reported that Asia accounted for slightly more than half of the immigrant scientists and engineers. Indians were the largest number from any nation and accounted for one-third of the Asian total. They were mostly engineers. Therefore, the amendment of the immigration laws, obviously made an impact.2

7.1.1 Indo-US Collaborations Extraordinary and extensive educational collaboration took place between India and the USA after Indian independence despite fluctuating fortunes of political relationship between the two countries.3 The American role in India’s development began in 1951, with a total assistance of $12,138 million through September 1985. American assistance was used in various projects to increase India’s self-sufficiency. Cooperation in the fields of science and technology encompassed core areas such as agriculture, fertilizer plants and forestry agricultural universities and educational institutions too were set up with American assistance. Many leading scientists of India began work as young researchers in Indo-US research projects. Over the years, 3000 American technicians, agronomists, engineers, and doctors came to India to help with food and agriculture projects and 6000 Indians went to the USA for training.

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Between 1952 and 1972, American universities entered into partnership agreements with Indian institutions to establish agricultural universities. The universities of Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee were involved and the agricultural universities that emerged were situated in the Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka. During this period, more than 300 American teachers gave over 700 teaching years’ worth of service and at least a thousand Indian faculty members and students trained in the USA. Between 1954 and 1966, the universities of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan provided visiting professors and equipment to IIT Kharagpur, colleges of engineering in Pune, the Bengal Engineering College in Howrah, and the University College of Engineering in Roorkee. Through US-AID regional engineering colleges were established and over the years, hundreds of educators went for training to the USA. One of the most significant contributions was the setting up of IIT Kanpur in 1962. Prof Dahl, who had enlisted the support of America’s top technical universities— MIT, California Institute of Technology, Ohio State University, Princeton University, University of Michigan, and Purdue University—and who had donated more than 40,000 books and journals, led the first group of MIT professors to teach at Kanpur. By 1972, when the programme formally ended, the consortium of universities had done teaching worth a thousand teaching hours; 50 faculty members had received advanced training in the USA, and the institute had received laboratory equipment worth USD 8 million dollars. Then there were programmes of International Crops Research Institute for SemiArid Tropics (ICRISAT) and work done by various organizations such as, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Fulbright programmes, the American Studies Research Centres (ASRC), and the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS). Together they created a huge pool of scholars, scientists, and technicians who knew and understood each other in both countries.4 That collaboration has come to fruition, to the benefit of both the countries. According to the 2018 American Community Survey conducted by the US Census Bureau, about 4.2 million people of Indian origin were living in USA. It was found that the median income of the Indian American family is USD 123,700 as compared to the national median income of USD 63,922. About 79% of people of Indian origin were college graduates in comparison with the nationwide average of 34%. While it is not possible to find data about how many Indo-Americans teach in universities and colleges, a growing number of them heading the top business schools.5 More than 89,000 Indo-Americans live in the Bay Area of the Silicon Valley. Most of them are involved in the technology industry. More than 86,000 Indo-Americans live in San Francisco and Oakland, many of whom have their own start-ups. All of them together have formed an incredible network. Collectively, they have created companies that account for USD 430 billion of the market value. The IIT graduates, however, who have reached the upper echelons of world-class companies have not forgotten their alma mater that gave them such good education. According to a report in the Economic Times, the IIT alumni was likely to donate more than 41 billion Indian rupees to the top five IITs in the financial year of 2021– 2022. A significant part of this amount has been raised in the past five years. Most of

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these contributions are for specific purposes like setting up of a chair, scholarships, or research in specific fields.6

7.1.2 Indo-Russia Collaborations Russia also helped India after independence, in the development of higher education particularly in the areas of science and technology.7 That Indian leaders recognized the importance of this is evident from the appeal of India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to the then Soviet government to assist in establishing the IIT in Bombay. This was opened in 1958. The Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation signed between the two nations in 1971 was the first official document to identify common objects and areas of cooperation—economy, science, technology, and culture. The Soviet Union actively facilitated the setting up of manufacturing industries and brought its experts to India for the development of the industries. At the same time, Russia transferred its technologies and trained Indian experts. Around 120,000 Indian professionals were trained by the Soviet Union between 1950 and 1980. Although far reaching reforms took place in the 1990s in the two countries, they signed the Comprehensive Long-term Programme for 2000 to 2010. It was the main vehicle for collaboration in science and technology to develop joint fundamental and applied research and to create new technologies and joint ventures. Altogether 76 institutes in Russia and 55 institutes and laboratories in India were involved in joint development programmes and in the training of Indian specialists. On May 8, 2015, nine Indian and 21 Russian universities signed a declaration to establish the Russian-Indian Universities Association (RIN) to create a platform for joint research and educational programmes. Now the platform has expanded to include 26 Indian and 26 Russian universities. The national coordinators are IIT Bombay in India and Tomsk State University in Russia.8

7.1.3 Ministry of External Affairs and Indian Council of Cultural Relations The ICCR was formally set up in 1950 within the ambit of the Ministry of External Affairs (MoEA) with the primary aim of establishing, reviving, and strengthening cultural relations and mutual understanding between India and other countries. Its foundation was laid by Prime Minister Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, who was also the External Affairs Minister and Maulana Azad, the first Minister for Education. In his inaugural address at the ICCR, on April 9, 1950, in New Delhi, Maulana Azad said that he was happy that the Council had been warmly welcomed by different countries. Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Ceylon or Sri Lanka had openly expressed strong support. The minister hoped that cultural

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relations with these countries would continually expand and that there would be full cooperation and interaction between universities and other cultural and learned societies of India and these countries. He outlined some steps that would be taken. These included facilities to scholars for the study of the history and culture of different countries. Maulana Azad presented his own library to the Council and they bought the Ajit Ghosh collection containing many rare and valuable books on Indian art and architecture. The reading room was set up to make available magazines, newspapers, and journals of different countries, together with publications of universities and cultural societies. Other activities outlined were periodic meetings of specialists, exchange of professors, and study of various languages, especially those associated with ancient civilizations and cultures. Jawahar Lal Nehru in his inaugural address also emphasized the importance of cultural exchanges as an instrument of international understanding but also cautioned that culture could be both a bond and a divisive factor. The terms of ICCR were: 1. Participate in the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes relating to India’s external cultural relations; 2. Foster and strengthen cultural relations and mutual understanding between India and other countries; 3. Establish and develop relations with national and international organizations in the field of culture. To attain these objectives, ICCR put into place major academic and educational programmes: • Scholarship schemes for overseas students with emphasis on students from developing countries. • Establishing and maintaining chairs and professorships for Indian studies abroad. • Presentation of books, audio visual material, art objects and musical instruments.9 Currently ICCR administers 26 different programmes to provide scholarships10 annually to foreign students from many countries for study in the Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D. degrees programmes in Indian HEIs. Among them are General Scholarship Schemes for students from Asian and Latin American countries; Bangladesh scholarship scheme for students from Bangladesh; Commonwealth Scholarship scheme; and 30 Ayush scholarships for students from the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) countries. The countries included in it are Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, to pursue courses in traditional Indian medical systems such as Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, and Homoeopathy. Then there are Ministry of External Affairs’ (MoEA) scholarship schemes administered by the ICCR. These are Aid-toMaldives schemes open for students from Bhutan, Maldives, and Mongolia; and the MoEA Africa scholarship scheme for citizens of African countries. The ICCR scholarships for Indian culture are open to citizens of all countries of the world who wish to study dance, music, theatre, performing arts, sculpture, Indian languages, cuisine, and other such subjects. In addition, a thousand scholarships are offered to Afghan nationals to pursue UG, PG, and PhD programmes. Scholarships are also available

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under the scheme of “Propagation of Hindi Abroad.” One scholarship is available to a Portuguese national in the General Scholarship scheme for the academic year 2022–2023 to pursue higher education in India. To make it easier for applicants, ICCR has set up an “Admission-to-Alumni” portal (A–A) in coordination with Egovernance and IT division of the MoEA to move from paper-based admissions to the online process. This number of scholarships is however very low. The multiplicity of scholarship schemes makes their impact rather diffuse especially when they are so few in number. The Maulana Azad Memorial lecture was started by ICCR in 1958, the first being delivered by the then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Since 1989, ICCR organizes the Maulana Azad essay competition. It is held in three languages, Hindi, Urdu, and English, and is open to all citizens of India and of SAARC countries who are below the age of 30 years. ICCR organizes several programmes for the MoEA. It has several publications and it organizes and participates in international seminars and symposia. That the institution has so many academic activities indicates an awareness of the importance of education as the medium for the dissemination of culture and values. The belief is that overseas students help in building bridges of understanding and developing a better appreciation of India. They have the enormous potential of spreading goodwill for India in their home countries. The idea, therefore, is to make the Indian experience for foreign students attractive by facilitating their passage into academic institutions, maintaining contact with them, coordinating with foreign students’ advisors in the universities, helping the students with accommodation and arranging language classes and orientation programmes where required. The implementation unfortunately often falls short of the promise.

7.1.4 The Neighbours11 Bhutan: India has a special relationship with Bhutan. It offers 450 undergraduate slots to Bhutanese students annually and 94 funded scholarships for professional courses such as medicine, engineering, nursing, and agriculture. There are over 4000 Bhutanese students currently studying in India. The ICCR has earmarked 20 slots for Bhutanese in the prestigious Nehru–Wangchuk scholarship, instituted in 2010 to facilitate study at select premier HEIs. The Crown Prince Jigme Khesar Namgayal Wangchuk was awarded an honorary D. Litt at the convocation of the Calcutta University in 2010. The University reserved seats for Bhutanese students at the University after that. A large number of Indian instructors contribute to Bhutanese education, many of them teaching in rural areas. In addition, Sherubtse College has grown into a leading tertiary education institution in Bhutan with the help of Delhi University.12 Nepal: Nepal and India have strong cooperation in the field of education. India gives over 3000 scholarships annually to Nepalese students for study during the last two years of school and also for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in engineering, medicine, agriculture, pharmacology, veterinary sciences, computer application, business administration, music, and fine arts.13

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Sri Lanka: Under the Colombo Plan Technical Cooperation Scheme participants from 18 member countries of the Colombo Plan are trained and assisted to enhance their administrative and technical capabilities.14 The India–Sri Lanka cultural exchange programme offers 60 annual scholarships to pursue undergraduate and postgraduate studies in India. Under the SAARC scholarship scheme, one fellowship and two scholarships are awarded at the postgraduate level in economics, education, environment, agriculture, mass communication, language, literature, sociology, transport, engineering, business administration, biochemistry, social work, food technology, and home science. Scholarships are also granted for research and for non-formal courses. There are special training programmes for Sri Lankan Tamils. An India–Sri Lanka initiative was launched in June 2010, after the visit of the then President, Mahinda Rajapaksa. The English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad was linked with the Sri Lanka-India Centre for English Language Training in Kandy. New Indian scholarship schemes were launched to address the special needs of northern and eastern Sri Lanka. India extended technical assistance for agricultural research in Sri Lanka. India also offered the use of its satellite for societal services. After the visit of the then External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj to Sri Lanka in 2016, several projects were launched and completed. These included Civil and Mechanical Engineering Complex and Skill Development Centre in Jaffna, English language laboratories in all provinces of Sri Lanka; renovation of 27 schools in the Tamil-dominated northern province; the construction of the Rabindra Nath Tagore Auditorium at the Ruhunu University in Matara, and the Mahatma Gandhi International Centre in Natale. Bangladesh: In 2006, the Government of India launched a scholarship scheme for higher secondary and undergraduate level students. Only the descendants of the freedom fighters or Muktijodhas in the Liberation War of Bangladesh were eligible for it. The scholarship was relaunched in 2017, for a period of five years. It has been extended for another five years, beginning 2022–2023. In 2022, a total of 1497 students have been selected for the scholarship scheme from Bangladesh, which includes 501 students at the higher secondary level and 996 at the UG level. Although the new scheme was supposed to benefit only 10,000 students from Bangladesh, but 19,082 students have already benefited from it. Human resource development is a key component of India’s efforts in Bangladesh through its several training programmes and scholarships. The Government of India has been training 1800 Bangladesh civil service officials since 2019 at National Centre for Good Governance, Mussoorie. Bangladeshi police officers are also being trained at various premier training institutes in India in various modern policing and new investigative techniques of this information age. Since 2017 the Government of India has been training 1500 Bangladeshi judicial officials at the National Judicial Academy, Bhopal and at various state judicial academies in India. Bangladesh is an important Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) partner country under which around 800 participants from Bangladesh annually avail IT training. ICCR awards 200 scholarships every year to students from Bangladesh for pursuing UG, PG, and PhD courses at HEIs, including the IITs and IIMs.

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In 2021 both India and Bangladesh began the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Liberation War, and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. ICCR is setting up the Bangabandhu Chair in the University of Delhi. It will focus on the shared cultural heritage of both India and Bangladesh with subjects like Anthropology, Buddhist studies, Geography, History, Music, Fine Arts, and Political Science. The Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre in Dhaka cements cultural links between the two countries. It gives training in Yoga, Kathak and Manipuri dance, Hindi language, and Hindustani classical music. India is therefore a prominent education provider in its neighbourhood. Of all the foreign students studying in India, 28.1% are from Nepal, 4.6% from Bangladesh, 3.8% from Bhutan, and 9.1% from Afghanistan. Other countries from which students come to India are Sudan 3.6%, US 3.3%, Nigeria 3.1%, Yemen 2.9%, Malaysia 2.7%, and UAE 2.7%. The maximum foreign students, 74.3% of the total, are enrolled in the undergraduate courses; 16.6% are in the postgraduate courses, and 9.1% are enrolled at different levels from certificate and diploma courses to Ph.D.15 ITEC includes the Special Commonwealth African Assistance Programme (SCAAP), and Technical Cooperation Scheme (TCS), and gives aid under the Colombo Plan of which it is a founder member. ITEC and TCS are visible manifestations of India’s role in the South-South cooperation and its contribution to it. It is a partnership born out of a shared sense of solidarity and is entirely voluntary and free of conditionalities. Its core is to further national development priorities. Through it and its corollary, SCAAP, 156 countries in Asia, East and Central Europe (including Russia), Central Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific are invited to share the Indian developmental experience garnered since independence.16 The ITEC is the most important of the programmes of the MoEA. It was launched by a decision of the Indian Cabinet on September 15, 1964, as a bilateral programme of assistance. It was set up as a major bilateral programme of economic assistance to other developing countries through training in various fields. Its chief architect was Jawaharlal Nehru. While in the early 1960s India could not give grants-in-aid to match those of developed countries, its strength lay in its skilled human resource and technology that were more appropriate for developing countries than those of developed countries. The six key components of ITEC are: • Training in India of nominees of ITEC partner countries, both civilian and military. • Projects and project-related activities such as feasibility studies and consultancy services. • Deputation of Indian experts abroad. • Study tours. • Aid for disaster relief (ADR). • Gift or donation of equipment at the request of ITEC partner countries.17 Although ITEC is essentially bilateral, occasionally the resources are also used for financing trilateral and regional programmes, for example, under the Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA or ECA), United Nations Industrial Development

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Organization (UNIDO), and Group of 77 (the UN coalition of 77 developing nations). The ITEC also helps the Afro-Asian Rural Development Organization (AARDO) and G-15 (Group of 15) programmes with training and project support. Special and customized programmes may be designed for regional and multilateral groupings such as the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN), Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), the African Union (AU), the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), and the Commonwealth and the World Trade Organization (WTO). As many as 161 countries in Asia, Africa, East Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and specific and small island countries are invited to participate in the three components of the ITEC programme: training (civilian and defence) in India of nominees from ITEC partner countries; deputation of Indian experts abroad on request; and study tours. The training programmes, fully funded by the government of India, comprise 40% of the total budget. Over 12,000 scholarships are offered to partner countries to participate in various training courses in India in the civilian training programme. In 2019, ITEC celebrated 55 years since its inception. On that occasion, about 14,000 scholarships were given for both short- and long-term training courses. ITEC can look back with a degree of satisfaction at the work it has done in training about 200,000 professionals in premier institutions of India in more than 300 short-term, medium-term, and long-term courses. Of course there is a lot more work to look forward to. The training programme is demand driven and subjects are selected according to the interest of the working professionals of the participating country. Diverse courses such as IT, Rural Development, Parliamentary Practices, Entrepreneurship, Marine and Aeronautical Engineering are offered. Defence training includes personnel from all the three wings of the services. Personnel nominated by participating countries are trained in prestigious institutions like the National Defence College and Defence Services Staff College. The facility is also extended to and availed by some select developed countries on a self-financing basis. The training fields include Security and Strategic Studies, Defence Management, Marine and Aeronautical Engineering, Logistics and Management. On an average, around 350 defence personnel attend courses every year. Study tours in India are facilitated at the specific request of the partner countries. Areas of interest are identified, and programmes of two or three weeks duration are arranged during which the delegates visit important institutions, training centres, and places of interest in different parts of India. These tours also demonstrate that India is a vibrant democracy with a strong pluralistic flavour. It gives a model of development to many developing countries. Finally, Indian experts are deputed to countries that request for their assistance in their development activities. The experts study the problems and suggest solutions taking care not to disturb the local socio-economic and cultural environment. The project assistance programmes highlight India’s technological and human resource capacities. India’s experience in the fields of small- and medium-scale industries, agriculture and financial management is particularly relevant to developing countries. One major focus of project assistance is agriculture. Other areas include

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vocational training in small-scale industries and entrepreneurship, information technology, biotechnology, and law. It gives aid at the time of disasters by supplying medicines and food stuff. India also provides feasibility studies and consultancy services at the request of ITEC partner countries.18 As a founder member of the Colombo Plan, India has extended technical cooperation and assistance to the connected countries since 1950, under the technical cooperation scheme of Plan.19 India provides comprehensive and integrated training to participants from Asian member countries and assists them to enhance their administrative and technical capabilities through human resource development (HRD). The MoEA has been entrusted with the administration of the technical cooperation scheme of Colombo Plan since April 2010. Under this scheme, India offers scholarships for training in premier centres. These cover diverse disciplines according to the needs of the Colombo Plan countries.20

7.1.5 Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) IGNOU, the largest open university in the world, has several regional centres and study centres outside of India. To streamline its operations, IGNOU established the International Division on October 16, 1997 as a cell within it which was then upgraded to a full-fledged division in 2002. Its objectives are to promote bilateral and multilateral collaborations; offer IGNOU’s academic programmes in the international arena; and explore windows of opportunity for the growth of its international operations. This it does through a fourfold approach of collaboration, coordination, cooperation, and competition. The International Division is the nodal agency to serve needs of overseas students and of foreign students residing in India (FSRI). It also coordinates overseas study centres located in select countries across the globe. It offers select academic programmes to both foreign students residing in India and to overseas students through its overseas study centres. IGNOU has 59 academic programmes that can be pursued through overseas study centres, and 193 programmes are available to the foreign students residing in India. Presently, IGNOU’s academic programmes are offered in the Gulf countries through centres in Sharjah and Abu Dhabi in UAE, Kuwait, Jeddah and Riyadh in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and three overseas centres in the Sultanate of Oman. Among the SAARC countries, there are centres in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and two centres in Nepal. Ethiopia, Kenya, and Ivory Coast have centres in Africa, and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. There are centres in Singapore and Mauritius. The online programmes have immense potential for growth especially in the world of massive open courses (MOOCs) and online learning.21

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7.2 Internationalization at Public Sector Universities Many agencies in India have looked at the merits and demerits of internationalization of higher education. The Association of Indian Universities (AIU) held roundtables on the internationalization of higher education, at the University of Mysore in February 2001 and at Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar in February 2002.22 The recommendations of the Mysore roundtable, known as the “Mysore statement” and the subsequent recommendations at Amritsar accepted that internationalization was essential and imperative for India to be counted as a knowledge society in the new knowledge era. Internationalization would lead to improvement in the quality of education, promote Indian culture abroad, generate goodwill and understanding, and yield financial benefits. Partnership and networking were essential for enriching the teaching–learning process and for improved quality of research. The recommendations were the necessity to act in earnest without further delay. The government, academic institutions, and the association of Indian universities were all urged to take necessary steps to promote Indian higher education internationally. The Amritsar recommendations built on the Mysore statement and reinforced it. The National University of Education Planning and Administration (NUEPA) now renamed National Institute of Education Planning and Development or NIEPA, deliberated on issues pertaining to globalization and the response to the internationalization of education. An international conference was held in New Delhi in August 2004. It deliberated on challenges of quality and modes of supply; access and equity in higher education; responses to general agreement on trade in services (GATS) and WTO; matters pertaining to identity, culture, and curriculum; and other concerns of the nations who were already receiving foreign higher education needed to be studied to learn some lessons from them. While there was recognition of the benefits that internationalization of education, there were also serious apprehensions leading to ambivalence of attitude.23 Nevertheless, several Indian universities and institutions attracted students from both developed and developing countries. In 2002–2003, there were 8000 foreign students studying in India. The global Indian diaspora too was a viable and substantial market for Indian higher education institutions. Globalization could only increase the flow of students from all parts of the world to India as Indian students would need to study in other countries to gain a better understanding of local conditions and cultures. However, there was also great concern at the way foreign universities were operating in India. There was a noticeable spurt in the growth of institutions offering programmes leading to degrees of foreign universities. Also, educational institutions operated in India who claimed to have tied up with foreign institutions. No permission had been given to them.24 At the same time, educational linkages, both national and international, were sought to be strengthened at the institutional level. UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI) started in 2006 initially for a period of five years. The aim is to strengthen research, leadership, education, and skill sector relations between the two countries. It is a multistakeholder programme to which both sides make equal

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financial contribution. The success of the initiative has led to its extension for another decade.25 The Singh Obama initiative was the result of an India–US summit on higher education in November 2009. Its objective was to strengthen higher education through joint degrees programmes, research partnerships, and accreditation and quality assurance. The summit also sought to highlight the importance of education as a pillar of the US-India Strategic Dialogue. It set forth goals for deepening bilateral relationship in that sphere through cooperation and collaboration between educational institutions in India and USA.26 As the world became increasingly interconnected, India took some serious steps towards internationalization. The UGC made internationalization of higher education as one of its thrust areas in the 10th Five Year Plan (2002–2007) and projected a vision for promoting Indian higher education abroad as a response to globalization. The Chairman set up an expert committee to encourage the free flow of students from other nations to India and vice versa. A Standing Committee of UGC for the Promotion of Indian Higher Education Abroad (PIHEAD) gave its report in January 2004. The PIHEAD Committee emphasized that globalization was a dominant feature of the 21st-century, integrating societies. This has given rise to major challenges in the interaction between individual groups and even with nature. The gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen both within national boundaries and between nations. Higher education must offer solutions to the existing challenges and innovate to avoid problems in the future. Higher education needs to contribute in different areas whether economic, political, or social to improve the overall quality of life, worldwide. For this internationalization of higher education is essential so that intercultural dimensions could be incorporated into teaching, research, and service functions of universities. Preparing future leaders and citizens for a highly interdependent world requires a higher education system that accepts cultural diversity and fosters intercultural understanding, respect, and tolerance. Only then would it be possible to go beyond economically competitive and politically powerful regional blocs and create a commitment to international solidarity, human security, and global peace. Among the academic advantages of internationalization that the Committee suggested was to provide students access to learning materials, methodologies, and teachers of the highest quality irrespective of national origin. Students need exposure to international curricula, practices, and awareness of diverse systems of education. Further, it would prepare students for the international employment market by familiarizing them with the dynamics of international subsystems. The Committee also recommended: raising the quality of education by competition and through efforts to achieve international benchmarks; making research facilities of high order available to faculty and scholars through collaborative arrangements with other universities in particular; and promoting both capacity building and institution building in general. Among the social and cultural advantages, the Committee highlighted the benefits of a cosmopolitan environment that promoted understanding of different cultures and languages. It helped to develop a holistic approach that engendered the acceptance of the viewpoint of other societies, and thereby broadened the perception of individuals.

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The Committee thought that it would also provide the opportunity to universities to add additional meaning to their social mission. Among the political benefits were the influences on the thought processes of future foreign leaders and decision-makers, which could not be ignored. Internationalization of higher education enabled citizens of other countries to understand and appreciate the nation’s priorities, needs and actions, thereby enabling gains in international goodwill and raising the country’s profile abroad. Economically, it helped in securing revenue for institutions from tuition fees, access to funds from international agencies and helped the larger society by generating the demand for various required services. It would help to develop expertise related to international relations, trade and management and promote economic competitiveness. Despite these positive benchmarks, the Committee realized that the Indian education system did not have the capacity to cope with internationalization because it catered largely to domestic needs. Although India had certain advantages because of its low-cost delivery system, English as the medium of instruction, and its huge technological and management resources, it had not yet harnessed its immense potential to reach out to foreign students. The inflow of foreign students in India was in a sorry situation, and unlike in the developed countries, the number of international students in India was decreasing. The Committee recognized that internationalization is necessarily a relatively slow process, because both institutions and individuals must be aware that cooperation with universities in different countries is beneficial. Stakeholders need to understand that internationalization does not imply a dilution of the national culture and ethos, but strengthens them by learning from others. The Committee then detailed the steps to be taken to make Indian higher education internationally attractive internally strengthening to build the capacity to internationalize. Unlike some of the advanced English-speaking countries, particularly the USA, the UK, Canada, and Australia that had made concerted efforts to attract international students, India had done very little. It was necessary now to formulate a national policy and adopt strategies that would encourage Indian institutions to admit international students. The constraints preventing international students from becoming a part of Indian university campuses, need to be removed. The governmental policy, partly dictated by the apex court, permitted educational institutions to admit a limited percentage of students to educational programmes in technical and professional fields. The whole situation had to be rethought. A nodal agency was needed to coordinate the efforts and activities of Indian higher learning institutions as they moved towards internationalization. This meant establishing a consortium for international education, which would identify select universities and HEIs, keeping in view standards, infrastructure, and performance. A directory of centres of excellence could then be prepared and updated where international students could join. The consortium would help in projecting Indian universities and institutions in other countries and function on their behalf. It could act as a clearinghouse for information on courses offered, availability of seats, the fees charged, the financial assistance available, and the availability of on-campus housing accommodation for individuals and families. Publishing and distributing guides and handbooks for promoting international education programmes in the country was an

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additional necessary function. The consortium would coordinate the education and training of international students in universities and institutions of higher learning; build a network, liaise, collaborate and interact with relevant institutions, individuals and other agencies within and outside the country; and promote international education cooperation programmes. The Consortium would help Indian universities and institutions to obtain approvals of the various ministries of the Government of India for different international education cooperation programmes. It would also represent Indian universities and institutions at the international fairs on higher education and organize similar fairs in India. It would undertake, with the help of individuals and universities, ethnographic studies on international students to understand more about their experiences and also to make informed generalizations about specific nationality groups. The Consortium could also develop norms and guidelines to ensure quality in international education and do all the other things that were incidental or conducive to the attainment of the main objects of any of them. The UGC was to oversee the credit system, semester system, and teaching methods. The UGC Act could be amended if required to enable it to regulate foreign educational institutions in India. Similar exercises could be undertaken by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) for technical education. There was also focus on removing the procedural impediments in the way of opening Indian educational institutions abroad. This had to be done carefully because substandard institutions could not be allowed to internationalize. The reputation of the entire education system of the country could be jeopardized. To further the recommendations of the PIHEAD Committee, the Committee for the Promotion of Indian Education Abroad (COPIE) was set up to suggest ways to promote Indian education abroad. COPIE formed two subcommittees: 1. Headed by the UGC Chairman had as its members Chairman AICTE, Director National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) Secretary General Association of Indian Universities (AIU); Chairman Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), and representatives of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII); the MoEA; Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR); and the Ministry of Health. The mandate of the subcommittee was to identify universities and courses with potential to attract foreign students; to improve their standards; and to promote Indian institutions in targeted countries through Indian missions, and Educational Consultant India Ltd (EDCIL). 2. A Standing Committee of COPIE to act as a clearinghouse for all proposals of Indian institutions, either for setting up campuses abroad or for entering twinning arrangements with foreign educational institutions. The subcommittee would receive all proposals from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and place them, along with recommendations, before the COPIE for a final decision. The deliberations of the Committee gave the impression that there was complete agreement on the question of attracting foreign students to undertake degree and study programmes in Indian universities although this was not the case. It was

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an aspirational goal with varying degrees of response from the academic community ranging from negative, neutral to the positive. The Committee suggested that a focused “Study India Programme” (SIP) be initiated in Indian universities for students from developed countries. It also endorsed proposals such as: (a) Initiation of “twinning” academic arrangements with foreign universities. (b) Setting up of foreign campuses of Indian universities and (c) Creation of Special Education Zones for running of teaching and learning. programmes exclusively for foreign students through the Consortium of Indian universities. The second subcommittee met on February 13, 2003, and gave comprehensive recommendations. It was of the view that promoting Indian education abroad should include school education. The Committee emphasized the need to accredit Indian educational institutions, not only by NAAC, but also by international accreditation agencies. A national precondition for internationalization was a uniform system of equivalence along the pattern of the universities of the West. This was also endorsed by the second subcommittee. The Committee believed since most Indian universities did not enjoy a good reputation internationally, they had to project themselves to attract foreign students. One way was to organize educational fairs in foreign countries. Universities and courses could be identified and given wide publicity abroad through Indian embassies. Short-term courses, specifically designed for foreign students could be introduced in select Indian universities. In addition to SIP, other important courses could also be identified, which would attract foreign students. But universities would have to make systemic changes as a first step. For example, the credit system, together with the facility of credit transfer between institutions would have to be put into place. Methods of evaluation within the various institutions needed to be actively standardized to make them globally competitive. Other necessary changes were improved text material and teaching methods to get international recognition and accreditation. The Committee felt that Indian education should initially target the African and Southeast Asian countries as they represented a client group distinct from Europe and the USA. Special efforts needed be made to export education to the countries of the Middle East. The Committee seems to have overlooked Central Asia, particularly the former Soviet republics, which had the advantage of proximity and with whom India has historical, cultural, and civilizational links. Countries in Indo-China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were also overlooked. While seeking to internationalize higher education, one important criterion could be to build on old civilizational linkages. The receptivity to India would be better there. The Committee pointed out, that apart from other factors, India had one great advantage, that education was affordable. This would hardly be the decisive criterion, however, when students chose India as a destination for education. It could be a factor but of greater importance would be the quality of education, the global acceptance of the degrees awarded and widespread employability. The Committee touched on a very significant issue related to the supernumerary seats for Non-resident Indians (NRIs) and Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) that the

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colleges and universities had been permitted to create. These seats remained vacant in many institutions, and this was of serious concern. Perhaps the rigidity in the admission system was a reason, and to that extent it needed to be removed. The reputed institutions, the Committee suggested, should organize entrance tests in foreign countries as well. At the same time, request bodies like the United States Education Foundation of India (USEFI), the British Council, and the French, German and Australian missions to give presentations on their educational programmes to enable heads of Indian institutions and members of the regulatory authorities to understand and become familiar with their systems. It was recommended that the UGC should prepare a homepage or a portal on Indian education for foreign students and brochures for distribution among them. Programmes such as SIP should be prioritized. It was also decided that not only accredited institutions in the public sector, but also reputed institutions of the private sector should be associated in this endeavour. Following the recommendations of the PIHEAD committee, together with those of other committees, UGC and some universities began to participate in the NAFSA conferences from 2004. In May 2007 a NAFSA conference was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Its theme was “Preparing Global Citizens.” Tied to the theme of the conference, the Annual Conference Committee (ACC) adopted five thematic threads to create the content for the conference: (1) How does international education change our lives? (2) How does international education affect global development? (3) How are national, binational, and regional policies affecting international education? (4) How can international educators work more effectively and creatively? (5) What role do international educators play in global leadership? While India’s participation in the NAFSA conferences was an important step in the direction of internationalization of higher education, it seemed like putting the cart before the horse. PIHEAD itself had recognized that the structure of higher education was not ready for internationalization. Unless the ground was prepared, and systemic changes made, raising expectations at such conferences without the ability to deliver could counterproductive and detrimental. Now that the National Policy of Education, 2020 (NEP 2020) is being implemented, it would be useful to revisit the work done by PIFEAD.27 The Government of India continued to make efforts to internationalize Indian higher education. It accepted to be a part of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) framework in the higher education sector. It made its initial offer in 2004 and then a revised one in 2005. This marked a paradigm shift in thinking. From being regarded as a public good, education could now be seen as tradeable service like any other. In the process, education is traded through four components: (a) Cross-border supply of services where consumers do not physically crossborders. E-learning-based distance education programmes, online universities, and MOOCs are examples of this mode of trade. (b) Consumption abroad where students are seen as consumers who cross-borders to study abroad. This is the most conspicuous form of international education.

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(c) Commercial presence of service providers as in branch campuses and twinning and franchising arrangements. (d) The presence of academic staff like teachers teaching outside the country. The government felt that (a), (b), and (d) were already in place and so it was merely a matter of enabling (c). However, the move met with stiff resistance from the academic community because it was averse to commercialization of education and wary of its spin-off effects.28

7.3 Contradictions Between Aspiration and Implementation While the academics remain divided over internationalization, educational bureaucracy obstructive, and the parliamentarians motivated by the politics of the day, government makes constant although mostly futile efforts to do just the opposite and that too without creating an enabling framework.29 In May 2010, the then Education Minister Kapil Sibal placed several enabling education bills in the Parliament. Some of these were the Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations); The National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher Educational Institutions Bill; Educational Tribunal Bill; and Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Technical Institutions. However, he could not manage to get them through. Efforts continued during the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012–2017) and beyond. For instance, a Scheme for the Promotion of Academic Research and Collaboration (SPARC) was launched in 2018 to provide research collaborations between reputed foreign institutions and Indian institutions. The MHRD also launched the Global Initiative of Academic Networks in Higher Education in 2017–2018.30 The aim of both was to strengthen research and teaching and put elements of internationalization in place. Foreign faculty as well faculty of Indian origin teaching in developed countries were to be encouraged to come to Indian institutions as distinguished, adjunct, or visiting professors to deliver short- or long-term courses. This would: • Increase the footfall of reputed international faculty in Indian academic institutes. • Provide opportunity to the Indian faculty to learn and share knowledge and teaching skills in cutting-edge areas. • Provide opportunities to students to seek knowledge and experience from reputed international faculty. • Create avenues for collaborative research. • Develop high-quality course material in niche areas; and • Develop and document new pedagogical methods in emerging subjects of national and international interest. The initiative attracted around 1800 scholars from 56 countries between 2017 and 2019. Obviously, they were not all from developed countries. Among the various steps taken by the government to increase the footfall of foreign students was the

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“study in India” programme that offered 2500 scholarships. According to Varghese, it attracted 6000 students from 30 countries in 2018.31 The effort is to enrol 500,000 students by 2024. Currently, this appears a distant dream, the causes for which will be discussed later in the chapter.

7.3.1 A Study I did a random survey as a part of a study in 2006 and 2007 with funding from the MoEA.32 As a part of the study, I administered a questionnaire to current students and alumni to find out about their educational experience in India. To begin with, it was rather difficult to reach the foreign students as most institutions did not have enough organizational infrastructure to keep records and to track them. In some places, like Gujarat, there were security apprehensions about responding to the questionnaire. Finally, 429 responses were received from current international students studying mainly in the western and southern parts of India, and 111 alumni responses were also received. The bulk of these were from developing countries such as Afghanistan, Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Fiji, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Tanzania, Kenya, Mauritius, Sudan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Oman, Korea, Tajikistan Mauritius, Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Vietnam, Iran, Indonesia, Mongolia, Syria, and Turkmenistan. A few responses came from developed countries such as the USA, Australia, Canada, France, and Germany. Most of the latter were obviously students of Indian origin studying mainly in professional courses of MBBS and BDS. There was a very large proportion of Malaysians students in medical courses because of the twinning arrangement between the Medical School of Manipal Academy of Higher Education and its medical school in Malacca. However, these can only be taken as indicators as the survey was by no means exhaustive. Both the students and the alumni had the option of not answering any or some of the questions, if they so wished. The questions were then graded on a scale of five. The most satisfied answers were given five points; the satisfied ones four, dissatisfied ones three, and very dissatisfied ones two. The blank answers were given one. There were 21 questions for the current students and 24 for the alumni, the three extra ones being concerned with the experiences of the alumni as they looked back upon their educational experience in India. The overall response to Indian education, both of current students and the alumni was favourable, but several systemic hurdles also came to light. One factor for the higher score of the alumni may be nostalgia, but a more detailed analysis points to some other trends also. Regarding the funding of their studies, most students were either self- financed or had received some funding from their home government. The ICCR scholarships are given in terms of quotas and hence this means that it does not attract students from all over the world. There was the issue of visas, a great obstacle in the way of incoming students because generally they had a difficult time in obtaining student visas. I was able to confirm this when I was presiding over the South Asian University. Only the

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ITEC students seemed to have a smoother sailing as they were fully funded by the Government of India. While in my study, the findings of the PIHEAD stood substantiated, I found there were also other popular destinations for foreign students than the ones specified by the Committee. These were the University of Mysore, Osmania University in Hyderabad, Symbiosis in Pune, and the CMR institutions in Bangalore or Bengaluru. Largely, students seemed to prefer metropolitan towns in the western and southern parts of India. While the Manipal Academy of Higher Education and all private deemed universities actively recruit foreign students, public-funded universities and colleges do not. Perhaps the three exceptions where large numbers of foreign students are found in public universities are only in Pune, Bangalore, and Delhi. Most educational institutions have neither the mindset nor the organizational infrastructure to cope with foreign students in terms of physical space and human resource. The best equipped seem to be the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, the CMR institutions, and Osmania University although some more universities were trying to internationalize their campuses. The study showed that foreign students usually found out about Indian HEIs from Indian missions abroad. They also got information through their own sources like friends and relatives who had studied in India or even from their own governments. However, on choosing India, the students faced hurdles on some very basic fronts like allocation of courses and institutions. This made the students very dissatisfied although the alumni expressed a greater degree of satisfaction. The level of satisfaction is higher in professional courses than in the non-professional ones. It is particularly good in the case of ITEC students. That could be because of the burgeoning domestic demand, which the public sector of higher education has not coped with efficiently. Most scholarship holders are simply allotted a course or an institution according to availability. This means that they do not have a choice of city or institution. Also, hostel accommodation was not readily available. Most foreign students said that they would prefer hostel accommodation, at least initially, as they would feel more secure staying with their peer group on the campus. Given the level of dissatisfaction of current students, it did not come as a surprise to me that they were not very upbeat about recommending India as the destination for study abroad to their peers unlike their alumni who had found their stay in India to be transformative. The alumni said that their experience in India had helped them to understand and enjoy a different culture; that they had found the courses professionally useful and that they had made lifelong friends in India with many of whom personal and professional contacts remained.

7.3.2 Some Observations One of the biggest hurdles in attracting foreign students is the lack of diversity on the university campuses. This is because India State universities are only allowed to

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operate in their respective States according to where they are situated. This is true not only for the physical universities but also for their online programmes. They have to enrol the bulk of students from their own states and only a small number of students can be from outside, usually not more than 20%. Thus, there is hardly any diversity on the State University campuses including in the professional institutions. Hence it is not surprising that very few if any foreign students wish to study in them. It is only central institutions that show some diversity because they are allowed to recruit students from the entire country. Therefore, they have a better chance of attracting foreign students. In a country like India with its variety of languages, customs, traditions, religions, music, dance, and different ways of life, it is imperative that there be diversity on campuses which can only come through a completely different policy for admission for undergraduate admission and active encouragement of student mobility. Multicultural and diverse campuses are more dynamic and vibrant than the homogenous ones. Besides, diversity of student population in Indian universities, reflecting the different regions of India would be an effective way of developing interregional understanding among young people. Their interpersonal skills would improve and horizons widened, making them more cosmopolitan rather than parochial and rigid. This is the first step that needs to be taken before internationalization can be thought of in the state universities with little or no student diversity. Given the current situation, whatever foreign students that choose to come to India will prefer institutions in metropolitan towns where they would find more acceptance of student diversity, more energy, and where they can integrate more easily on the university campuses. For those pursuing UG courses, their dissatisfaction with the Indian universities is genuine because in most universities, the courses, as also the grading and examination systems, have yet to be refined according to prevailing international norms. The courses need to be restructured, giving enough flexibility to the students. Several international students hail from countries where English is not the medium of instruction. Therefore, communication becomes a problem not only with fellow students, but also in following the courses being taught. Intensive short-duration English language teaching programmes are most essential. The situation is different for ITEC students because they are mature working professionals who come to India for short-term programmes particularly useful for their needs. Availability of hostel accommodation or in its lack, proper facilities for at least the first few weeks is very important for foreign students. However, hostel accommodation has been shrinking while enrolments have been increasing. Currently, the number of foreign students is very small but as this number grows this issue will be critical. Most Indian universities suffer from lack of resources, which means that even the existing facilities are not upgraded regularly. The initial settling down process is very important especially for undergraduate students who are young and inexperienced and who may be coming away from home for the first time. In most Indian institutions, they have a hard time because the educational institutions are not organized enough to help international students. They do not have an efficient administrative section dedicated to handling foreign students in terms of a foreign students’ advisor. With some exceptions, therefore, most foreign

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students must fend for themselves. This results in problems that should never arise in the first place. For instance, opening bank accounts, inadequate information about transportation facilities; no ready availability of things like the roadmap of the town; shopping facilities; information about doctors and hospital facilities; safe places to eat and other such basic information that would make settling down easier. Creating a student-friendly atmosphere is essential and does not require large resources. It is more a mindset. A little bit of thought can help to make it easier to settle down. The pace of life has quickened; the number of Indian students has increased exponentially on university campuses, and they face much greater competition than before. This makes them more preoccupied with their own concerns rather than lending a helping hand to foreign students. The policymakers too, pay little attention to them. There was a time, for example, when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was also the foreign minister, used to meet foreign students personally, and many of them even stayed with Members of Parliament. Today, ministers and bureaucrats, whether in the MoEA or in the Education Ministry, have little time for them. However, this would not even be necessary if the university system had an institutionalized mechanism in place and gave due importance to the internationalization of education, recognizing its relevance. It has to be remembered that foreign students will go back to their home countries either as friends or as dissatisfied people. Both sentiments have an impact when these students get into decision-making positions. The maximum number of students, as detailed earlier, come from developing countries where facilities for higher education are inadequate and courses are not up to international standards. Nonetheless, these countries are catching up and unless Indian universities keep up with the best in content and pedagogy, they will lose out in the endeavour. Good examples are Singapore, Malaysia, and the UAE, nations that at one time used to send students to India. However, a reverse flow has happened in recent times. Singapore is now a trusted education centre and attracts many foreign students. This is true also of Malaysia and Hong Kong.33 These countries have made organized efforts to attract reputed foreign universities to their countries. The UAE has established a knowledge city that has the presence of good foreign universities, including of Indian institutions like Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS). This leads to a piquant situation. An Indian educational institution is set up abroad; it is attracting students from the Indian diaspora who pay a much higher fee, leading to both flight of talent and outflow of foreign exchange. Educational opportunities are increasing in developing countries and many of their universities are entering into foreign collaborations with reputed Western universities. As affluence of the home countries increases, Western destinations are preferred by student where education standards are seen to be higher than in India; there are no problems of recognition of their degrees; and the job opportunities for them after studying there increase both in their own countries and abroad. While Indian universities can provide good education at a much lower cost, they need to reach international standards and solve the problem of recognition of degrees if they want to compete globally and attract foreign students.

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Malaysian students came in large numbers to study in India until the end of the 1980s. Many of them went on to occupy high positions in Malaysian society. These students played an important role in the all-round development of Indo-Malaysian relations. Some members of the Malaysian University Graduate’s Association, an association of university graduates from India, made a mark in academics, law, and engineering. A large majority of doctors in Malaysia were trained in India, but the number of students declined from the 1990s. Talking to the alumni several factors came to light: Malaysia had developed its own institutions; alternate destinations such as Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore had emerged; with growing affluence, bright Malaysian students started enrolling in large numbers in universities in the USA and the UK; and there had been problems of equivalence and recognition of Indian degrees, which had not been addressed by India.34 Similar is the case with Thailand with whom there had been close cooperation in higher education since Indian independence. Discussions with Indian alumni, as well as academics indicated that it was possible to revive the relationship provided India actually wanted to. It is interesting that Shiv Nath Bajaj of Indian origin who started life in Thailand with not too many resources and rose to be a business magnet, gave an endowment of 1 million baht to start an India study centre at the Thammasat University. India study has grown at the Thammasat but without India having played much of a role in it. It must be remembered that internationalization of education does not only mean collaborating with Western universities.35 Inia can build educational links with countries with whom it has had long standing civilizational links. Its cultural relations with South East Asia are one of the most fascinating fields of history. This interaction goes back to more than at least two thousand years and has left a lasting impact on almost every aspect of life in the region. Similar links are there with Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and with countries in Central Asia and West Asia. There are strong bonds with Africa because of the anticolonial struggle. Educational collaborations with these countries would be unique presenting a win–win situation for all as it would also strengthen and diversify Indian higher education. After all China is trying to do precisely that through its educational initiatives with the BR countries and gaining leadership among developing countries in the bargain. Once again India is missing a unique opportunity by not being proactive enough. Instead of building on the potential to gain educational leadership in its civilizational sphere, the Indian regulatory authorities create many hurdles. The consequence is that an institution like the Manipal Academy of Higher Education found it easier to open its medical campus in Malacca rather than in India in collaboration with Malaysia as had been initially proposed because the difficulties created by the rigid regulatory framework of higher education in India made the task daunting if not impossible.

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7.4 Seizing Opportunities As the world has become more and more interconnected and globalized all nations have literally become neighbours. Hence, it is natural that there should be student and faculty mobility both physical and virtual. This means that internationalization of education cannot be a matter of choice any more. It is an imperative. China is way ahead of India because of the policies it adopted since at least 1978. In spite of all its rivalry and strife with Western powers, China has never wavered in its aim to continue collaborating with them in higher education particularly in science and technology. There have been hiccups as several of its initiatives have been viewed with suspicion. It has also been accused of not respecting intellectual property rights. But at the end of it all, many Chinese universities have surged ahead and made a name for themselves. India, on the other hand, has fallen behind. The way higher education has evolved in India, it turned more and more inward; its systems became rigid and the HES not only stagnated in spite of expanding numbers but even got distorted. India now seems to have realized that without opening to the outside world, an insular higher education can neither gain in quality nor become creative and dynamic. Its students, barring from IITs, which in any case are minuscule in number, have not been prepared to develop global skills or even develop internationally competitive campuses as academics.

Notes 1.

2. 3. 4.

5.

6.

N. V. Varghese, “Internationalisation of Higher Education: Global Trends and Indian Initiatives,” in Reimagining Indian Universities, Pankaj Mittal, Sistla Rama Devi Pani, ed, New Delhi: Association of Indian Universities, 2020. Ibid. Kavita A, Sharma, Internationalization of Higher Education: An Aspect of India’s Foreign Relations, New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 2008, pp. 49–52. Mary Hannah and Jeanne Batalova, “Indian Immigrants in the United States,” Migration Information Source, October 16, 2020, https://www.migjrationpolicy.org/article/indian-imm igrants-united-states-2019 “Indian IT has over 1 lakh American employees,” The Times of India, February 21, 2020, https://m.timesofindia.som/business/india-business/indian-it-hasover-1-lakh-american-employees/amp-articleshow/74235681.cms. David Moschella, “Is India the Next Great U.S. Dependency?’ US News, May 18, 2021, https://www.USnews.com/news/best-countriesf/articles/20231-05-18/us-need-tobalance-dependency-in-India-for-its-services. Ronak D. Desai, “A Growing Number of Indian Americans Are Leading America’s Best Business Schools,” April 25, 2018, https://www.forbes.com. “Growing list of Indian origin scholars lead global universities of great repute,” The Economic Times, 8th June, 2022, https://m.economictimes.com/jobs/growing-list-of-indianorigin-scholars-lead-global-universities-of-great-repute/articleshow/29570534.cms. Anwesha Madhukalya, “How IITs are tapping into their robust alumni network for funding,” Business Today, April 5, 2022, https://www.businesstoday.in/education/dtory/how-iits-are-tap ping-into-trheir-robust-alumni-network-for-funding-328664-2022-04-05.

Notes

7.

8.

9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

15.

16. 17. 18.

19. 20.

21.

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“IIT alumni loosening up purse strings for alma mater,” The Economic Times, 8th June, 2022, https://economictimes.com/industry/services/education/iit-alumni-loosening-uppurse-strings-for-alma-mater/articleshow/6753455.cms. Sadhna Singh, “India played US-versus-Soviets to get development aid, but gave up state power,” ThePrint,16th September 2018, https://theprint.in/pageturner/afterword/india-playedus-versus-soviets-to-get-development-aid-but-gave-up-state-power/119118. Vidhya Shree, “Russia seeks to promote its education and culture in India.” Career India, Friday August 1, 2014, https://www.careerindia.com/news/russia-seeks-to-promote-its-edu cation-and-culture-in-india-011,558.html?story=2. “Russia, India to collaborate in higher education,” The Times of India, May, 11, 2015, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/russia-india-to0collaboratein-higher-education/articleshow/4722874.cms. Rossiyskaya Gazeta and Olga Ustyuzhantseva, “India, Russia increase collaboration in technology and education, Russia Beyond, August 18, 2016, https://www.rbth.com/econom ics/cooperation/2016/08/18/india-russia-increase-collabnoration-in-technology-education_ 621987. Vladimir Putin, “Russia and India: 70 years together,” The Times of India, May 30, 2017, https://timesofidia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/russia-and-india-70-years-together/. “Rus Education virtually celebrates India’s 75th Independence Day with dignitaries and students from Russia’s top medical universities,” Business Standard, August 19, 2021. Kavita A. Sharma, op.cit. Internationalization of Higher Education, pp. 54–58. http://www.iccrindia.net/scholarship. Vivek Mishra and Suranjan Das, “Education as Pivot in India’s Cooperation with BIMSTEC Countries.” 3 November 2020, ORF Issue Brief No. 418, November 2020, Observer Research Foundation, https://www.orfonline.org/research/education/education-as-pivot-inindias-cooperation-with-bimstec-countries/. “Under Graduate Scholarship Scheme.” Edmbassy of India, Bhutan, https://www.indembthi mhu.gov.in/pages.php?id=99. “India-Nepal Bilateral Relations,” Indian Embassy in Kathmandu, https://www.indembkat hmandu.gov.in. Marcin Nowik, “Colombo Plan—From India’s Initiative on Foreign Assistance to Regional Organisation in Asia and the Pacific.” PRACE NAUKOWE UNIWERSYTETU EKOMICZNEGO WE WROCLAWIU, Research Papers of Wroclaw University of Economics, nr.294.2013, Economical and Political Interrelations in the Asia–Pacific Region, https://www.dbc.wroc.pl. Srimathi H, Krishnamoorthy A, “International Student Mobility Based on India’s out/InBound,” International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering, Vol. 1, May 2019, https://www.ijrte.org. 50 years of ITEC: Indian Technical and Economic Co-operation Programme, https://www. mea.gov.in. About ITEC—https://eoi.gov.in. ITEC: Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation, https://eoi.gov.in, uploaded by Embassy of India, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Kavita A, Sharma, Internationalization of Higher Education, op.cit. pp. 58–62. “Colombo Plan Staff College,” Colombo Plan Staff College Manila, https://www.cpstech.org/ 1973/12/India.html?m=1. Vidya Rajiv Yeravdekar, Gauri Tiwari, “Internationalization of Higher Education in India: Contribution to Regional Capacity Building in Neighbouring Countries,” Procedia—Social and Behavioral Sciences, 157 (2014), pp. 373–389, www.sciencedirect.com. “IGNOU Outside India-Foreign Student Admission, Courses, Study Centers,” Ignou news, August 3, 2021, https://ignounews.com. Bhoomika Aggarwal, “IGNOU offers Online Programmes to Overseas Students.” NDTV Education, March 16, 2021.

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22. Kavita A. Sharma, Sixty Years of the University Grants Commission: Establishment, Growth and Evolution, Delhi: University Grants Commission, December 2013, pp. 337–338. Kavita A. Sharma, Internationalization of Higher Education, op.cit. pp. 65–66. 23. Fazal Rizvi, “International Partnerships: An Indian Perspective,” in Global Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education Leaders: Briefs on Key Themes, Laura E. Rumbley, Robin Matross Helms, Patti McGill Peterson, and Philip G. Altbach, (eds.) Springer, 2014, pp. 151– 154. Solomon Arulraj David, Bikas C. Sanyal, Danny Wildemeersch, “Engaging with CrossBorder Higher Education in India, while Sustaining the Best Tradition of Indian Values,” OECD, https://www.oecd.org. 24. Rahul Choudaha, “Partnerships in India: Navigating the Policy and Legal Maze,” International Briefs for Higher Education Leaders, The Boston College Centre for International Higher Education, No. 3, 2013. David et al. “Engaging with Cross-Border Higher Education,”op.cit. David J. Skorton “India’s Strategic Importance,” in Global Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education Leaders: Briefs on Key Themes, op.cit. pp. 123–127. 25. Yukiko Shimmi, and David A. Stanfield, “Indian Bilateral Higher Education Development Initiatives,” in Global Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education Leaders, op.cit. pp. 161–162. 26. Yukiko Shimmi and David A. Stanfield, “Indian Bilateral Higher Education Development Initiatives,”op.cit. 27. Kavita A, Sharma, Internationalization of Higher Education, op.cit. pp. 66–74. Pawan Agarwal, ‘Creative Solutions to Higher Education Challenges,” Global Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education Leaders, op.cit. pp. 129–132. Vidya Rajiv Yeravdekar, Gauri Tiwari, “Internationalization of Higher Education in India: Contribution to Regional Capacity Building in Neighbouring Countries,”op.cit. 28. Dhanuraj and Pooja Sundaresh, “Education Sector in GATS: How to address our concerns,” Centre for Public Policy Research, February 11, 2016, https://www.cppr.in. Manthan Unadkat and Tanya Raghani, “Opinion: Foreign investment in education sector to get boost raft of statutes,” Thursday 15th July 2010, @h@ttps://legallyindia.com?;aw-firms/ opinion-foreigninvestment=in-education-sector-to-get-boost-by-raft-of-statutes-201007151099. Vidya Rajiv Yeravdekar, Gauri Tiwari, Internationalization of Higher Education in India, Delhi: Sage,2017 p. 1; pp. 79–88. 29. Dr. Antony Stella, Prof. A. Gnanam,“Cross Border Higher Education: False Understandings and True Overestimates,” The International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education, https://www.inqaahe.org. 30. “Union HRD Minister launches the web portal of the Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPAARC) in New Delhi, https://pib.gov.in. N. V. Varghese, “Internationalisation of Higher Education, Global Trends and Indian Initiatives” op.cit. Anirban Chakraborty, “Evolving concept of Internationalisation in Indian higher education,” The Times of India, Nov.30, 2021. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/readersblog/ani rbanspeaks/evolving-concept-of-internationalisation-in-indian-higher-education-39278/. MHRD Global Initiative for Academic Networks (GIAN) initiative, https://www.vajraindia.in. 31. N. V. Varghese, “Internationalisation of Higher Education, Global Trends and Indian Initiatives,” op.cit. 32. Kavita A. Sharma, Internationalization of Higher Education, pp.84–95, op.cit. 33. Ibid, pp. 98–99. 34. Ibid, p. 99. 35. Ibid.

Chapter 8

Quality, Global Ranking, and the Rise of China

In 1998–1999 the World Bank had said in its Report that it wasn’t capital but knowledge that could ensure sustained economic growth and human welfare. It distinguished between two sorts of knowledge: knowledge about technology or technological knowledge and knowhow; and knowledge about attributes that is, knowledge about products, processes, and institutions. The Report focused on the risks and opportunities that a knowledge-based global economy posed for developing countries and went on to examine three critical steps that these countries could take to narrow the knowledge gaps between them and the developed countries: acquiring knowledge, absorbing it, and then disseminating it. China has shown remarkable progress in raising some of It’s universities to the level of being able to compete with the best in the world, a goal that it set for itself in the post Mao era. In the 2021 Times Higher Education Rankings, Tsinghua University found a place among the top 20. This is the result of decades of strategic policy planning in which education was made the fulcrum on which to build economic, scientific, and military might as China aspired to reach a super-power status in the global polity. Making education the pivot was a particularly bold decision to take in 1949 keeping in mind that the literacy rate of China at that time was only 15– 25% and higher educational facilities were sorely lacking. The CPC ensured that its educational policies were planned and implemented keeping this goal firmly in mind while ensuring strict control over dissent which it does till today. Even during the disruptive years of the “Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution,” when the formal education sector was destroyed, the education of peasants and workers was emphasized through the informal sector. Therefore, education was not entirely lost because, if anything, the informal network of education expanded becoming an essential part of village communes and urban industry. Mao caused havoc in terms of human lives, but he did not give up the quest for a good education model by which to reform education in China. Post Mao, Deng Xiaoping took determined steps to reform education as has already been discussed in the evolution of policy. Despite some rumblings, the efforts were continued. Since the mid-1990s, the government began a massive reform and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 K. A. Sharma, India and China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5628-9_8

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re-orientation of educational policies. Education was opened to transcend national boundaries. Research output was foregrounded including publication in international journals in English, as these were relevant to global rankings. Worldwide recruitment of staff and students was encouraged. Attempts were made through various policies to drawback expertise of overseas Chinese scholars and leverage the diasporic networks. These have been discussed in Chap. 6 dealing with internationalization of higher education in China. New rules were formulated for faculty members who had to adjust to new requirements of pedagogy including honing of their English language skills. Diversification of sources of funding took place, including introduction of fees in government-funded universities and facilitation of private initiatives. Global cooperation took diverse forms including research collaboration, opening of branch campuses by foreign universities, acceptance of joint degrees and exchange programmes and others. New forms of relationship were developed with stakeholders in HEIs including emphasis on applied science, technology, and innovation, together with industry tie ups. HEIs became more complex as internal mechanisms of quality assurance were established. All these steps were considered essential to the aspiration of global university ranking. As the policy evolved, the government tried to strike a fine balance between the supreme power of the Party that does the macro planning while giving limited autonomy to the HEIs so that they could implement the plans effectively. China has sought to build world-class universities by largely adopting the Western model of university structure to make it easier for its universities to integrate into the global university system. Paradoxically however, the world-class universities are required to have Chinese characteristics by being grounded in China’s long education traditions, in particular Confucianism which works well with the Communist Party with its emphasis on stability and respect for hierarchy. The China of today is acclaimed for having the largest HES in the world but to stand up and be counted, China has created a highly stratified system. Out of over 3000 HEIs it has selected about 200 or so to build world-class universities. Further, it has identified the disciplines to be nurtured not only in these institutions but even in others acknowledging that individual universities may have their individual strengths. The thought behind this appears to be that raising the standard of some universities to the world-class level is a manageable enterprise rather than trying to raise all of them together. Also, within universities it is possible to create excellence in select disciplines rather than attempting to do that in the entire range of disciplines. This has enabled China to enter the top rungs while providing basic education to the bulk of its population. Project 211 (1995), Project (1998), and the Double First-Class Project (2015) have all been designed to nurture select elite universities who have the capacity to reach the top. Of course, this approach runs the risk of the neglect of many institutions for a few, but it is a strategy oriented to achieve quick results in terms of global recognition.1 Once the culture of quality, excellence and recognition has been created and developed, the stage gets set to bring up other institutions and disciplines that China considers of strategic importance, over the years. It is amazing that the Chinese government should request the World Bank to guide it in its endeavours towards economic growth and development using education as a

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pivot. It not only shows a pragmatic approach but also determination, and consistent and focused efforts that have to a large extent paid off.

8.1 World Bank Report The World Bank addressed the question of how China had ensured its sustained economic development in the 21st century by focusing upon institutional reforms in education and emphasizing research and development (R&D). This resulted in a Report, “China and the Knowledge Economy: Seizing the twenty-first Century” (October 2001).2 According to it, top Chinese universities would have to play a major role in the country’s transformation into a knowledge-based economy, training of futuristic thinkers and leaders and staying directly involved in generating and applying knowledge for economic growth. Many ideas of this report were incorporated in the Tenth Five Year Plan and in the Tenth Five Year Special Development Project Planning in Education, Science, and Technology (2001–2005), as has been pointed out by Hu Angang, Professor in the School of Public Policy and Management and the Director of the Institute of Contemporary China Studies at Tsinghua University.3 The World Bank’s 2007 Policy Working Paper entitled, “China and the Knowledge Economy: Challenges and Opportunities,” however, has identified several weaknesses, which were obstacles in its path of becoming a knowledge economy. These essentially were: • • • •

Weak indigenous innovation capacity. Low quality of tertiary education. Inadequate relevance of education being imparted to the market and Poor linkages between government, research and development institutes, businesses, and universities.4

China’s higher education policy, therefore, had to be directed towards both quantity and quality. It was not enough to provide access to higher education. If worldclass universities were to be built, it could not be done without quality. But quality is difficult to define because it means different things to different stakeholders. The concept of quality has developed essentially from the manufacturing sector, where they emphasize the importance of zero defects, complete consumer satisfaction, and the proper synthesis of innovation, adaptability and continuous improvement. When applied to higher education, quality generally means exceptional standards, relevance and effective delivery, achieving institutional goals, and meeting the needs of the students. Since quality has multiple aspects, there are obviously different procedures and approaches to ensuring quality in different contexts. Two, however, are fundamental: • The standards-based approach in which universities are assessed according to externally developed predetermined qualitative and quantitative standards.

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• The relevance approach which looks at the internally set goals and mission of an institution and analyses the performance of the university accordingly. Between the two, the high standard approach receives more attention because every institution wants to improve standards to compete globally. However, Quality Assurance (QA) frameworks have been developed that mostly combine both although the emphases may vary. Usually, a comprehensive QA framework involves inspecting several areas, including the purpose and mission of the institution, research output of faculty, pedagogy, library, laboratory, and physical facilities, together with the quality of the administration.5

8.2 Quality Assurance Different scholars have posited various factors that have enabled Chinese universities to rise to the top. Most of these can be summarized in just two: quest for quality and effective implementation of policies. Quality Assurance in China dates to the 1980s, after the Cultural Revolution, when a series of reforms in higher education were undertaken. Speedy massification facilitated by the opening of the private sector led to the proliferation of private and vocational colleges. These accounted for the substantial increase in terms of the enrolment rate and functioned as demand-absorbing institutions. Chinese institutions cohosting joint-degree programmes in collaboration with overseas institutions became visible. These enabled Chinese universities to use globally available resources for quality education. Meanwhile, structural changes such as decentralization and deregulation were introduced to reform the highly centralized higher education administration that had been set up in the 1950s. Universities had to be given greater autonomy and flexibility to cope with the development of market economy, which meant that university governors had to transition from direct control to supervision. Diversity in HEIs and the introduction of new university programmes required establishing a QA system. This was essential to ensure sustainable quality of education in the different types of HEIs that were being set up. One of the earliest policy documents concerning quality in higher education was the 1985 Notice on Research and Pilot Study on Higher Engineering Education.6 Although it concentrated on engineering education, it acted as a pilot programme for a more comprehensive quality evaluation and assurance mechanism for all HEIs. About 500 institutions were evaluated under it providing experience in how to assess and evaluate educational institutions. In October 1990, the National Education Committee issued the Draft Regulation of Higher Education Institution Evaluation. This was the first regulation for the evaluation of all higher education defining aims, tasks, principles, systems, and procedures. In early 1994, the National Education

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Committee began to evaluate HEIs on a large scale. University teaching was evaluated by both the minimum standard and the high standard approaches. The evaluation evolved through three stages: qualified evaluation, excellence evaluation, and randomized evaluation. General evaluation followed. • Qualified evaluation started in 1994 to promote standards of teaching and administration for institutions that had been established after 1976. As many as 179 institutions were evaluated between 1994 and 2001. • Project 211 initiated excellence evaluation in 1996 for developing first-class universities. Several key fields of research were proposed to meet the challenges of the 21st century. This form of evaluation was focused on reputed institutions with well-established histories. • Randomized evaluation started from 1998. It targeted institutions established between 1976 and 1996, the launch of Project 211. Twenty-six institutions were evaluated under this form. The three forms of evaluation were later, in 2002, integrated into Undergraduate Teaching Evaluation. This was again revised into the current system in which results were given in the following four categories: excellent, good, pass, and fail.7 The Ministry of Education issued the 2003–2007 Education Revitalization Action Plan, in 2003. This Plan stated that evaluation would follow a five year cycle after which there would be re-evaluation.8 The evaluation would assess institutions’ ability to: • • • •

Build a teaching quality assurance system. Establish agencies for educational evaluation. Develop a system of periodic review of teaching quality. Build links between programme evaluation, professional qualifications, and certificates. • Formulate evaluation standards and indicators. • Build databanks on college teaching and • Develop an analysis and reporting system. For further strengthening of higher education, a twelve-point framework was developed. This consisted of further reform of teaching and educational structures to be implemented with the help of: • Information technology. • Encouraging professors to teach undergraduate courses. • Offering a number of top-quality courses via the Internet to students all over the country. • Further improving the standards and methodology of teaching English to students of non-English majors. • Enhancing quality evaluation of HEIs, with five years as an evaluation cycle. • Establishing a series of national teaching bases and experiment bases via the facilitation of the Internet. • Further developing vocational education to meet the needs of the market economy.

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• Further improving the structure of disciplines at Chinese HEIs with a focus on tertiary vocational programmes. • Promoting reform in medical education. • Building more efficient e-libraries and improving the quality of textbooks. • Enhancing the ideological, ethical, and cultural development of students and • Inviting top-quality teachers from both at home and abroad to teach at Chinese HEIs. The Higher Education Evaluation Centre (HEEC) of the MoE was established in August 2004, to institutionalize and direct evaluation to make it a regular, scientific, and systematic professional process.9 There are several different models of administrative responsibility for the management of quality assurance at both the national and institutional levels. The most common pattern is that the government sets up a specialized agency such as the HEEC that reports to the MoE. Its main responsibilities are: • Organize and implement higher education evaluation. • Conduct research in policies, regulations, and theories relating to higher education reform in evaluation. • Develop international cooperation with evaluation agencies in other countries. • Undertake evaluator training and • Provide evaluation-related consultation and information services. At the beginning of 2006, Zhou Ji, the former Minister of Education, emphasized in his speech that all the universities and colleges in China should divert more attention to raising teaching standards and quality assurance. Three main ideas emerged: (1) Prioritize the selection of excellent teachers, professors, and associate professors to teach UG courses. The senior teachers needed to be motivated to participate in teaching reforms to improve their personal teaching skills. In 2003 the MoE initiated an award, on a three-year cycle, to reward the top hundred excellent teachers. (2) Establish high-quality courses and adjust the curriculum to the demands of economic and social development. (3) Teach English to students of non-English majors. Simultaneously, institutions were to ensure balanced development of students in their ability to acquire knowledge on the one hand and imbibe ethical and ideological qualities on the other. Teachers were expected to remain abreast with all new developments, ensuring they were updated with content and could shift the pedagogy from the mere delivery of content to the capacity building of students. In 2003, several high-quality courses were selected because of their curriculum, structure, content, textbooks, teaching staff, pedagogy, follow-up exercises, experiments, and supportive materials that ensured quality.

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8.3 External Quality Assurance, Assessment and Accreditation The MoE also made plans for the greater regulation of accreditation in the HES. It was made essential that the basic statistics together with the indicators used to assess the quality of universities and colleges be published annually. The institutions were also to direct greater attention to diversity in the HES, and the quality evaluation indicators had to be adjusted accordingly. The officers of the Academic Degree Committee at different levels of government organized the evaluation for postgraduate teaching.10 The Academic Degree Committee of the State Council oversees evaluation of doctoral programmes across the country, whereas the branches at the provincial levels look after the evaluation of the Master’s degree programmes, within their jurisdictions. Postgraduate evaluation is done every six years. The first round of evaluation of doctoral programmes was started in 2005, followed by the evaluation of Master’s programmes a year later. Seven doctoral programmes and 33 Master’s programmes failed the evaluation and were subsequently shut down. Apart from evaluation, the Academic Degree Committee and the MoE adopted further QA strategies, such as assessment of doctoral dissertations, and giving key points to ensure the quality of teaching and research performance at the PG level. However, at this point the emphasis was more on outcomes rather than on pedagogy and the learning experience. The evaluation of teaching was the most influential activity in Chinese higher education. An evaluation index was published in 2002 before the first round of five year teaching quality evaluation was started in the second half of 2003.11 It was further refined in 2004. It included seven primary indicators, 19 secondary indicators, and 44 observation points. The evaluation results of the subindicators were placed in A, B, C, and D categories, and these formed the basis of the final evaluation result. The evaluation results were accordingly categorized into excellent, good, pass, and fail. Currently, quality evaluation is compulsory for the HEIs. It is operated by evaluation panels appointed by the HEEC. The process includes five basic elements. The quality evaluation agency issues the standards and guidelines and appoints a panel of evaluators. The institution has to provide a self-appraisal report. The panel for evaluation then conducts on-site visits. Thereafter, it reports to the institution and the Ministry of Higher Education. Based on the evaluation, the concerned institution has to develop a self-improvement report and carry out self-improvement activities. For evaluations to be effective, evaluators need to have the required expertise, which makes the selection of evaluators important. The HEEC is responsible for the selection and training of evaluators. In 2005, the HEEC, under the supervision of the MoE, set up a pool of examiners for evaluating undergraduate teaching. HEIs could recommend their candidates according to the quota allotted to them. Institutions directly affiliated to the MoE could recommend five candidates, while other institutions were coordinated by the provincial government agencies. The education evaluators had to be at least of the Associate Professor cadre. Additionally, they had to have good knowledge of higher education and policies related to it—this meant

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they needed to have research experience in the field and experience in the evaluation of higher education. It was also mandatory for them to have a strong professional background with a sense of responsibility, familiarity with UG education, adequate management skills, integrity, and good judgement and have the ability to function in a team. Recently retired educational management experts were undoubtedly a good choice, given their expertise in pedagogy and experience in educational management experience. In June 2006, the HEEC started the second round of recruitment of examiners. This time, the administrative agencies for education in the provincial governments were required to coordinate the selection of candidates from the universities and colleges, research institutes, and government education administration departments in their provinces. A list of an expert pool of 1369 evaluators for the undergraduate teaching quality was published. The HEEC organized its first training workshop in 2005. The Director of HEEC presented a report on the higher education reforms in China and introduced the participants to the intricacies involved in the evaluation of the quality of teaching in HEIs. This included objectives, guiding principles, and evaluation criteria systems. Evaluators were apprised of working requirements and common concerns that arise during evaluation. Working requirements involved the key principles that must guide the evaluators. These form the essential component of their training. Each evaluation panel comprised 9–13 evaluators. The MoE appointed Panel chairs. Before evaluation, the evaluators analysed the self-review report submitted by the HEI and worked out the schedule for their on-site visit. The visit included observation, interview with the key group, test of students’ knowledge, skills and competencies, and any other factor that the panel considered appropriate. Three items were seen as particularly important: the extent to which the educational practices of the institution meet the demand of state, society, and student development; the extent to which teaching practice conforms to the educational objectives defined by the institution; and the extent to which students achieve these educational objectives. Self-improvement was taken as the last stage of the quality evaluation process. The evaluated institution had to submit self-improvement report to the evaluation agency. This was to be evidence of good practice but it was often neglected and remained only on paper. Some evaluators therefore recommended checking how far the measures listed in the self- improvement report had been implemented during the following evaluation cycle. After all, the measure of an effective evaluation is that it has been followed through. After the first five year round of teaching evaluation in 2008, the MoE and HEEC adjusted the quality assurance system in Chinese higher education into a three-dimensional system: (1) Random inspection of the HEIs by the HEEC to see the improvements that have taken place after the self-improvement undertaking. (2) Encourage educational administrative departments at the provincial level to play a more active role in quality evaluation and assurance practices in their regions and carry out further reviews.

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(3) Encourage and guide HEIs to build or improve their internal quality assurance systems. Besides the evaluation of the teaching quality evaluation, another nationwide quality evaluation was the discipline-based review, carried out by discipline-based higher education teaching steering committees, also under the supervision of the MoE.

8.4 Internal Quality Assurance Mechanism The emphasis on quality and the outcome in terms of enhanced global prestige encouraged universities to establish their internal quality assurance centres.12 These are affiliated to or work together with the Teaching Management Office of the institution. Those universities that do not have an independent Teaching Evaluation Centres have departments playing a similar role under the supervision of the Teaching Affairs or Teaching Management Office. The main responsibilities of these centres are to develop and operate the quality assurance system in their institutes. Since the teacher is the fulcrum on which the university system rests, teacher training is imparted at the entry level and then rework training may be instituted periodically during service. The work of the teacher is constantly observed and supervised.13 It is common practice in Chinese HEIs to form teaching cooperation or steering groups. The members of the group include senior teaching staff and retired staff with expertise in teaching. They work under the supervision of the Vice President Teaching and carry out their work directly with teachers and students by observing their classes and talking to them after the class. They are responsible for giving advice in case they find a problem in effective teaching. Class teaching is also subject to peer-review. Teachers may observe each other’s classroom teaching, so that they not only monitor each other but also learn along the way. Student feedback is one of the most important components of quality assurance. Student representatives conduct surveys, individual and group interviews, any other appropriate methods, and submit reports. Surveys are the most used. Finally, an annual institutional self-review report is considered an important component of the internal quality assurance system. Although its main purpose is not specifically quality assurance, it contributes indirectly to it by creating awareness of the institutional strengths and weaknesses, the first step towards rectification and strengthening. Some faculty members find the system of internal quality assurance too bureaucratic, time-consuming, and distracting from academic duties. However, they do not have a choice.

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8.5 External Quality Assurance and Autonomy Given that performance evaluation in universities is adopted widely, the question arises whether their autonomy has been affected because QA can also be used as a controlling strategy. The State allows universities only a certain degree of institutional autonomy. In personnel management for instance, institutions can hire or fire the lower rank staff. They can determine staff salaries and subsidies based on performance and subject to the revenue that the institution has, but the government decides the position to be held, the salary paid in that position, and its hierarchical rank, as there are unified payment standards. Tenure is usually granted within a period, usually five years, depending on the performance of the faculty member especially pertaining to publications. Autonomy in other academic-related decisions is restricted. According to law, HEIs can open or eliminate courses and departments, but they need to report the change to the relevant government departments. Although institutions can decide the content of academic courses, the State has strict requirements on political courses such as Marxism and Maoism in both public and private universities to ensure political control on higher education and the youth. The strict ideological control inhibits the growth of social sciences, in which the Chinese universities are generally weak. The emphasis is on science and technology and its impact on enhancing the growth and development of economy. Social sciences on the other hand can lead to ideological conflicts and hence teachers try to tiptoe around it.14 Individual institutions can adjust the student-faculty ratios the ratio according to the guideline rate of 14:1 specified by the MoE. Universities are allowed to set specific degree requirements, but these must comply with the requirements of the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council. For opening or eliminating UG programmes and departments, the location of the decision depends on the type of programme. Universities can make decisions on non-degree programmes on their own, but any change in degree-related programmes is subject to government approval. After Xi Jinping became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China in 2013, the procedures have tightened. In 2016, he wanted to turn university campuses into strongholds of the Party leadership. The authorities want to use the universities to develop sophisticated propaganda techniques. It led to student protests, a rare phenomenon in China.15

8.6 Performance Based Funding Post globalization, a global model has emerged according to which top ranking research universities are key to economic and social development. Since the mid1990s, China made policies to develop state-of-the-art research universities that would rank with the best in the world. It used performance-based funding is an effective tool of quality management.16 Projects 211 and 985 together with Double

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First-Class Project in effect amount to using performance-based funding as a tool for quality control. In addition, there were other projects that concentrated on science and research like Project 863 in 1986 and Project 973 in 1997. Four Chinese scientists initiated Project 863 with the objective to boost innovation in high-tech sectors, particularly in strategic fields. Deng Xiao Ping approved this.17 Project 973 focused on research and development of basic sciences.18 The State Science and Steering Group formulated “The National Plan on Key Basic Research and Development” and chose to organize the implementation of the “National Programme on Key Basic Research Project (973 Program).” The objective was to mobilize China’s scientific talents to conduct innovative research in agriculture, health-related issues, energy, information, responses and environment, materials, and population. Project 211 was often explained the Central Government’s endeavour to establish 100 universities in China for the 21st century. More universities were added on. Currently, there are 116 under Project 211. It was the first national key project in higher education that the government funded intensively. Between 1996 and 2002, ninety-nine institutions were given special financial support by both the central and local authorities. The focus then moved to improving the quality of key selected disciplines between 2002 and 2007. Resources were provided for improving infrastructure and equipment together with teacher training. These universities were to be responsible for enhancing research capability and socio-economic development. Both initiatives received heavy funding during the tenth five year plan (2001–2005). Project 985 built upon Project 211 was launched in 1998. It was intended to develop world-class research universities and was seen as a major element of national strategy to rejuvenate the country through science and education. It was established to further concentrate high-level funding from 1999 to 2008 on a smaller number of top Chinese universities. Billions of dollars of public fund resources were channelled into these universities. Resources were made available to build research centres, improve physical and academic facilities, hold international conferences, attract world-renowned faculty, and help the Chinese faculty to attend conferences abroad. Initially, only Beijing University and Tsinghua University had been selected but in July 1999, the MoE decided to add more universities and to fund them jointly with local authorities. Nine top research universities were selected as members at its early stage, known as C9, China’s Ivy League. In 2011, the total number went up to 39. It was then decided not to increase numbers in this group. Project 985 and 211 universities accounted for only 5per cent of the total but continued to get about 72% of the total governmental support right up to 2013. One of China’s highly strategic policies was to help accelerate the growth of these top elite universities to become world-class universities through internationalization so that they could become internationally competitive and mark China’s achievements in higher education. Projects 211 and 985 were terminated in 2015, but the Double FirstClass University Project was launched in the same year.19 Its aim was to develop elite world-class universities by 2050 by concentrating on individual faculty departments in elite universities. The Ministry of Education released a list which identified 42 universities and 95 disciplines in 2017 as priority areas for government investment to build both world-class universities and disciplines. A total of 147 institutions were

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taken up under the Double First-Class University Project in which all the Project 985 universities and the Project 211 universities were included. Although these projects were initiated and implemented by the top echelons of the government, the approach was to persuade rather than to compel. Selected institutions may not have had the choice to opt in or out of these norm-defining projects, but they were incentivized with huge funding by the top-level political actors. In addition they were also promised new facilities on campus, centres for research, and permission to compete for international scholarships. Research-based universities were selected to educate and prepare students for the global knowledge economy. The thought was that research could significantly impact the nation’s industries through breakthroughs in science and technology and contribute to building a knowledgeable workforce. In addition, it would aid in elevating the international image of both the Chinese HES, and of individual HEIs as well. It was also a chance for institutions to acquire funding that could in turn lead to future funding and investments. The MoE called upon HEIs to help improve the national power and competitiveness. Research reform was highlighted in MoE’s Tenth Five Year Plan (2001– 2005). The plan spoke of integration between learning, research, and production. The aim was to establish a link between education, economy, and science and technology. Thus, the MoE tried to inspire HEIs to contribute to the greater good of the community and the nation, besides their own.

8.7 Benchmarking and the Academic Ranking of World Universities As discussed earlier, China has used internationalization as a part of its strategy to build quality. There are two important aspects of internationalization: • The importance of attaining a high score on international higher education rankings and • The spotlight on research output as a way of the ranking criteria. The government put forward aggressive goals to improve the standing of its higher education in the world and to offer distinguished universities with opportunities to participate in cutting-edge research. This may seem to mimic Western education models and Westernization is perhaps seen as intrinsic to the spread of international norms, especially in higher education. Nonetheless, the Chinese government has been determined to speedily improve its national power and competitiveness and to continually strive to develop its global competitive edge. Internationalization has erased the divisions of borders and barriers, thus encouraging b students to explore options overseas, thus increasing the demand to know clearly the strengths and weaknesses of universities around the world. With the emergence of international higher education rankings students can compare universities

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across the globe through indicators in which HEIs compete with each other.20 The Chinese government desired to improve its universities after benchmarking them against some of the best universities in the world. In 2003 the Shanghai Tiao Jong University was assigned the task of creating China’s own marking system and criteria to measure the performance of both national and international competitors. Thus, The Academic Ranking of World Universities, ARWU, also known as the Shanghai Ranking, was initiated. According to Nian Cai Liu and Ying Cheng, the creators of ARWU, the objective was to gauge the positioning of Chinese HEIs as compared to major foreign universities.21 Since then, the purpose is modified periodically keeping the essence of the initial aim the same. Assessing the global standing of its universities provides a valuable source of information for the global comparison. The indicators deal with both quantitative and qualitative measurement. The initial assessment was vital to see what was required for the diffusion and overall strengthening of the norms to become internationally competitive.22 The ARWU measures HEIs based on six categories grouped under three heads: quality of education and the quality of faculty; research output, and per capita performance. The criteria and their respective weightages are: • The quality of education has 10% weightage. • The quality of faculty has two subcategories: awards won and research citations. Each has a weightage of 20%. • Per capita performance of the institution has 10% weightage. Research output has two subcategories: papers indexed in the Science Citation Index or the Social Science Citation Index, each weighted at 20%. Because in the two indicators, the quality of faculty and the number of citations, weightage is given at 20 and 10% respectively, it makes research publications and citations worth 30% of the entire marking scheme. Several international higher education rankings scales prioritize research-based performance. Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s ranking has gained recognition in China and overseas. This is by no means, a small achievement.23 Besides the government ranking like the prestigious ranking by the China Academic Degrees and Graduate Education Development Centre, CDGDC, an affiliate of the MoE and the ARWU ranking, non-government education quality evaluation agencies do several other rankings. Up to 2008, 17 non-governmental agencies in China published the results of university rankings. Some of the prominent ones are from the Guangdong Research Institute for Management, Net big.com, the China Scientific Evaluation Research Centre of Wuhan University, Shanghai Institute for Educational Studies, and Hunan University. One of the most highly regarded rankings is of the Chinese University Alumni Association, CUAA. The CUAA compiles rankings each year, taking into consideration the teaching staff and resources, levels of scientific research, together with talent training, quality, and reputation as indicators. For the evaluation, the publicly available data, material submitted by the institution, and peer reviews are combined and the calculations made accordingly.24 The matrix of rankings has great significance in communicating values and hierarchy. The emphases of ranking may change annually, but overall, they demonstrate

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the standing and dominance of an institution and, by corollary, that of the country. They indicate which HEI is playing by the rules as accepted by the international higher education community. Since the dominance is obviously of the West, of the USA and the UK, the norms are set accordingly. The rest simply must follow. This, can be problematic. Since the focus is on research output the rankings also function as indicators of which HEIs have the greatest influence on the knowledge economy and in the fields of science and technology. The academic standing of institutions as seen through the lens of rankings not only has ramifications for the individual campus but also on national and international perceptions on the economic and political levels. The Action Plan of the MoE for the 21st century underscored this sentiment by asserting that it was strategically important for China to develop its own first-rate universities, which could compare with the best ones in the world.25 The internationalization of higher education campuses across the country, and the substantial funding combined with the tangible and quantitative matrix regarding research, has internationally improved China’s higher education image and standing. Years after the initial launch of Project 211, the progress is visible. Out of the original 118 HEIs taken up under Project 211, 6% have met the scientific and technical benchmarks and they offer advanced degrees. They comprise 80% of doctoral students and 33% of undergraduates. Essential Chinese laboratories are held by 96% of these HEIs which, in turn, collect 70% of all funding for scientific research. In 2018, the MoE announced that many HEIs had displayed ground-breaking achievements in numerous academic fields as was evident by the funding from the Natural Science Foundation of China for more than 80% of all published papers and research projects. This appears to align with the criteria of the ARWU that seek out papers published in Nature, the prestigious journal in Science. Universities, governments, and businesses have worked together to make post-secondary education more accessible to international students. Universities that have conformed to the MoE policies pertaining to research have been rewarded with improved rankings, which has raised their international prestige. Recent ranking exercises have however aroused heated debates. This is because of some scandals alleging that a few institutions have registered better positions in some ranking systems by the unfair practice of offering financial contributions to the ranking organizations. In a top-down approach, infrastructure and formal procedures get prominence while diversity of institutions and their relevance to their milieu is ignored. Most well-known rankings generally equate institutional quality with research productivity, which is either measured by the number and impact of publications in peer-reviewed journals, or by the selectivity of admission processes. Such a proxy of quality downgrades institutions that place greater emphasis on teaching and prolong the publish-or-perish principle. In pursuing better position in the rankings those that emphasize teaching may add more value to students than the highly selective institutions that have already attracted better students. Similarly, the appropriateness of measuring the reputation of a tertiary education institution by its alumni’s job profile is not exempt from criticism.26 In the absence of any other sound and compatible information, rankings are seen as the best option for determining the quality of colleges and universities. They lead

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to powerful perceptions about the quality of an institution, which students and parents use while making their choice. Despite the problems in the process of quality evaluation, those who support ranking believe strongly that external quality evaluation has made a significant contribution to higher education and to China.27 Several tertiary education systems have explored an alternative approach to the ranking systems. This system aims at fostering institutions to benchmark with peers in a less disruptive and more proactive manner than the ranking systems. The benchmarking approach permits meaningful comparison of institutions based on need. It includes some elements that are already incorporated in rankings and encourages institutions to customize comparisons based on performance: best, average, and the lowest-performing institutions. This makes it possible for institutions to define their niche, and it reduces the pressure to blindly follow a unilateral definition of a good institution. Eventually, the current ranking system is an arbitrary arrangement of indicators aimed at labelling what has been predefined by rankers as a good educational institution. A good example of an alternative system is the University Governance Screening Card Project that brings together more than a hundred tertiary institutions from seven countries in the Middle East and the North African region. This initiative, sponsored by the World Bank and the Centre for Mediterranean Integration, aims at enhancing institutional governance and accountability through capacity-building measures based on an evidence-based and inclusive approach.28 If rankings become the end rather than the means towards better tertiary education then it is a cause for concern. As summed up by Nian Cai Liu, “Any ranking is controversial, and no ranking is objective. Nevertheless, university rankings are popular in almost all major countries in the world. Whether universities and other stakeholders agree, the ranking systems clearly are here to stay. The key issue then becomes how to improve the ranking systems and how to use their results properly. Ranking methodologies should always be examined carefully before looking at any ranking lists, and ranking results should be used with caution.”29

8.8 Publish or Perish Although rankings face criticism on account of the prominence given to research but despite all complaints, they have led to improvement in research performance. Of course, some journals will publish anything if one pays a high fee. Many ranking systems use Western indexes, such as the Thompson citation index, for evaluating publications although many good journals may not be included in it. The quality of some listed journals is also questionable. Therefore, evaluation based on this index does not necessarily reflect the quality of publication. But before this policy was adopted, the internal evaluation of research output was examined only based on Chinese journals and books.30 Since publishing in journals listed in the prominent Western English language indexes is considered crucial for attaining a good rank it is encouraged above all else.31 This leads to a “publish or perish” mentality which is exacerbated by giving

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monetary incentives for publishing. Publication in these journals is also used as a criterion for promotion. This has led to several adverse fallouts: • It works to the disadvantage of domestically trained scholars who may be unable to publish because they have inadequate English language skills. • This policy obviously favours faculty members trained overseas and creates tension between the domestically- and overseas-trained colleagues destroying collegiality. • Chinese scientists have been accused of dubious ethics. Complaints have mainly focused on the protection of intellectual property rights. • In some cases, plagiarism and peer-review frauds have been detected. All this stems from a desire to show substantial research output. The highly incentivized strategy to publish has resulted in the proliferation of paper mills. Researchers being under constant pressure to publish, hire external agencies to write papers speedily. At times, apparently, false data and results have been sent to scientific journals. Simon Baker has illustrated this by citing some prominent cases of suspected peer-review fraud. In April 2017, the journal, Tumour Biology retracted more than a hundred articles by Chinese authors after the publishers found strong reasons to believe that the peer-review process had been compromised. According to Baker’s analysis, this type of fraud gets detected when the email addresses of the reviewers suggested by authors turn out to be controlled by them or by companies connected to them. In the face of criticism, the Chinese government took some remedial steps in 2019. It announced that it will distance itself from the “publish or perish” culture, assess the problems and minimize the impact of research metrics used to evaluate academics and universities, expressly the Science Citation Index.32 Joyce Lau and Jing Liu, writing in March 6, 2020, edition of “Inside Higher Education,” reported that this measure, jointly issued by the MoE and the Ministry of Science and Technology, was an attempt to discourage universities from rewarding researchers and departments mainly on the basis of the number of publications in the journals in the Science Citation Index even though it is one of the world’s leading metric indices for research.33 Pola Lem in “The Times Higher Education” has pointed out that Chinese government has also taken steps to prevent plagiarism and data falsification. It has reassessed its aggressive strategy to use quantity of publications to advance in the world rankings. As a result, the Ministry of Sciences announced several measures that would apply to anyone involved in purchasing and selling academic items and fabricating data. According to the Times Higher Education Information, the government has published a document discussing the problem of giving supremacy to the Science Citation Index. It is dissatisfied with the research system as HEIs rely predominantly on this Index when deciding on available faculty positions, hiring, and funding.34 However, it is not just paper citations that have pushed the Chinese universities upward. The global influence of prestigious Chinese universities is also rising fast. Tsinghua University launched the Schwarzman Scholars’ Programme, to train the next generation of global leaders whose success would depend on a good understanding of China’s role in global trends. Peking University announced its own

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programme, the Yenching Academy, which was already offering ten English courses in the fall of 2015. The goals of this Academy, like those of the Schwarzman programme, are to train the next generation of global leaders. The shared assumptions of these two prestigious programmes are that a global leader cannot be effective unless he or she has a deep understanding of China and its role in the world. Tsinghua is famous for its science and engineering departments and is often called China’s MIT. Peking University too has a long and proud tradition within China’s higher education. It has always been at the centre of the country’s social and political developments since its inception in 1898. Simultaneously, the Renmin University has been quietly rising in the world university rankings. It is less noticed perhaps because of it has strong focus on the social sciences rather than on the sciences, but for social sciences it is perhaps China’s best university. In 2015, it received 150 projects sponsored by the National Social Science Fund, the most among all institutions of higher education. Several departments of Renmin University, including history, law, and international relations, are often top-ranked. In recent years, Renmin University has enhanced its international profile through its think-tank efforts evident by the Chongyang Institute for financial studies, launched in 2013.35

8.9 Uneven Progress China’s progress in higher education is certainly outstanding, but it is uneven. Mihaly Tamas Borsi, Octasiano Miguel Valerio Mendoza and Flavio Comin tried to point a way to rectify this in, “Measuring the Provincial Supply of Higher Education Institutions in China.”36 They created three higher education indices for the 31 provinces, elaborated to reflect the quantity- and quality-related characteristics of China’s HES. (1) The Chinese higher education density index is based on an analysis of the evolution of the number of HEIs in each province, relative to the population share. This data can be further deconstructed into subgroups based on the types of institutions—four-year undergraduate colleges, two-year vocational colleges, and private institutions. The data on the availability of higher education is important as an increase in the number of universities alone may positively affect the economic growth and development of that area. The Chinese higher education density index for each province provides insights into regional imbalances in access to higher education and related opportunities. (2) The Chinese higher education quality index proposes to assess the supply of higher education in terms of quality, using the Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities. Policymakers can use the quality index to assess the competitiveness of each province’s higher education and evaluate the goals of the various provinces. (3) The Chinese higher education index is a composite indicator that incorporates both the quantity and quality of HEIs for each province, and thus provides a weighted estimate of the availability of higher education in China. The Chinese

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higher education index is complemented by a partial ranking analysis that addresses compatibilities between provinces due to the quality and quantity of the higher education available. The paper’s findings suggest that despite the equalizing of educational policies with the rapid expansion of higher education, the distribution of the supply of tertiary education, both in terms of quantity and quality remains unbalanced. While access has improved in many provinces with several of them going from an under supply to a proportionate supply of HEIs, about one-third of them still have inadequate number of HEIs in relation to their population. The density index by college type further reveals that the improvement in access to higher education is often driven by an increase in vocational colleges rather than undergraduate universities. Despite the massive surge of private HEIs, the market-oriented educational reforms have not particularly favoured the central and western regions. A significant gap exists between Beijing and the other 30 provinces, taking the quality index into consideration. The capital not only has the highest density of HEIs, several are also of high quality. In contrast, institutions in several western and border provinces have a low-quality index. The composite higher education index confirms that Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai have the best HEIs, whereas the quantity or quality indicators, or both, are relatively low in provinces with large populations in the border areas and in regions with large ethnic minorities. The higher education indices enable a better understanding of the evolution of the supply of HEIs in each province and provide valuable insights for making access to higher education more equitable. They indicate that while a few universities have certainly reached world-class standards, for China to be counted as an education destination, as it aspires to be, the overall quality has to improve.

Notes 1. 2. 3.

4.

5. 6. 7.

Val D. Rust and Stephanie Kim, “The Global Competition in Higher Education,” World Studies in Education, Vol. 13, Mo. 1, 2012, https://www.researchgate.in. Carl J. Dahlman, Jean Eric Aubert, “China and the Knowledge Economy: Seizing the twentyfirst Century, 2001,” Washington D.C.: The World Bank, https://elibrary.worldband.org. Zui Rongji, “Report on the Outline of the Tenth Five Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development at the Fourth Session of the Ninth People’s Congress on March 5, 2001,” https://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Special_11_5/2010-03/03/content_1690620.htm. For how China acted upon the World Bank Report, Douglas Zhihua Zang, Shuilin Wang, “China and the Knowledge Economy: Challenges and Opportunities,” May 2007, https://ope nknowledge.worldbank.org. Maureen Tam, “Measuring Quality and Performance in Higher Education,” Quality in Higher Education, Vol. 7, No.1.2001, https://www.tandfonline.com. Li Wang, “Quality assurance in higher education in China: control, accountability and freedom,” Policy and Society, 33.3, pp. 253–262, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polsoc.2014.07.03. Ibid. Wang Yingjie, “Building Quality Assurance System in Chinese Higher Education: Recent Progress,” OECD, https://www.oecd.org.

Notes 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15.

16.

17. 18. 19.

20.

21. 22. 23.

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This section has drawn heavily from Yuan Li, “Quality Assurance in Chinese Higher Education,” Research in Comparative and International Education, 2010, Vol. 5, No. 1, https://dx. doui.org/10.2304/rcie.2010.5.1.58. Li Wang, “Quality assurance in higher education in China,” op,cit. Ibid. Ibid. Yuan Li, “Quality Assurance in Chinese Higher Education”op.cit. Yuan Li, “Quality Assurance in Chinese Higher Education”op.cit. Shuiyun Liu, “Higher Education Quality Assessment in China: An Impact Study,” Higher Education Policy, 2015, Vol. 28, pp. 175–195, https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2014.3. Helke Holbig, “Shifting ideologies of Research Funding: The CPC’s National Planning Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences,” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 2014, Vol. 43, No. 2, pp. 13–32 https://ciaotest.cc.columbia Hui Wang, “From National Science Foundation Projects to Knowledge Production of Library and Information,” International Conference on Management, Computer and Education Information, (MCEI 2015), pp.485–488, https://www.atlantis-press.com. Javier C. Hernandez and Albee Zhang, “Chinese Students Denounce Limits on Free Speech, in a Rare Protest,” The New York Times, Dec, 18, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com. “Chinese university students protest after Beijing cuts ‘freedom of thought’ from school rules,” Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 19th December, 2019, https://www.abc.net.au. Glen Tiffert, “30 Years After Tiananmen: Memory in the Era of Jinping,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 30, Issue 2, pp. 38–49. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org. Abigail Bernet, The evolution of Chinese Higher Education Policies between 1990 and 2019: The far-reaching impact of internationalization as a norm, Political Science Master’s thesis, Department of Global Political Studies, Malmo University, Spring 2020, https://www.divaportal.org. Xiaozhou Xu, Weihui Mei, Education Policies and Legislation in China, Homa and Sekey Books, 2009, pp. 23–25. “National High-tech R&D Program (863 Program) March 2016, Consulate General of the Republic of China, New York, http://newyork.china.consulate.gov.cn. “National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program), March 2016, Consulate General of the Republic of China, New York, http://newyork.china.consulate.gov.cn. Michael A. Peters, Tina Besley, “China’s double first-class university strategy,” Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2018, Vol. 50, No. 12, pp. 1075–1079, https://doi.org/10.1080/001 31857.2018.1438822. Adam Torok and Andrea Magda Nagy, “China: A candidate for winner in the international game of higher education?” Acta Oeconomica 70 (2020) S, https://doi.org/10.1556/032.2020. 00030. Gerard A. Postiglione, “Expanding Higher Education: China’s Precarious Balance,” The China Quarterly, Vol. 244. December 2020, pp. 1–22, https://researchgate.net. Abigail Bernet, The evolution of Chinese Higher Education Policies between 1990 and 2019L The far-reaching impact of internationalization as a norm, op.cit. For a good overview of major ranking systems, Fazeelat Noreen, Bashir Hussain, “HEC Ranking Criteria in Perspective of Global Ranking Systems,” Global Social Sciences Review (GSSR) Vol. IV, No. 2, (Spring 2019), pp.43–60, https://www.semanticscholar.org. Nian Cai Liu, “The Story of Academic Rankings of World Universities,” International Journal of Higher Education, https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ihe/article/view/8409/7543. Kevin Downing, Petrus Johannes Loock, Sarah Gravett, The Impact of Higher Education Ranking Systems on Universities, Routledge, 2021, pp. 50–53. Ibid. Abigail Bernet, The Evolution of Chinese Higher Education, op.cit. Paul Taylor and Richard Braddock, “International University Ranking Systems and the Idea of University Excellence,” Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, Vol. 29, No. 3. November 2007, pp. 245–260, https://researchgate.net.

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24. “Ranking China’s universities.” From Australian Embassy in Beijing, International Education, https://internationaleducation.gov.au/news/latest-news/Pages/Aricle-Ranking-Chi na’s-universities.aspx. 25. Kevin Downing et.al., op.cit. pp. 53–55. Ellen Hazelkorn, “The ‘Best’ Universities in the World: Can Global University Ranking Systems Identify Quality Education?” WENR September 19, 2019, https://wenr.wes.org/ 2019/09/the-best-universities-in-the-world-can-global-university-ranking-systems-identifyquality-education. 26. Kevin Downing et.al. op.cit. p.6. 27. Ibid, pp.88–93. Francisco Marmolejo, “Why are university rankings so important,” World Economic Forum, 26, December 2015, originally published in The World Banks’s Education for Global Development blog, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/12/why-are-university-rankingsso-important. 28. Marmolejo, “Why are university rankings so important?” op.cit. 29. Nan Cai Lu, “The Story of Academic Ranking of World Universities,” International Higher Education, Winter 2009, https://doi.otg/10.6017/ihe.2009.548409. 30. Kevin Downing et.al. op.cit. pp. 53–55. Karina Fuerte, “The Secret Behind China’s Advance in University Rankings,” Observatory, Institute for the Future of Education, 7 October, 2020, https://observatory.tec.mx/edu-news/ china-advances-in-world-universiyu-rankings. 31. Li Wang, “Quality assurance in higher education,” op,cit. 32. Karina Fuerte, “The Secret Behind China’s Advance in University Rankings,” op.cit. David Resnik and Weiqin Zeng, “Research Integrity in China: Problems and Prospects,” Developing World Bioethics, 2009, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp.164–171, https://doi.org/10.1111/j. 1471-8847.2009.00.263.x. 33. Joyce Lau and Jing Liu, “China Moves Away From ‘Publish or Perish,” Times Higher Education, March 6, 2020, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/03/06/china-movesaway-from-publish-or-perish. 34. Pola Lem, “Chinese funders ‘must act in concert’ to curb ‘research misconduct’,” Times Higher Education, March 4, 2022, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/chinese-fun ders-must-act-concert-curb-research-misconduct. 35. “How Good Are the Best Chinese Universities,” Edu Services, Study in China, https://www. studyinchina.com.my/web/page.how-good-are-the-best-chinese-unmiversities/. 36. Mihily Tamas Borsi, Octasiano Miguel, Valerio Mendoza, Flavio Comim, “Measuring the provincial supply of higher education institutions in China,” China Economic Review, 71(2022) 101724, www.elsevier.com/locate/chieco.

Chapter 9

India’s Quest for Global Rankings

India does not figure anywhere near the top 200 in the Times world rankings. The highest place is for the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, in the bracket of 301–350.1 In the Asian criterion of the Times Higher Education (THE) ranking the IISc is in the 42nd position while the top two positions are occupied by China’s Peking University and Tsinghua University. In the world university rankings of 2023, 75 Indian universities are there among the top 300 universities with Indian Institute of Science on the top. The top Chinese universities have retained their position in the top ten. The world ranking systems have often been criticized in India as being heavily biased in favour of developed countries of the West and for emphasizing the perception or reputation of a university. This may be true, but at least two issues arise: whether India has developed an alternative episteme; and whether the country has created institutions of excellence after adopting it. If the answer is no, then even valid criticism has a ring of hollowness. It reverberates louder when the country displays such concern over the ranking of its universities. Former President, Pranab Mukerji often exhorted Indian universities to strive for a position in the world rankings as he sincerely believed that that would improve their quality and raise the profile and reputation of the Indian HES. The more important question is not of ranking but of the quality of Indian HEIs and their quest for excellence.2 It is not that there has not been a concern for quality. Several steps have been taken to improve the quality of Indian institutions; but the impact is, at best, patchy. G.D. Sharma summarizes the basic arguments that term the world ranking system unsuitable for India. The top positions in the rankings are usually occupied by universities in the USA, Europe, and Canada. The methodology and coverage do not seem to capture the global picture. It can be argued that the ranking methodology is biased in favour of the structure and functioning of universities in the USA and the UK. He has pointed out that many universities in other parts of the world may be rated very highly in their respective countries but find no place in world rankings. In both QS (an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds) and THE

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ranking there is a heavy emphasis on research, citations, industry tie-up, and international outlook. Reputation is another important feature. All these factors favour the universities in developed countries, especially in the USA and the UK and appear to be biased about their growth and development. Their concerns may not be those of India, which must educate large numbers of people giving due emphasis to equity and social justice and that too with meagre resources. Another criticism is that citation is an ineffective tool to assess the influence of the contribution of the idea. Giving high weightage to citations as a measure of research results in reproducing the same set of indicators such as faculty research, productivity, and publications, resulting in heavy buyers in favour of universities having a policy of publish or perish and a culture of reproducing and referring the same set of authors. University income and research income indicators tend to focus on the same aspect and therefore appear to be highly colinear. These also depend on the policy and income levels of specific countries. Developing countries like India cannot match the resources of the developed countries. Besides, they have vast numbers to educate and hence cannot divert the major part of their resources to research. Therefore, the ranking system is obviously more tilted towards developed countries.3 Sharma further states that only those universities, which have started and evolved their own system of knowledge generation, teaching, and research, keeping in view the national and international knowledge resources and are responding to the country’s developmental needs, may be included in the world ranking systems. Therefore, the IISc, Bangalore, which has developed good research and analytical processes and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi, which has concentrated on interdisciplinary teaching and research, find slots in the world rankings. However, is not this what all Indian universities need to be doing—creating unique curricula, pedagogy, and research in accordance with local and national needs? Sharma points to a UNESCO report of 2013 entitled, “Rankings and Accountability of Higher Education: Uses and Misuse” in support of his arguments. In the chapter “University Ranking – Many Sides of Debate,” it is stated that comparisons and rankings substantially influence both individual and collective decisions.4 Their impact is felt from individual educational choices to country policies, investment priorities, and even the strategic positions of nations in the world education systems. This renders Sharma’s arguments self-defeating. What does have some validity is that it forces universities wanting to be counted to follow the model of the US and European universities systems, ignoring the vast needs of knowledge and research requirements of developing countries. It is perhaps in response to such criticism that both the QS and THE ranking systems started to bring out ranking for Asian universities. Of course, it also makes good business sense. However, as Maria Yudkevich, Philip G. Altbach, and Laura E. Rumbley points out in, “The Global Academic Rankings Game: Changing Institutional Policy, Practice, and Academic Life,” world rankings are like the Olympic Games in which one either joins in or remains out and there are consequences to both decisions. China chose to join in.5

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9.1 Indian Ranking System India, like China, has developed its own ranking framework but it has come on the scene over a decade after China. Unlike China, it only ranks Indian institutions although the initial aspiration was to rank institutions in the developing countries. While China set up its World Ranking System to essentially see how it lagged the Western HEIs and what it could do to reach their standards, India has established the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) because it feels that the ranking systems commonly in use are not suitable for its needs and requirements. If that is the case, it should not aspire to be in those systems. While China’s ranking system has been accepted the world over, the same is not true of the Indian system. The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), under the aegis of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), was launched in September 2015.6 Institutions were ranked under it in 2016. The reaction to the ranking of HEIs was as expected. Those that got positions on the list according to their expectations were jubilant, while those who did not were sceptical about the parameters used and the methodology applied. The reaction and response are not very different to Indian views regarding world rankings.7 Many HEIs challenged the need for ranking by the government when the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) was already evaluating the institutions in India, and this evaluation had been mandatory. A mismatch between the NAAC grades and the NIRF ranks would confuse the stakeholders. Since NAAC uses several parameters to assess colleges and universities, it might as well rank them. In any case, the comparison was inevitably based on the scores of the institutions.8 However, NAAC desisted from doing so. The reasons perhaps are to be found in the efforts to make NAAC acceptable to the HES rather than ideals against ranking institutions. The NIRF and its methodology were put together by two separate committees with some common members.9 One committee developed the framework for the Technical Higher Education Institutions covering largely engineering and management. The other committee built on the framework developed by the first committee to make it relevant for the multidisciplinary universities and colleges, which were constituent, affiliated, or associated with a university. To further improve the framework, a National Level Review Committee (NLRC) was constituted by the MHRD in which the framework was further refined and modified based on the 2016 experience. The ranking framework was then announced in 2017 with some modified subparameters, in which a relatively large number of universities and other HEIs, including colleges, participated. The modified framework resolved to compute a common ranking of all participating HEIs irrespective of the disciplinary domain. The ranking was confined to only such HEIs that were of reasonable size, thereby excluding many small-sized universities, colleges, and institutes. An exception was made for centrally funded HEIs, which were included in the ranking, irrespective of size.

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The HEIs are ranked under five broad parameters: Teaching, Learning and Resources; Research and Professional Practices; Graduation Outcome; Outreach and Inclusivity; and Perception. Each of these has four subparameters or indicators. The MHRD constituted the Implementation Core Committee (ICC) to steer and oversee the development and revision of the framework and methodology where required, and to oversee the collection of data.10 The ICC, in its meeting held on September 29, 2020, made some changes in the ranking system. The weightage to a couple of subparameters was changed but these were applicable to medical education. The parameters and methodology for ranking research institutions were developed afresh. Two parameters were added. These were research papers published in the First Quartile of Journal Citation Report; and H Index which is a metric for evaluating the cumulative impact of an author’s scholarly output and performance.11

9.2 Impact of Liberalization on Economy After four decades of experimentation with democratic socialism, in 1991, India embarked on a programme of economic liberalization and free market forces came into play. Academics feared the consequences. They were apprehensive that the government would gradually withdraw from higher education, and they expended much energy in seeking to prevent this from happening. It is ironical that Communist China took to the path of capitalism with Chinese characteristics while the free market India, by and large, took to the socialist path in higher education. The public sector universities remained starved for funds and there was little expansion. In any case in 2010, India’s GER was only 19.4% and increased to 25.2% in 2016–2017. Even today it is only about 27.1%, which is very low. It is also less than half of China’s. One reason could be that right up to the Eleventh Five Year Plan (2011–2016) the constant refrain had been consolidation rather than growth as has been pointed out during the course of the discussion on the evolution of policy. With liberalization and globalization, the expectations from higher education have expanded. Indian academics point out that higher education has been given multiple and diverse mandates because of a diverse job market. Students must be trained to become a qualified human resource for the private sector. In a liberalized economy, educational quality has got equated with the ability of students to succeed in the world of work and is measured by the employment rates, and more specifically, by their career earnings. Students also must be trained for research and publishing. Vocational training has been added on. And now, measuring up to world rankings also forms a part of the ever-expanding demands on higher education. However, this is not unique to India and the education system must come to terms with it.12 Unlike the economy, the HES was not unshackled by the tight grip of the bureaucracy. With the liberalization of the economy, the emphasis shifted to professional and technical education, and the private sector made good use of the opportunity that had opened. Hence, fresh initiatives came mainly from the private sector. Scientific, technical, and professional education had to be supported to deal with the economic

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challenges of globalization and the government itself gave the freedom to the All India Council of Technical Education to coordinate and monitor its growth including in a big way in the private sector. With the comparative unshackling of the private sector and the growth of the Indian economy, the job market diversified and pay packages and opportunities in the private sector far outstripped what was available in the area of education. This led to a shortage of faculty, which still reverberates at all levels of education Jobs lie vacant while good teachers have become a precious commodity. A task force was set up in September 2009 to study the situation. It found that in the central universities on average 35% of faculty positions were vacant. In some State universities, there were up to 70% unfilled positions. The most important challenge, therefore, was not just the expansion of education, but to also improve its quality and link it to societal needs and development goals. This could only be done with qualified and committed teachers. It led to a debate of quantity versus quality which is not very fruitful as both are needed.13

9.3 Need for Clarity A meaningful quality assurance system cannot be developed without conceptual clarity on what is expected of higher education. There is a logical connection between the aims that higher education sets out to fulfil and the various approaches to quality assurance. For instance, if higher education is seen as a process of enabling graduates to find employment, then obviously placement of students in the job market and a match between their knowledge and skills become important indicators of quality. Except for some pockets of excellence, the quality of higher education in India is at a low ebb. According to a study by Edexcel entitled, “Effective Education for Employment,” in 2009 there was a horrible mismatch between what was being taught in universities and colleges and the skills and behaviour that the businesses and organizations were looking for in new recruits. Hence, unemployable graduates were churned out in large numbers. The students felt that their education lacked relevance to the jobs they were hoping to apply for in the future. This caused large numbers of students to be absent from the classrooms, or drop out. If the aim of higher education is the intellectual development of the students and enhancing their capacity to acquire knowledge and develop understanding to apply it in varying life experiences, the focus has to be on whether the educational processes provided by faculty and institutions allow this goal to be met. If the aim is to do both, then the systems of higher education must be designed and evaluated accordingly.14 There are, therefore some fundamental questions to be asked: • What are perceived to be the aims and objectives of higher education both by the policymakers and the Indian academics? • Are the institutions performing well according to the goals set out for them?

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• Are changes being made in the institutions to keep pace with the changing context of the environment? • If not, what corrective steps are being taken? • There is a diverse range of institutional missions and hence should all institutions be mindlessly doing the same thing or do they have room to choose their mission and vision and devise programmes and academic structures accordingly? It is also important to ascertain how well an institution is performing as compared to other institutions. Unless the quality mission is clearly defined and quality gaps are known through assessment and accreditation, they cannot be filled.15 An institution, however, cannot be held solely responsible if it does not have the freedom to take its own decisions. It requires a degree of autonomy. This is an administrative or managerial requirement to fulfil the functions according to the educational objectives and quality requirements. The institution should be able to set its own standards and chart out its course of action. It should have a twofold, external and internal, enabling mechanism for course correction. To have a workable accountability system, there must be a desired goal in compliance with legal requirements, and the motivation to improve performance and find ways to measure progress towards the goal.16

9.4 The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) Assessment and accreditation were recommended in 1986. However, NAAC was only established in 1994, that is, it took eight years to implement the recommendations and another five for it to be made compulsory for higher education institutions.17 It was supposed to evolve parameters and indicators to capture both quantity and quality. To make the assessment of quality more objective, reliable, and valid, the quality parameters had to be quantified by capturing quantitative data wherever possible and validating the qualitative data by peer assessment. The core indicators would need to be identified under each criterion and questions framed accordingly. The quality of the institution could be evaluated as a whole or with reference to individual programmes. Assessing and accrediting programmes in addition to the institutional accreditation would have become too gigantic a task and hence NAAC opted to only assess institutions and not the individual programmes offered by them.18 NAAC was to assess universities and colleges as an external quality assurance agency. Simultaneously, the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) was set up by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for professional courses, mainly engineering. The others were regulated by their respective professional bodies. Currently, there are 14 regulatory bodies apart from the UGC.19 The basis of quality assessment by NAAC is the self-study report and the peer team visit. NAAC follows a four-stage process of accreditation and assessment, a practice followed by almost all quality assurance (QA) agencies:

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(1) The institution requests for assessment. (2) The institution prepares and submits a self-study report. (3) External peer team conducts on-site visits, at which the self-study report is validated and recommendations are drafted for the assessment outcome. (4) The peer team review report is shared with the head of the institution at the end of the visit and is then reported to the NAAC, together with a confidential recommendation on the grade. The final decision is taken in the fourth stage by the executive committee of the NAAC. It follows a five- or seven-year cycle. Currently, NAAC uses seven criteria for assessment: • • • • • • •

curricular aspects; teaching, learning, and evaluation; research, consultancy, and extension; infrastructure and learning resources; student support and progression; governance, leadership, and management; and innovations and best practices.

The key aspects under each criterion are listed. They have their own weightage according to the relative importance of the key aspect in the context of the type of institution. This is done because of the complexity of the system. There are affiliated colleges, aided or unaided, constituent colleges, and autonomous colleges. Similarly, a university may be an affiliating or unitary university. It may be a State or a Central institution according to where it is situated and who funds it. It may also be a private or a deemed university. These weights are used to calculate the cumulative grade point average score at the institutional level, according to the institution type.20 Since NAAC only assesses institutions and not individual departments or academic programmes, this may be said to be a lacuna as individual strengths do not get highlighted. Why did NAAC choose only institutional assessment? For one thing, assessing departments together with institutions would have made the magnitude of the task unmanageable. The second reason is the common phenomenon that in each department there are only a few teachers. If a couple of them move out, the quality of the department perhaps dwindles for a while and hence the earlier NAAC assessment may not be valid. Third, departments share common facilities like libraries and computer centres and hence their individual strengths vary according to whether their requirements are being fulfilled by these common facilities. Initially, NAAC started with a 10-point scoring scale according to which institutions were graded. Those getting from “A” to “C” were declared accredited and those with “D” and “E” as non-accredited. The first phase of NAAC was from 1994 to 1997. The assessment was voluntary. The institutional response to it was mixed. Hence, the first three years were spent in developing strategies to persuade institutions to accept the system. In Phase II from 1998 to 2001, the methodology was fine-tuned and NAAC was implemented. In the third phase from 2002 onwards, NAAC became mandatory as some stakeholders indicated that the outcome of NAAC would play

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a major role in taking decisions pertaining to the institution. The lowest cut-off for accreditation was set at 55%, and the highest “A” was 75% and above. In Phase I, rejection was the response of most institutions and only 29 institutions applied for accreditation by the end of three years. Most institutions were apprehensive about the relevance of NAAC. Further, they thought that a divide would be created between institutions that were rated high and the others. Also, the investment of human resources especially in the preparation of the self-study report was high, although in most cases, the teachers willingly cooperated and took the lead in completing the NAAC processes. Another apprehension was about the costs involved in the payment of the accreditation fee and the peer site visit. NAAC responded by extensively conducting seminars and discussions to create awareness and gain acceptability. It expanded its database of experts. Also, UGC and the state governments agreed to provide funds for assessment by NAAC. The Council itself interacted with international agencies to further fine-tune its criteria and methodology. At the end of three years, it brought out a publication entitled, Three Eventful Years of NAAC’s Existence in which it highlighted the developmental path taken. Thus, by the end of three years, the QA framework was in place, and NAAC too had built up its professional links. It was then ready to build on its experience. Phase II saw the implementation of NAAC although the process continued to evolve according to the feedback received. Many institutions felt that while grading, the diversity and constraints under which an institution worked needed to be factored in. The ten-point criteria were reorganized into seven categories with key aspects being placed in each category. NAAC also developed worksheets to facilitate the pre-visit preparations. It developed a Peer Team Document in which the data sheets, worksheets, and guidelines such as agenda for interactions were combined. In the orientation programmes, it was found that many HEIs were not very familiar with how to provide documentary evidence that involved the entire campus community. NAAC brought in training for its assessors in order to bring about consistency and objectivity in their evaluation. It was a step towards developing a “National Cadre of Assessors.” A NAAC officer was sent to the UK to study its assessment programme. To assess the effectiveness of its training strategy, an international observer was invited to be a part of one assessment visit made by the NAAC. To further strengthen peer assessment, NAAC evolved Pointers of Quality and Framework for Peer Assessment. The peers needed to follow these to synthesize the qualitative and quantitative inferences and arrive at a holistic judgement. The peers had to justify their value judgement for every key aspect of the functioning of an institution. NAAC’s Peer Team Document was designed to ensure consistency in the evaluation of the peers. It aided them in the process from the first tentative judgement to the final holistic assessment. The earlier grading system was reviewed. At level one it involved just putting the institution in two categories; accredited, and non-accredited. Only the accredited institutions were graded from A***** to the final A. By the end of the second phase, institutions had become confident of NAAC and more of them offered themselves for evaluation. State governments also encouraged

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their institutions to get NAAC evaluations. Members of NAAC attended many international conferences and seminars and collaborated with their counterparts in other countries to learn from their experiences. The third phase began in 2002. A general acceptance of NAAC was gradually taking place. In December 2001, the UGC constituted a Review Committee in response to the consensus arrived at a national consultation. The Committee submitted its recommendations in January 2002. While noting that the NAAC processes were well-defined and suited to the Indian HES, it made some suggestions to fine-tune the process.21 These pertained to making the self-study report more comprehensive, ensuring the quality of peer assessment, key aspects to be investigated during the assessment process, looking at research, initiating departmental accreditation, disclosure of criterion-wise scores, and initiating and introducing a nine-point scale for assessment. Of all these, the most significant was the change in the grading pattern. The system of “stars” that was followed in the second phase was criticized as promoting a “hotel” culture and the highest grade had a wide range, being from 75 to 100. After much debate and national consultations, the UGC committee on NAAC’s Policy and Procedures recommended a 9-point scale which was approved by the Executive Committee of NAAC in March 2002. It made a 9-point scale which was a combination of letter grades and pluses: (55- 60—C); (60–65—C + ); (65–70— C++); (70–75—B++); (75–80—B + ); (80–85—B); (85–90—A); (90–95—A + ); and (95–100—A++) (Table 9.1). The recommendations of the Review Committee and the changes in the grading system required retraining the assessors. It was decided during orientations and workshops that the changes could only be implemented in the following cycle. July 2017 onwards, the grading system is based on cumulative grade point average with its equivalent in letters. It is as follows: (3.51–4.00—A++ ); (3.26–3.50—A + ); (3.01– 3.25—A); (2.76–3.00—B++ ); (2.51–2.75—B + ); (2.01-2.50—B); (1.50-2.00—C); (less than 1.40—D, non-accredited)22 (Table 9.2). Table 9.1 Source NAAC, institutional accreditation manual for self-study report of universities, October 18, 2018

Marks

Letter Grade

Status

95–100

A++

Accredited

90–95

A+

Accredited

85–90

A

Accredited

80–85

B++

Accredited

75–80

B+

Accredited

70–75

B

Accredited

65–70

C++

Accredited

60–55

C+

Accredited

55–50

C

Accredited

Below 50

D

Not accredited

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Table 9.2 Source: NAAC institutional accreditation, manual for self-study report, universities October 18, 2018 Cumulative grade 11 average (CGPA)

Letter grade

Status

3.51–4.00

A++

Accredited

3.26–3.50

A+

Accredited

3.01–3.25

A

Accredited

2.76–3.00

B++

Accredited

2.51–2.75

B+

Accredited

2.01–2.50

B

Accredited

1.51–2.00

C

Accredited

1.00–1.50

D

Not accredited

Since UGC decided to support the institutions for NAAC in April 2004, and many States like Haryana, Maharashtra, and Karnataka made it mandatory, the volume of work for NAAC naturally increased. Therefore, the capacity was enhanced so that 200 institutions could be assessed in a month. An appeals mechanism was also established in 2004 but at that time only six appeals were received showing that the NAAC process had gained acceptance. Considering the field experience in accreditation, lessons from other quality assurance agencies and post-accreditation reviews, a methodology for re-accreditation was finalized by the Academic Advisory Committee of NAAC and was approved by its Executive Committee. The guidelines were sent to the two institutions that had been accredited in 1989–99 and 1999–2000. The re-accreditation accepts the central role of peers. The seven criteria of the first cycle remain the same. However, it has four unique features: institutional preparation; the core values to which every institution should be committed; the impact of the first assessment; and a more explicit focus on quality indicators. Institutions that wish to be re-accredited enter into a two-year preparation period or till re-accreditation is declared. In this period the institution has to work on two institutional requirements: establishing an Internal Quality Assessment Committee (IQAC) and using ICT for data management. The institution has to then submit the Re-accreditation Report (RAR) to NAAC. The core values cover a wide range. The institution must take note of the changing context of higher education because of the expansion of the system; the impact of technology on educational delivery; the impact of globalization and the emergence of the private sector. While skills must be developed among students keeping in mind the changing scenario in which higher education operates, the institutions must also ensure that they imbibe the values of social justice and contribute to national development. Technology needs to be widely used for the maximization of academic output and greater efficiency of management processes. The quest for excellence is a continuous process and the IQAC must continuously strive towards it. In the second round, the institution must demonstrate the impact of the first assessment and the changes bought about to enhance quality.

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A total score of 1000 points was developed taking into cognizance the diversity of HEIs with different indicators. In the Table 9.3, the indicators within each category have been removed and the total points awarded it are indicated. The AQAR or Annual Quality Assessment Report is supposed to be in two parts. The first is the electronic format or the e-format which has mostly quantitative data. The second part must be dealt with according to the seven criteria and their indicators. In all, the report must not exceed 100 pages. On receiving the report, the peer-review team does an in-house analysis and based on that the peer team visit is organized. It can be from two to four days, but the use of the electronic mode can reduce its duration. The assessment report must be shared with the institution before being placed before the Executive Committee for approval. Many academics felt that NAAC grading was not objective and did not reflect the quality of teaching–learning, which is the goal of any educational institution. The subjective element in the assessment of the peer-reviewed team has been confirmed by several NAAC assessors. When the assessors are new to the NAAC visit exercise, they tend to be more rigid. The experience of some of the institutions was that the assessors behaved as if they were on a supervision and monitoring visit and did not discuss anything nor try to understand the context of the institutions. A debate between subjectivity and objectivity with reference to institutional evaluation has continued till now, although there has been a general acceptance of NAAC credibility.23 Some further changes were made to the NAAC criteria perhaps in response to the criticism voiced in 2017. In the new quality indicator framework of NAAC, the overall weightage of 1000 spread across seven criteria remains the same as earlier. Similarly, the criterion-wise weightage across the seven criteria remains unchanged, but some changes have been made in the criteria itself. Criteria three and seven have been changed. Criterion 3 has changed from research, consultancy, and extension, to research, extension, and innovation. Criterion 7, which was earlier innovation and best practices, has been changed to institutional values and best practices. The role of the peer team visit has been rendered very limited. Three other significant changes have been made: Table 9.3 Source: NAAC, Institutional accreditation manual for self-study report, universities, October 2018 Criteria

University

Autonomous colleges

Affiliated colleges

Curricular aspects

150

150

100

Teaching learning and evaluation

250

300

400

Research, consultancy and extension

150

100

50

Infrastructure and learning process

150

150

150

Student progressive and support

100

100

100

Organization and management

100

100

100

Healthy practices

100

100

100

Total

1000

1000

1000

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(1) Two-thirds of the weightage to the quantitative data and the rest one-third to the team review score and student survey. (2) The student survey report is a necessary part of institutional assessment. (3) Off-site accreditation, based on the self-study report and data provided by the institutions in the fourth cycle of its accreditation. The validity of accreditation has been extended from five years to seven years for the institutions getting a high score in the third accreditation cycle and if they have consistently earned very high grades in the previous two cycles. The institutions achieving low scores or grades will have a shorter cycle of accreditation.24 While NAAC has set up an elaborate process of assessment and accreditation, which has won credibility and approval among most academics, its resources are obviously too meagre for the task in hand. According to the All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) in 2019–2020, only 372 universities had been accredited out of the 1043 universities that were listed. The situation has improved somewhat. By December 2021, 655 universities and 13,316 colleges out of over more than 42,000 colleges had been accredited. In any case, widespread quality cannot be ensured at this pace.25

9.5 Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) NAAC brought out the first set of guidelines for establishing IQAC in 2007 and then the revised guidelines in 2013.26 The UGC issued the Twelfth Plan guidelines for establishing and monitoring of IQACs in universities.27 While NAAC did not envisage IQAC to be yet another hierarchical structure or record-keeping exercise in the institution, almost all the universities and colleges have assigned it the task of record-keeping.28 The work of the IQAC was supposed to be the first step towards the internalization and institutionalization of quality enhancement initiatives. However, it can only succeed if the stakeholders of the institution have a sense of belonging and participation. If it plans thoughtfully, it can become a vehicle for quality enhancement. Its members being by and large from the institution itself are best suited to evolve strategies to remove deficiencies and improve quality.29 The UGC guidelines give the composition of IQAC.30 It should have at least eight senior teachers and one senior administrative official. Additionally, three external experts, well-versed in quality management are nominated by the Vice-Chancellor in consultation with the Academic Council of the university who are from the industry or the local community. The tenure of such nominated members is two years. The IQAC is expected to meet at least once a quarter. The IQACs are not as operational as expected. The structure and staffing of the IQAC differ across the institutions, based on the size and complexity, both at the university and college levels. According to UGC, the mission of IQAC is to arrange for periodic assessment and accreditation of institutions of higher education or their units or specific programmes or projects. It is supposed to stimulate the academic environment for the promotion

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of quality of teaching, learning and research, evaluation, accountability, autonomy, and innovations in higher education. And finally, it must collaborate with other stakeholders of higher education for quality evaluation, promotion, and sustenance. The primary aim is to develop a system for conscious, consistent, and catalytic action to improve the academic and administrative performance of institutions. It must promote measures for institutional functioning towards quality enhancement through the internalization of quality culture and institutionalization of best practices. A list is given which enumerates what strategies IQAC should evolve by which mechanisms and procedures for the following can be put into place: (a) Ensuring timely, efficient, and progressive performance of academic, administrative, and financial tasks; (b) Relevant and quality academic and research programmes; (c) Equitable access to and affordability of academic programmes for various sections of society; (d) Optimization and integration of modern methods of teaching and learning; (e) Credibility of assessment and evaluation process; (f) Ensuring the adequacy, maintenance, and proper allocation of support structures and services; (g) Sharing of research findings and networking with other institutions in India and abroad. Some of the functions of IQAC, according to the guidelines, are: (a) Development and application of quality benchmarks; (b) Developing parameters for various academic and administrative activities of the institutions. (c) Creating a learner-centric environment conducive to quality education and faculty. Maturation to adopt the required knowledge and technology for participatory teaching and learning process; (d) Collection and analysis of feedback from all stakeholders on quality-related institutional processes; (e) Dissemination of information on various quality parameters to all stakeholders; (f) Organization of inter- and intrainstitutional workshops, seminars on qualityrelated themes and promotion of quality circles; (g) Documentation of the various programmes and activities leading to quality improvement; (h) Acting as a nodal agency of the institution for coordinating quality-related activities, including adoption and dissemination of best practices; (i) Development and maintenance of institutional database through MIS for the purpose of maintaining and enhancing the institutional quality; (j) Periodical conduct of the academic and administrative audit and its follow-up; (k) Preparation and submission of the annual quality assurance report (AQAR) as per the guidelines and parameters of NAAC.31 If the IQAC fulfils its mandate, many benefits can accrue. IQAC would have ensured clarity and focus in institutional functioning towards quality enhancement.

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It would have helped to internalize quality culture; ensure enhancement and coordination among various activities of the institution and institutionalize all good practices. This would ensure, according to UGC, a sound basis for decision-making to improve institutional functioning and bring about dynamic quality changes. It would build an organized methodology of documentation and internal communication. If one reads the mission, objectives, and all the tasks that IQAC is supposed to perform, then one can only marvel at their breath and scope and wonder how an internal quality assurance committee can accomplish all this. It shows confused thinking on the part of regulatory authorities. The task has been set, which is virtually impossible to achieve. It is not surprising that field studies reveal that the implementation of IQAC is patchy. Many institutions still do not have awareness about the role of IQAC, and those who have set up IQAC, according to the NAAC guidelines have been unable to formally involve and integrate IQAC in the institutional functioning and the ongoing internal quality assurance processes at the department or programme level. As Anupam Pachauri points out, institutional data has not been properly maintained and hence IQAC gets reduced to a data collection centre. Even when data is available, it must be sorted out and that too according to NAAC. This is a challenge for the IQAC coordinators. Often there is a lack of cooperation and coordination among departments and the report of the IQAC, which should lead to the self-study report for NAAC ends up not being a well-researched and reflective document on the working of the institution towards quality maintenance or improvement. According to Pachauri, in some institutions going for their first grading cycle, even till the day of the NAAC visit, most faculty members were not aware of the existence and significance of a self-study report. It is not surprising that many institutions end up engaging private consultants to write reports for them in which the accuracy of the institution could be questionable. Institutions are supposed to undertake improvement activities for quality enhancement in the period of five years based on the feedback from the NAAC Peer Team in which IQAC is supposed to play a pivotal role. They must take action to implement the recommendations of NAAC, and this has to be reflected in the AQAR each year.32 The Report must be submitted to NAAC after the Governing Body or the designated authority of the institution approves it.33 The ground reality is that in many institutions the AQAR is not sent to NAAC regularly. In some institutions, faculty members feel that there should be a mechanism to monitor the IQACs. However, since the IQACs themselves are supposed to institutionalize the culture of quality, it is hardly appropriate to monitor them through an outside agency. It is the institutional participants who need to actively participate in the functioning of the IQAC. The IQAC in its present form, does not seem to have any statutory status either at the university level or at the college level in the sense that it is not established as a part of the statutes and ordinances of the institution. However, since an institution cannot go for a second round of accreditation till it has established its IQAC and shown that it is moving towards the Peer Team recommendations, it becomes incumbent to comply.

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If IQAC is to make tangible contributions beyond data collection, it has to be integrated into the institutional and departmental structures. While institutional leaders often point to the useful role that IQAC has played, the faculty members often question its impact in improving quality. The perceptions of the two have to become symmetrical if IQAC is to play a truly meaningful role and have a long-term impact. Conceptually, IQAC is the nodal centre at the institutional level, through which the impact of external quality assurance on the institutional workings can be captured. In the institutions going for the second and subsequent cycles of accreditation, the IQAC is responsible for following up on the suggestions of the peer-review team for the requisite action and reporting on it. Field studies, however, show that there are several administrative constraints that pose a hurdle in the functioning of the IQACs.34 There are some major constraints cited by the IQAC coordinators. One is the many positions lying vacant in both academic and non-academic staff. In the case of State universities, the delay in recruitment by the State governments affects institutional quality. The All India Survey of Higher Education, shows that a large number of teaching positions remain vacant consistently, every year. These vacancies are substituted by ad hoc or temporary teachers who are then exploited by the system by offering them short-term employment, which may not be considered as a valid experience for full-time employment. Also, the institutions face funding constraints so expenditure on teachers’ salaries gives little scope for investment in other activities related to teacher development and research. Therefore, IQAC can hardly encourage or promote research which is a necessary ingredient of quality in higher education. Another functional constraint is that in many cases a dedicated staff and office infrastructure is not available for the IQAC because it is not perceived to have a functional role on a day-to-day basis. A further complexity arises because the initiative for quality assurance that an institution might want to take is constrained by the national system of regulation, dictated by UGC and MHRD, that institutions must follow. They are tightly regulated and even a minor deviation risks loss of funds. In various States, institutions are similarly governed by the State higher education departments. It is hard to say, therefore, whether the changes in HEIs have occurred because of the IQACs or due to the mandates of the regulatory bodies. Old universities and colleges have set established mechanisms of academic audit that they have been following for several years and they find it hard to break those habits. There are institution-specific regulatory bodies like MCI and others, which impose their own requirements. Often different regulatory bodies have contradictory demands on the institution about which the IQACs can do nothing. Although institutions have developed formats of feedback from various stakeholders including students and alumni, large chunks of the feedback data remain unanalysed and hence not used for improving the quality of the course or teacher or department or institution. In addition, the feedback and action on student feedback require an attitudinal shift among the faculty members. Hence, its impact on the teaching–learning processes is not palpable.35 According to the NAAC guidelines, conducting an academic audit is considered one of the activities of the IQAC. However, this has not been made mandatory by

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NAAC. Generally, IQAC coordinators are understandably hesitant because institutions feel that an academic audit is not necessary to do so. Many institutional coordinators are apprehensive that giving suggestions to institutional higher authorities for improvement of procedures and functions could lead to controversies. The suggestions of the IQAC may not be uniformly appreciated by all in the institution. Therefore, the IQACs feel safer in performing only the mandatory activities. Also, the coordinators would feel more confident if proper training and workshop for IQAC members could be arranged by NAAC to enable them to conduct an unbiased and objective audit. It is surprising that despite many workshops and seminars conducted by different colleges, the functions of IQAC, including its duties and responsibilities including those of the coordinators are not clear to many institutions. It has also been suggested that a manual be prepared explaining the functions of IQAC, which could serve as guidelines. What this means is that institutions and the coordinators see themselves in a principle–agent relationship or subservient relationship with the government and the regulatory bodies.36 There has been a perennial top-down approach in the functioning of institutions. In addition, they are accustomed to receiving instructions from the government, UGC, and other regulatory bodies, which inhibits efforts to change from within. Worldwide experience shows that the roadmap for quality must be created internally within the institutions. Hence, institutions need to strengthen IQAC and make it more effective. Leadership in higher education has not been driven at the institutional level. The system itself has embedded within it a sort of master–servant relationship regarding the regulatory bodies and the institutions. To create a shared vision and a clear understanding of institutional values, mutual trust is required rather than directions from the top. The situation becomes worse in large-sized institutions which have become difficult to manage by the institutional leaders. This is especially true of State universities as many of them have hundreds of colleges affiliated with them. As discussed, while elaborating on the evolution of policy, Rashtriya Ucchhatar Shiksha Abhiyan or RUSA was launched in 2013 by the Central Government to work on State universities and deal with their challenges to quality. RUSA recommended the bifurcations of universities into small-sized universities, setting up of new universities in underserved locations and transferring the affiliated colleges to the new universities, so that the existing universities could be better managed. However, nothing much has come of this.37

9.6 Some Other Measures for Improvement of Quality At different points in time, steps have been taken to improve the quality of higher education. The affiliating system, although initially seen as bringing standards and quality to the colleges affiliated with the university has become a nightmare to the system. The distortions in the system have ensured that the affiliating university spends inordinate amounts of time administering these colleges, while the colleges

9.6 Some Other Measures for Improvement of Quality

225

themselves are suffocatingly bound to the university through rigid structures and a lack of academic autonomy. The UGC guidelines of 2003 clearly recommended establishing 500 autonomous colleges and autonomous departments within select universities. The UGC document on the Eleventh Plan profile of higher education in India (2007–2012) clearly stated, “the only safe and better way to improve the quality of undergraduate education is to delink most of the colleges from the affiliating structure.” Colleges with academic and operative freedom are doing better and have more credibility. It was proposed to increase the number of autonomous colleges. An autonomous college would have the freedom to determine and prescribe its own courses of study and syllabi; restructure and redesign the courses to suit local needs; prescribe rules for admission in consonance with the reservation policy of the State government; evolve methods of assessment of student performance, the conduct of examinations, and notification of results; use modern tools of educational technology to achieve higher standards and greater creativity; and promote healthy practices such as community service, extension activities, projects for the benefit of the society at large and neighbourhood programmes. Many accredited and eligible colleges were reluctant to take up autonomy for which the reason probably was “resistance to change” and lack of adequate information flow. There were apprehensions that this would be the first step towards privatization; that the government would either withdraw funding or drastically reduce it forcing institutions to raise their own resources. Also, teachers did not want their terms and conditions of service to change consequently. Very few colleges opted for autonomy. However, while states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala took the lead in applying for autonomy, the scheme has not been very popular.38 As has been discussed in the evolution of policy, the UGC established a National Eligibility Test (NET) to ensure that only qualified teachers teach in HEIs. It has been pointed out earlier too that NET was highly contentious and the battle between the teachers and the UGC reached the Delhi High Court. It was only settled when the court verdict went against the aspiring teachers and they were forced to comply. It has now become an established practice, although a review mechanism needs to be put into place to bring it in line with the changing requirements of the subjects to be taught and their pedagogy.39 Also, from time to time, grants from different agencies have been made available. The allocation of finances is done under various categories such as University with Potential for Excellence, Centre for Potential for Excellence and Colleges with Potential for Excellence. Grants come from different sources like the UGC Plan grants, RUSA, the Department of Science and Technology, and so on. In 2017, the UGC established a scheme for Institutes for Potential for Excellence. These institutions were to be given more academic and administrative freedom and permission to open offshore campuses. While public sector universities were given large grants under this scheme, which was an outcome of NAAC recommendations, the private sector universities were not eligible for any funding. The impact of the scheme must be carefully evaluated because one has to be careful to distinguish between the funding

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that an eligible institution can apply for and the routine grants for the maintenance of ongoing institutional activities.40

9.7 Quality Consciousness The attempts at achieving academic and institutional quality show that quality consciousness is still at a nascent stage in India. The approach is piecemeal and at best experimental. As long as institutions remain under the thumb of the regulatory authorities, they will never develop independence of thought and the ability to chart out their own course required for aspiring for excellence. After 75 years of being rigorously ruled by the regulatory authorities, HEIs in particular have become like prisoners who have begun to like their prison and feel comfortable in it. Unless institutions have a dream to be counted among the best, they will not be. And without that, they cannot make a name for themselves. There is not much point in rejoicing over NIRF ranking as the competition is only internal. The institutions must compete with the best in the world and see where they stand.

9.8 Different Paths, Different Goals China, unlike India, has been very clear since 1978 that its HEIs and the whole HES have to be ranked as among the best in the world. It has shown a single-minded determination to achieve this goal and hence has evolved policies to chart out the path towards it. It has not allowed ideological factors to inhibit it. Rather, it has been pragmatic in its approach. While dealing with institutions, the government has tried to persuade, rather than sledgehammer enforcement. However, the very system of governance ensures compliance. India’s goals and aims, in contrast, have not been very clear. It has tried to create quality institutions, but the implementation of policy has been sporadic and fragmentary. There has also not been a clearly enunciated aim to compete with the best. The governance and regulatory authorities have not succeeded in building a quality consciousness in the system or among academics. Instead, a large number of ideological debates and a lack of consequences for non-compliance have bogged down the system at least up to this point. This is not to say that no progress has been made. There are pockets of excellence, but these are few and far between. The IITs and IIMs have made a name for themselves and the government support for them can be seen, in some way, as a counterpart to the Chinese government’s support to Project 211, Project 985 and the Double First Class Universities but the numbers are too few compared to China. In any case, they do not count in the world ranking system being discussed. The NEP 2020 if properly and steadfastly implemented can put India on the path of growth, modernization, and excellence.

Notes

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Notes 1.

2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

Bishal Kalita, “Times World University Rankings 2021: No Indian University in Top 300; 7 IITs Had Boycotted the Process,” NDTV Education, September 2, 2020. “Record 71 universities make it to the Times World University Rankings,” The Economic Times, 28th June 2020. Furqan Qamar, “Measuring Performance of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF),” in N.V.Varghese, Anupam Pachauri, Sayantan Mandal (ed,) India Higher Education Report, 2017: Teaching, Learning and Quality in Higher Education, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, Delhi: Sage, 2018, p. 47. Mariamma Varghese, “Quality and Accountability in Higher Education,” in Varghese et al. Indian Higher Education Report, 2017 op.cit., p. 255. G.D. Sharma, “World University Ranking Systems: Are They Indicators of Quality,” in Varghese et al (ed.) Indian Higher Education Report, op.cit. pp. 38–39. Furqan Qamar, “Measuring Performance of Higher Education Institutions,”p. 49. “This is why India started its own university ranking system.” The Economic Times, 22nd June, 2022. PTM Marope, Peter J. Wells, Ellen Hazelkorn, UNESCO Global Forum Rankings and Accountability in Higher Education: Uses and Misuses, 2013, https://unesdoc.unesco.org. G.D.Sharma, “World University Ranking Systems: Are They Indicators of Quality, op.cit. Maria Yudkevich, Philip G. Altbach, Laura E, Rumbley, The Global Academics Ranking Game: Changing Institutional Policy, Practice, and Academic Life, Routledge, 2016, loc. 215-285. Supriya Chaaudhuri, “Managing Quality and Excellence,” in N.V.Varghese, Garima Malik, (ed.) Governance and Management of Higher Education, India Higher Education Report, National Institute of Educational Planning and Development, Delhi: Sage, July 2020, p. 235. A Methodology for Ranking of Universities and Colleges in India, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, https://www.nir findia.org. Furqan Qamar, “Measuring Performance of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), op.cit. pp. 45–46. Ibid, pp. 46–48. Ibid, pp. 49–50. Ibid, pp. 51–52. Abhay Maurya and Samarjit Paul Choudhary, “Ranking of Institutions of Higher Education-Indian Perspective- Critical Analysis,” Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal) 4985, https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/4985. Indian Rankings 2021, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Government of India. Mariamma Varghese, “Quality and Accountability in Higher Education,” Varghese et al. op.cit. pp. 256–258. Chiranjib Sen, “Availability and Shortages of Teachers in Higher Education,” Varghese et al. op.cit. pp.111–112. Mariamma Varghese, _Quality and Accountability in Higher Education,” Varghese et al. op.cit, p. 259. Ibid, pp. 262–263. Ibid., p. 264. The National Accreditation Regulatory Authority Bill. 2010, Ministry of Human Resource Development, https://prsindia.org/billtrack/th-national-accreditation-regulatory-aut hority-for-higher-education-institutions-bill-2010. Neha Shroff, “Quality Issues of Higher Education Using NAAC Data,” International Journal of Business and Administration Research, Vol. 3, Issue15, July–September, 2016, https://www. researchgate.net.

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19. Anupam Pachauri, “Effects of External and Internal Quality Assurance on Indian Higher Education Institutions,” Varghese et al. op.cit. p. 318. 20. Ibid, pp. 303–304. 21. A Decade of Dedication to Quality Assurance, NAAC: https://naac.gov.in. 22. P.S.Aithal and Shubhrajyotsna Aithal, “A Comparative Study on Research Performance of Indian Universities with NAAC A++ grade Accreditation,” International Journal of Management, Technology, and Social Sciences, 6(1), pp. 253–285. 23. Anupam Pachauri, “Effects of External and Internal Quality Assurance on Higher Education Institutions.” Varghese et al. op.cit. p. 323. 24. Ibid. pp. 324–326. 25. NAAC Guidelines for the Creation of IQAC, NAAC, an autonomous institution of UGC, http://naac.gov.in. 26. Manish Roushan, Future of Higher Education in India: The Quality Management Shift and Beyond NAAC, August 2021, pp. 20–40. 27. XII Plan Guidelines for Establishment and Monitoring of the Internal Quality Assurance Cells (IQACs) in universities (2012–2017), www.ugc.ac.in. 28. Guidelines for the Creation of Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) and Submission of Annual Quality Assurance Report (AQAR) by Accredited Institutions (For Affiliated Colleges) Revised on 20th February 2020, National Assessment and Accreditation Council, http://nacc. gov.in. 29. NAAC Guidelines for the Creation of the Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) and Submission of Annual Quality Assurance Report (AQAR) in Accredited Institutions., http://naac.gov. in. 30. XII Plan Guidelines for Establishment and Monitoring of the Internal Quality Assurance Cells, https://www.ugc.ac.in. 31. Ibid. NAAC Guidelines for the Creation of the Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) and Submission of Annual Quality Assurance Report op.cit. 32. Anupam Pachauri, Varghese et al. op.cit. pp. 314–317. 33. XII Plan Guidelines for Establishment and Monitoring of the Internal Quality Assurance Cell. 34. Anupam Pachauri, in Varghese et al op.cit.. pp. 316–317. 35. B.S.Madhukar, “Managing Quality at Institutional Level,” in Varghese et al. op.cit. p. 282. 36. Anupam Pachauri, in Varghese et al. op.cit. p. 321. 37. B.S.Madhukar, in Varghese et al. op.cit. pp. 286–290. Anupam Pachauri in Varghese et al op.cit. p. 297, and p. 303. 38. B.S.Madhukar, in Varghese et al. op.cit. p. 27. 39. Anupam Pachauri, in Varghese et al. op.cit, p. 297. 40. Anupam Pachauri, op.cit. p. 322.

Chapter 10

The Way Forward

Both China and India have laid out their plans for education, each according to where it stands in the present. Both countries started out at almost the same time, China with the establishment of PRC in 1949, and India becoming a free nation in 1947. Both countries had large numbers to be educated for which resources had to be found and infrastructure put in place. Unlike India, China made education the pivot of its growth and development in all spheres. Also, unlike India, it was determined to compete with the developed countries and reach the top in education and through it, in the global polity. Accordingly, it formulated all its plans in education, except in the period of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution when higher education was destroyed. However, education itself was not lost sight of as it was firmly linked to agriculture and industry, class differences were sought to be erased and a network of education was established all over the countryside. Deng Xiaoping could build on it and resurrect formal education from the primary to the higher education levels. He reversed Mao’s policies to a large extent building his policies on pragmatism of learning especially in science and technology from wherever expertise and scholarship were available irrespective of ideology, while keeping a tight control over institutions and society. The Party was supreme, and once decisions had been taken, they had to be implemented. India, on the other hand, made education one of its goals but not the pivot of its growth and development. Unlike in China, a colonial system of education had already been established. In spite of dissatisfaction with it, it was not only allowed to continue, but also expanded. There was also no preoccupation about reach the top in education although a few quality institutions were established early after independence at the behest of the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, like the IITs, IIMs, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, and others. Some universities also made a name for themselves like the Banaras Hindu University, University of Delhi, Jamia Milia Islamia, JNU, and others. However, the focus was not on education. Since it was not the pivot of economic growth, it did not also get directly linked to the national and societal needs as it did in China. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 K. A. Sharma, India and China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5628-9_10

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China’s efforts in education as also in health, nutrition, and infrastructure have obviously paid off. In 1987, the GDP of both China and India was almost equal. China became slightly ahead of India in 1990. But then it sprinted ahead, and currently, China’s economy is five times that of India. The growth in economy parallels the growth and development of education, particularly higher education. In 1990, China’s GER in higher education was abysmally low, only about 3–4%. By 2010 it climbed to 30%. Currently it is 57.8%. India’s GER was 3.97%. In 2011–2012 it was 17.9%. Currently it is 27.1%. Hence it can be seen that the gap in both higher education and in economy has grown between China and India. And it is not just a matter of numbers as reflected in the GERs of the two countries. As per the latest rankings, there are 22 Chinese universities in the top 500 as compared to 9 from India. The gap is also evident in research output and impact. Indian institutions had a low level of research output while China has consistently focused on research as can be seen in its investments in Projects 211, 985 universities and in the current project of Double First-Class Universities. The two countries have formulated their future plans keeping their realities in mind.

10.1 China In the 19th People’s Congress held from the October 18 to 25, 2017, Presidency Xi Jinping unambiguously declared that the aim was to build a modern socialist society with Chinese characteristics, by 2050.1 This has been a consistent goal. Deng Xiaoping had said that this would be done in three stages. President Xi Jinping outlined two. One is from 2020 to 2035 and the second from 2036 to 2050. Within the 2020–2035 stage, the goals of the first five years are laid out in the Fourteenth Five Year Plan, 2021–2025.2 Presidency Xi Jinping is the guiding spirit behind the outlined future development. His thought was made a part of the Chinese Constitution during the 19th Congress, the first time since Mao Zedong, the founder of the PRC, was given this honour.3 In September 2018, while attending a National Education Conference, President Xi Jinping remarked that China’s focus in education needed to shift from capacity to quality and that the modernization of education should support the modernization of China. In 2019, the Chinese State Council published two significant plans for the continued reform of the education sector and its advancement.4 While these drew on preceding reforms, they added a few new elements. The first document was China’s education modernization 2035 Plan, and the second was the implementation plan for accelerating the modernization of education. The 2035 Plan covers all levels of education. The broad goals enumerated are: • Establish a modern education system. • Achieve universal attendance in quality preschool education. • Provide high-quality and balanced compulsory education (years 1 to 9).

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• • • • •

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Achieve maximum attendance in senior high school (years 10 to 12). Improve vocational education significantly. Build a more competitive education system. Provide adequate education for disabled children and youth. Establish a new education management system with participation from the whole society, that is not relying solely on government support.

To achieve these goals, the 2035 Plan identifies several tasks including: improving teacher quality and the education infrastructure including laws, policies, qualifications framework, evaluation and assessment; reducing disparity and universalizing access to education; promoting lifelong learning; and modernizing all education sectors, with particular focus on preschool and Vocational and Education Training (VET). The implementation plan also sets out the actions to be taken in each of these given tasks. These include priorities that have been included in other documents dovetailing with overall national strategies. One priority is the integration of industry and vocational education in the Implementation Plan on National Vocational Education Reform, the Belt and Road Education Action Plan, and the Midwest Region Development Promotion Plans. The last is part of The State Council General Office Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Education in the Midwest, and the Midwest Higher Education Promotion Plan (2012–2020). A comprehensive evaluation system is to be further developed with respect to the existing policies. For example, the Implementation Plan calls for more efficiency and transparency in the management of Sino-foreign joint ventures. The distribution of Confucius institutes has to be optimized and the Chinese language learning promoted further. The international collaboration goals are to continue, but there is to be more focus on the B&R initiative.5 While many of the earlier initiatives are continued, some new steps and focus points have been added. Regions are prioritized in the 2035 Plan and in the implementation plans. These are mainly the eastern and the coastal regions that have development agendas of their own, like Xiong’an, the Greater Bay Area and Hainan.6 Xiong’an, established in April 2017, is about a hundred kilometres southwest of Beijing. Its main function is to serve as a development hub for the Beijing–Tianjing– Hebei economic triangle. The Greater Bay Area is a convenient term used for the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau integrated economic area, which is an export hub. It is supposed to take a globally leading role by 2035. Hainan is the southern tip of China from where most of the other provinces get their raw materials of agriculture, marine, and mineral products. It is a free trade zone. The reforms are tailored keeping in mind the strengths of the various areas. In Xiong’an, priority is to be given to basic and vocational education; in the Greater Bay Area, to the efficient exchange of higher education technology and information within the area to enable the mobility of professionals; and in Hainan, basic education is the focus but it must dovetail into its free trade zone status. Efforts are to be continued to reduce education disparities, especially in compulsory and vocational education in agriculture.7

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10.2 Integration with the Industry The State Council issued a comprehensive reform plan for VET.8 Since February 2019, work was being done on the double high initiative and the AI plus X model. In December 2019, the Ministries of Education and Finance, published the final decision for inclusion in the double high initiative. It registered 197 higher vocational institutions. Out of these, 56 were for institutional development; for the balance 141, distinct disciplines needed to be developed. To enhance industrial integration in the VET, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), together with the MoE released a work plan in October 2019, under which medium- to large-sized private enterprises were required to run apprenticeship-type programmes by 2022. Initially, 20 enterprises were supposed to participate from a range of sectors that included agriculture, manufacturing, ICT, automotive and shipbuilding, aerospace, steel and metallurgy, energy and transportation, energy-saving and environment, and finance and social services. Shanghai is in the lead having implemented the modern apprenticeship system in 2019, which it had been piloting since 2016. It trained over 8600 apprentices in the pilot programme. The integration of education and vocational training is certainly a step in the right direction but the difficulty arises in the assessment and evaluation of vocational and technical education. While research output can be accurately evaluated, both in terms of quantity and quality through parameters developed by the various world ranking systems, there is no corresponding system to accurately evaluate the quality of vocational education and training. The best that can be done is to compare with institutions in developed countries where quality vocational education is imparted.9

10.3 Use of Smart Technologies The Covid-19 pandemic catapulted the entire world into online education. An essential requirement for the successful implementation of online education is the widespread availability of the Internet and adequate digital capacity. Without this, the digital divide creates huge societal problems, as experienced in varying degrees in different countries. In June 2019, there were 854 million Internet users, 61.2% of the population in China. This included 239 online education users.10 Seven months after the release of the 2035 Plan, a joint circular was issued by 10 ministries, together with the Ministry of Education. It stated that online delivery of education, Internet, big data, and artificial intelligence or AI must be more widespread. This would ensure a better variety and quality of educational services to be delivered. The aim is not only increasing online education but also to perfect it to the extent possible. After the onset of the pandemic, the MoE ordered, “The suspension of school… Not learning.” Therefore, 22 online education platforms were consolidated to offer 24,000 online courses free of charge to Chinese HEIs from February 7, 2020. The Ministry of Education also launched a national cloud classroom platform for primary

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and secondary education so that students could access study materials in a variety of ways: smart phones, computers, and television. All these measures enabled around 189 million school students and 38 million higher education students to study from home.11 Online education is here to stay, and hence the educational infrastructure created will be very useful. The development plan of the State Council in 2017 on using artificial intelligence in education, right from the primary and middle school to secondary and post-secondary education, was evidence of China’s preparation for the use of smart technologies.12 The revised high school IT curriculum moved forward from the teaching of using computers and the Internet. The focus shifted to data, algorithms, Information Systems and Society. Two credits of 18 classroom hours in each year of high school, that is 36 classroom hours altogether, were added to the IT curriculum. The IT curriculum advanced rapidly from computer literacy to an understanding and widespread use of AI. In April 2018, the Ministry of Education announced “Education Informatization 2.0 action plan” to bring about a shift in IT education from dedicated resources to shared resources. The IT skills of the students needed to be raised so that steps could be taken from integrated application to integrated innovation. An additional education aim is to inculcate an interdisciplinary way of thinking, by combining STEM with AI. AI plus X programs were set up to explore the impact of AI on society. Through AI plus X, students have access to compound majors and cross-disciplinary integration of AI with mathematics, computer science, physics, biology, sociology, law, and other fields.13 In April 2018, a specific plan for the development of AI for higher education was announced. Students would be encouraged to study in countries that had developed quality AI. Institutions were encouraged to set up international collaborations in AI. Top universities like Shanghai Jiao Tong established research institutes or centres on AI, which began working in 2018, and 32 colleges of AI have been established. In the quest of becoming a world leader in AI, the MoE, NDRC, and the Ministry of Finance issued a joint circular in January 2020 to further the promotion of AI in postgraduate education, and undergraduate majors in AI were approved.14 For AI to be accepted, it must be made available to the people. Accepting this, technology professionals are encouraged to increase public awareness of AI. In 2017, The Ministry of Science and Technology announced the first national platforms for the innovation and development of new generation Chinese AI. These were the National Platforms for Autonomous Driving with Baidu, Medical Imaging with Tencent, City Brain with Ali Baba, and the Voice Recognition with iFlytech. The intention is to open up AI to the public sector and facilitate its production. These platforms are supposed to enable greater participation of scientists in spreading AI education to all sections of society.15

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10.4 The Double First-Class Initiative The Double First-Class University project that ended in 2020 was extended up to 2035 in the second phase of the project.16 The MoE, Ministry of Finance, the Economic Planning Agency, and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly made the announcement. Two things stood out: the effort had been made to reduce the unevenness of the development of education, which was earlier criticized; and the search is for need-based solutions rather than the one-size-fits-all approach. The selected universities have been aligned in their teaching and research with the country’s strategic needs as stated in various documents. Universities are expected to play a role in technology-driven growth and self-sufficiency in science and technology. They have a responsibility to promote the country’s policies. This is an outcome of rivalry and competition with the USA. Consequently, 12 top universities have been designated to develop competitive advantage in frontier technologies.17 The goal is to shift China from a manufacturing-driven economy to one propelled by entrepreneurship and innovation. This is possible only when the universities concentrate on innovation and technology. This shift is also required by the changing demographics of China. The population is on an ageing curve and despite changing the one-child policy and allowing up to three children; there has not been a favourable response to it from the people. Therefore, there will be lesser number of working hands available in the future, and, simultaneously, the older population will need to be looked after. This changing demography has to be offset by technology and innovation. China will also find it difficult to continue generating economic wealth through its model of cheap labour to produce goods, which can then be exported at extremely competitive prices. With the rise in the country’s educational levels, and increasing economic affluence, labour costs have also risen.18 Attention has turned to disciplines like entrepreneurship. Undergraduate employment is encouraged and research for postgraduates strengthened. Other measures include better accountability and quality. The goal is to further the improvements achieved in the first phase and to achieve breakthroughs in innovations in the relevant fields. The universities are to be given greater autonomy to meet their targeted goals. This, however, brings with it its own responsibilities. While selected universities will be given funding support for departments and specific disciplines, they must meet the performance targets. If they fail, they can be removed from the project in the following year. Penalties had been proposed in Project 211 and Project 985 but never implemented. Now the government is serious about them. As many as 16 disciplines in 15 universities have been warned that they are lagging. Public warnings have been given to 14 disciplines in 13 universities, stating that they will be re-evaluated in 2023, and if they fail to satisfy, they will be transferred out from the project. Because of their excellent performance in the past, Peking and Tsinghua universities have special autonomous status with the freedom to develop whatever disciplines they choose without evaluation by the Ministry. Seven new institutions have been added to the 140 in the first phase:

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Shanxi University in Shanxi province. Xiangtan University in Hunan. Nanjing Medical University in Jiangsu. Guangzhou Medical University in Guangdong. Southern University of Science and Technology. SUSTech, in Shenzhen in Guangdong. Shanghai Tech University in Pudong district of Shanghai.

They cover 330 disciplines, including science, engineering, medicine, social sciences, agriculture, and environment. They have about 59 programmes in basic sciences, 180 in engineering, and 92 in philosophy and social sciences. There is greater emphasis on applied sciences, although innovation depends on the basic sciences. In the second phase disciplines rather than entire universities have been identified for funding. One reason for this deviation from the first phase is because it is possibly easier to raise standards of a couple of disciplines in a university than to do it across the board. It also enables the government to cast its net wider and get geographical diversity because good departments can be found even in a medium-ranked university. Two medical universities have been included in the list indicating that public health and research in life sciences are also areas of focus. Another new criterion for inclusion is that the university should be able to meet the regional and industrial needs of the area where it is located so that it can make a meaningful contribution to society. This will ensure better integration of the university with industry. In March 2021, the Ministry of Education’s Department of Science, Technology, and Informatics work plan stated that R&D must be converted into commercial innovations. Therefore, just a 10-year-old university like the SUSTech University was included. The University has industrial links in precision medicine, financial technology, and digital economy. Its Applied Mathematics Centre was set up in 2020 as one of the first batch of 13 National mathematics centres in China. It is hosted by Shenzhen University, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and the China Electronics Tech Group Corp. The university has developed research and supercomputing and fast algorithms in collaboration with State giants like Huawei, MindRay, Tencent, and BGI.19

10.5 International Collaboration In spite of difficulties with the USA and many European countries, international collaboration remains a part of China’s plans as can be seen in its fourteenth five year plan (2021–2025). This is an acknowledgement that China still needs the developed countries for frontline and cutting-edge research in science and technology and in the basic sciences. However, the government is aware of its worsening relationship with the USA and other Western countries like the UK, Canada, Australia, and some

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EU countries. International exchange and collaboration will consequently decrease. The Western countries might impose more restrictive measures on access to the most advanced or sensitive technology as also on collaboration in training doctoral students and young researchers. It could also become more difficult for top-level international researchers in important and sensitive disciplines, to come and work in China and in developing its basic research and technology. Restrictions may also be imposed on R&D activities the impact of which could be quite severe. These countries may specifically deny China the dual-use technologies, those that can be used for both civilian and military purposes. China has therefore adopted the dual-circulation policy.20 While it will increase the expertise and knowledge of the faculty and students through collaboration with developed countries and their top-ranking universities, it will continuously build-up the faculty, research, and teaching capacities at home. One will strengthen the other. The plan is to increase the domestic capability of innovation by undertaking basic and innovative research, promoting its commercialization, transferring patent rights from the government to the innovators to provide an incentive, and other such measures. Internationally, the effort will be to acquire the most advanced technology, jointly produced a higher level of research, conduct collaborative research, build overseas centres for basic research, and use open technology. The strategy is to stimulate domestic demand and support international export.

10.6 Gaokao or Entrance Exam China’s gruelling entrance examination for higher education, Gaokao, is being changed further. These changes are evident from the Gaokao Assessment System Handbook as published by the Ministry of Education in January 2020. The function of the Gaokao is to evaluate the all-round development of an individual and not just assess the academic outcomes. The all-round development of students includes morals, intellectual fitness, academic abilities, appreciation of aesthetics, and capacity to work hard. Physical education is emphasized as part of the well-rounded development in the 2035 Plan, which seeks to strengthen sports education and practical abilities. The importance of people-to-people exchanges in sports and arts is highlighted. In January 2018, a joint circular was released to outline the plan to promote physical activities for the youth. It specified the goals to be achieved by 2050, which included the students getting at least one hour of physical workout every day. Strength training was seen as essential for sports teachers and international collaborations were to be encouraged. In September 2019, the State Council released the sports development scheme, Outline for Building the Leading Sports Nation. It stated that key personnel had to be supported to study sports-related courses, and they can also receive training abroad.21

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10.7 Modernization Plans After the 2035 Plan and its implementation plan were released, many provincial governments announced their action plans. Beijing’s plan is that by 2035 the city will attain education modernization, and its education system will be at par with other developed countries by 2050. In 2020, National /development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced the first batch of education modernization projects that it would support through central financing. Henan was to receive funding for 300 educational projects in which, it would concentrate on poverty alleviation. According to a government release, 266 infrastructure projects out of these would focus on improving the living conditions of teachers in poverty-stricken areas. Then 21 projects were on compulsory education, 10 on vocational education to improve industrial integration; two for senior high school construction projects; and two for higher education projects aimed at the development of the Midwestern region. Henan’s plans have one institution extra for which it will presumably use its own resources. Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region would have 37 projects, most of which will concentrate on the construction of campuses for compulsory education.22

10.8 Socialism with Chinese Characteristics Underlying all the reform is the unambiguous emphasis on the promotion of Xi Jinping’s thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics across all levels of education. The Party must always remain supreme. Xi Jinping had vowed to take control of the universities in 2016 and he has been steadily doing that. It has led to protests by students, a rare phenomenon in China. As part of the effort to bring about socialism with Chinese characteristics, labour education is a compulsory course for all primary and secondary schools, and HEIs since March 2020. Many in China feel that the country has lost its way and has emulated countries like the USA, which will have adverse consequences for the Chinese society. China must rise to the top position in the global polity, grounded in its own cultural ethos and traditions. Labour education is an essential component of the Chinese socialist education system. These moves are inevitably reminiscent of Mao. Labour education is supposed to cultivate the right view of the world, life, and values so that students develop respect for labour and an interest in doing it.

10.9 India The much-awaited National Education Policy 2020 (NEP-2020) came 30 years after its predecessor released in 1986 and amended in 1992. The world has changed dramatically since then. The 1986 policy was formulated before globalization and the digital

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revolution, the NEP-2020 has been formulated keeping education 4.0 in mind, taking cognizance of the needs of every section of society as far as possible. Before its formulation, an unprecedented amount of consultation took place. The government received over 200,000 suggestions from 250,000 g panchayats, 6600 blocks, 6000 urban local bodies, and 600 districts. In May 2016, a committee under the chairmanship of TSR Subramanian provided inputs for the evolution of a new education policy. In June 2017, a committee was established under the chairmanship of Dr K. Kasturirangan was to formulate the new education policy. The draft report was submitted on 31 May 2019.23

10.10 The Thought Behind NEP-2020 The principles that guided the committee have been stated in the Preamble, which gives a broad framework, the details of which are found in the body of the policy. The new education system considers the life goals of each citizen while being consistent with the development goals of the country. It seeks to create a just and equitable society.24 To achieve this end, it has made recommendations to revamp all aspects of the education system and create an ecosystem, drawing upon India’s traditions and value systems, right up to the aspirational goals of the 21st- century education. It takes cognizance of various international declarations like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the iconic report, “Learning: The Treasure Within” of the International Commission on Education for the 21st-century chaired by Jacques Dolores. It allies itself with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goal 4—Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Five of the seven targets of Goal 4 focus on quality education and learning outcomes. It is an all-encompassing goal, which is global applicable.25 While drawing on the educational heritage of India, the NEP-2020 takes into cognizance the 1986 Policy as modified in 1992. It recognizes that its implementation has been incomplete. Since then, the 86th Amendment of the Indian Constitution has made elementary education a fundamental right. The NEP-2020 also acknowledges that technology since then has brought radical changes, but India has been, “Almost fatally slow in the adoption of technology to improve the quality of education, as well as in using it to improve governance and planning and management of education.” Globalization and the impact of new technologies require new skills to meet the demands of the knowledge economy and knowledge society. The faster pace of change in current times demands periodic renewal of school and higher education for them to remain relevant to the changing needs of learners and the emerging national development goals.26 In formulating the Policy, the Committee kept in mind the interconnectedness of the various phases of education. Multiple-exit and -entry options have been provided for students, from the secondary stage going all the way to undergraduate, postgraduate, and research levels. Adequate thought has been given to the re-entry of students

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into the education system some years after they exited from it. The Committee has also emphasized that the various facets of education need to be within the framework of a cogent educational progression and that all stages of education are interlinked.27 In sync with the holistic nature of knowledge, the Policy seeks to implement, like in many countries in the world, a system of Liberal education. This will be done through different disciplines, including the arts, humanities, mathematics, and sciences suitably integrated with a deeper study of a special interest area. The approach that integrates the humanities and the arts with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has shown positive learning outcomes in countries that have experimented with it. It is seen to increase critical thinking abilities, higher order of thinking and deeper learning, mastery of content, problem solving, teamwork and communication skills, besides general management, and enjoyment of learning. In India, education works in a system of silos (a form of compartmentalization) and hence the impact of education in the liberal arts will have to be assessed after being implemented.28 Masters’ and doctoral levels are proposed to be strengthened by providing different level entry routes. The Master’s degree must include a strong research component to enhance professional competence in the domain area and prepare the student for further research and a doctoral degree. The Committee found an important lacuna in the present education system—the lack of coherent planning and implementation of research at the university level. The Committee focused on integrating higher education and research, keeping interdisciplinarity as a central concept. A culture of research in universities and colleges in a multidisciplinary environment is essential. Professional education in law, agriculture, medicine, among other disciplines must be integrated into the entire education system, giving students multiple choices.29

10.11 National Research Foundation To rectify the lack of research culture a National Research Foundation (NRF) has been proposed to focus on funding research within the education system, primarily in colleges and universities. The guidelines for the NRF are ready. The Foundation will encompass the four broad areas of sciences, technology, social sciences, and arts and humanities. The NRF will introduce a formal system of mentoring in colleges and universities so that research capacities are systematically built. Three principles have been enunciated regarding NRF: • Bring synergies between stakeholders and the various research groups. • Have a system of monitoring and midcourse correction. • Create linkages between universities and their counterparts in the rest of the world.30 It is clarified in the Policy that institutions that currently fund research at some levels, like the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Department of Atomic

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Energy (DAE), Department of Biotechnology under DST, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) and the University Grants Commission (UGC), as well as various private and philanthropic organizations will continue to do so even after the NRF is established. However, the NRF will coordinate with these funding agencies and also work with science, engineering, and other academies to ensure quality, to see that research is relevant to the social and industrial needs of the country and to avoid duplication of efforts. Applied research is emphasized. For this, the research base of universities and colleges has to be widened and strengthened. Undoubtedly, the skilling of the youth is needed, and the Policy lays great emphasis on skill development. Applied research is also required to find societal problems such as environment. Both skill development and applied research have been integrated into UG education. The experiment with B.A. (vocational) was tried before, but without much success. Heads of academic institutions do not have much expertise in developing skills. HEIs are not nimble enough to change their curricula according to the changing skill sets required for new emerging vocations. What seems to be missing in the Policy, however, is the explicit emphasis on basic sciences. While emphasizing skills and applied research is welcome, but without emphasis on basic sciences, there can be no innovation and research breakthroughs. Undue emphasis on technology and applications can only bring about short-term gains. The essence lies in providing a grounding in basic sciences for meaningful research and innovation to take place. These must be emphasized and integrated into colleges and universities and state-of-the-art laboratories built in them. Basic science education and research have a long gestation period and are resource-intensive, but these are essential even for applied research and skill development.

10.12 The Higher Education Commission of India The Committee has made some far-reaching proposals keeping in mind the goals articulated in the Preamble. One such proposal is to restructure governance by bringing all regulatory bodies, other than those of professional education, under one platform of the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI), which in the Draft Policy is called Rashtriya Shiksha Ayog or National Education Commission. This is not a new concept; it was earlier proposed by the National Knowledge Commission and subsequently by the Yashpal Committee. The HECI will consist of four verticals. These will be the National Higher Education Regulatory Council, the Higher Education Grants Council, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, and the General Education Council to provide the educational qualification framework and to set standards. Qualification and standards for professional education will be set by their respective bodies in fields such as agriculture, medicine, and law, among others.

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This is arguably one of the most far-reaching of reforms. A Draft Higher Education Commission Bill was prepared in 2018, to give effect to the HECI. It proposed to subsume all different regulatory bodies pertaining to various professions, except the Medical and Bar Councils. The professional councils are supposed to conduct the qualifying examinations. The proposal envisages a complete departure from the UGC. The HECI will be given the power to order closure of an institution if it fails to make the required grade. However, nothing has come of the Bill as of now.31

10.13 Expansion A massive expansion of higher education with the target of achieving 50% gross enrolment ratio (GER) by 2035,32 from the current 27.1%, according to the All India Survey of Higher Education, 2019 (AISHE2019).33 This will require a massive outlay for which the government proposes to raise spending on education to 6% of the GDP from the current 4.6%. The Kothari Commission (1964–66) had recommended this 40 years ago, but it remained on paper. With the pandemic and the global unrest, it might be difficult to find the resources in current times. According to the Policy, the private sector is expected to play its part but without profiteering. Private institutions will have to plough back their profits into the education sector itself. Compulsory accreditation of all HEIs, both public and private, will ensure quality. For transparency, they will have to put their vision and mission statements, together with their practices on the website.34

10.14 Restructuring of the Education System The undergraduate education has to be restructured, moving from the present threeyear course to a three- or four-year course with multiple-entry and -exit points. Since both the three-year and four-year structures will be acceptable, the postgraduate or Masters course will be of two-year duration for the three-year UG course and of one year for the four-year UG course. At the end of each year in the UG programme, there will be certification. At the end of the first year, a certificate will be granted as an academic recognition. At the end of the second year the students get an advanced diploma; a bachelor’s degree after the third year; and a bachelor in research (BRes) degree at the end of the fourth and final year. Internship will be integral to the undergraduate programme which will give the students the skill sets, not only in domain knowledge, but also in hands-on work experience. It is ironic that the fouryear UG programme should now be a part of the Policy because the government had vociferously opposed it when over seven years ago it was sought to be implemented at Delhi University. All courses, whether at the UG or PG level will be credit-based following a semester system. This means that the semester system will be in place from school

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education up to PG education. Transfer of credits will be allowed from one institution to another. This is to facilitate student mobility, which at the moment is only theoretical. To enable smooth transfer, a digital credit bank will be created. This will allow a student to not only transfer from one institution to another, but also to take time off and return after a gap to pick up the threads of education again. Application-based courses and vocational courses will be incorporated and integrated into the undergraduate education system to make it less theoretical and more hands-on. The UG education structure will be broad-based to ensure that there is no early specialization. This is the right way forward, but it could be resisted by the powerful teachers’ union of Delhi University as it may impact its “honours” programme.35 Dual degrees have been recommended by the National Policy of Education and UGC framing the rules. The student can pursue two full-time degree programmes, either at the same university or at two different universities as long as the timetables do not clash. He or she can even pursue a dual degree from two institutions in two countries. The first degree can be in the off-line mode and the other in the online mode or both can be in the online mode. The second degree may or may not be in the same subject area. Two institutions can sign a memorandum of understanding to this effect with the approval of the University, the State Government, or the Regulatory Bodies covering all aspects such as the number of seats, modalities of transition from one institution to another, and the award of degree. It is for the Central and the State governments, as the case might be, to manage and regulate the joint seat allocation according to the norms that the regulatory body lays down. The eligibility to the dualdegree programme will be according to the qualifying examination. Once admitted, the student can complete the first degree at the host institution without undergoing the admission process again in the second institution. Both institutions will grant their own degrees. If both institutions are under the same university, the degree will be granted by the university.

10.15 Multidisciplinary Structures and Systems With the emphasis on multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary learning, all HEIs, including the IITs and IIMs, will have to become multidisciplinary. The UGC has prepared the draft guidelines for multidisciplinary institutions. Courses in the fine and performing arts will be offered in all HEIs. This will not be easy to implement. There will immense be difficulties regarding the availability of appropriate faculty.36 The Policy has framed ambitious plans to establish multidisciplinary education and research universities of global standards across the country. Thirty-five publicfunded universities must be upgraded as well. The NEP-2020 proposes to phase out the system of affiliated colleges over the next 15 years and provide them with graded autonomy. Single discipline institutions have to be gradually phased out as well. In some cases, introducing multidisciplinary courses will be made possible by pooling resources of a cluster of institutions.37

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A proposal of far-reaching consequences is to bring indigenous knowledge or Lok Vidya into the mainstream. Lok Vidya is not “traditional knowledge systems” as it is not the study of past knowledge systems that once existed in ancient India. These are living knowledge systems, used by large number of people, that link the ancient to the contemporary. They need to be known, understood and researched. This will require bringing practitioners into the university system. People who are experts in the indigenous knowledge systems, including crafts, but do not have the requisite paper qualifications. Syllabi and textbooks have to be generated afresh, which will be a challenge because academics in colleges and universities are not well-versed in the indigenous knowledge systems. This is a good proposal, but there must be more clarity and it cannot be implemented according to the UGC norms. Inducting craftspeople and practitioners into the mainstream education system will most likely create resistance in the teaching community because there has been no concept of allowing lateral entry to people who do not have the formal recognized qualifications.38 In sync with this idea, is that orientation towards application that is to be brought about by another innovation. It is proposed to allow lateral entry from the level of assistant professor all the way to the level of professor, for experts in industries who have the knowledge and experience but do not have doctoral degrees or NET qualifications. There is definite apprehension that this could lead to diluting the standards as university teaching requires a certain level of academic qualifications. It may create resentment and discontent because a doctoral or PhD degree is supposed to be compulsory from 2023 for university teaching right from the entry level of assistant professor. NET is essential for aspiring higher education teachers. However, since the university and industry have to be interlinked, it is necessary to integrate the knowledge of industry and management into the mainstream of the university.39

10.16 Languages A radical recommendation is to set up HEIs in local languages. While this is theoretically sound, because many students are unable to cope with English as the medium of instruction, given the strong aspiration to know English, which is seen as a language of mobility, the success of these institutions could be doubtful. Even if they do succeed, the employability of their graduates may not be as good as of those graduating from English-medium institutions. Whatever be the medium of instruction, good grounding of English must be given to these students for them to get good employment. In keeping with the principle of encouraging regional languages, it is necessary to set up new language institutions and an Indian Institute of Translation and Interpretation. The institute has to utilize digital technology in translation. Widespread translation needs to be done. This will go a long way in national integration and in giving access to literature and knowledge, both in local and classical languages. It is proposed to use digital technology to promote Sanskrit and other classical languages

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like Tamil. A national institute of Pali, Prakrit, and Persian is needed. Publishing has to be recognized as a small-scale industry or a priority sector to enable access to quality books at affordable prices. 50% of all library resources are to be utilized for promoting Indian languages.40

10.17 Digital Technology To expand access to higher education, digital technology is indispensable. However, this is easier said than done. The digital divide in the country is a ground reality. Even in two-tier cities, connectivity is poor. The rural areas and the hilly regions have little or no connectivity, at least not enough to be able to access online lectures. It is also proposed to improve the quality of open-and-distance-learning through digital technology. UGC regulations have widely encouraged online education. They allow institutions to permit up to 40% of the total courses to be offered online in a particular programme in a semester. These would be offered through the SWAYAM platform. Presently, however, the quality of distance education in most cases leaves a lot to be desired. Online programmes not only have to be improved but universities need to accept and recognize them. Allowing extensive use of online courses is obviously an attempt to integrate off-line and online education so that students can have more options and a larger number of aspiring learners can have access to higher education.41 Digital technology has to be used in setting up of an autonomous body—the National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) to provide a platform for the free exchange of ideas on the use of technology to ensure efficient learning, assessment, planning, and administration. It will give evidence-based advice to the Central and State governments on technology-based interventions. It will build: • • • • • • •

Intellectual and institutional capacities in educational technology. Innovation strategy thrust areas. Articulate new directions for research and innovations. Lay down standards. Maintain regular flow of authentic data. Conduct regional and national conferences. Improve teaching and learning and evaluation processes while supporting teacher preparation. • Enhance access and streamline planning and administration processes and • Give information about emerging technologies and their potential uses.42

10.18 Affirmative Action Certain affirmative action steps are supposed to be taken proactively. For instance, the gender inclusion fund is to be set up to provide equitable and quality education to all girls and transgenders. The already existing affirmative policies also will continue. It

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is recommended to set up Special Education Zones for the underprivileged students. This could prove contentious. Although the intention is to provide focused education to the underprivileged sections of society and take care of their special needs, it may be seen as segregation and discrimination, and this could be controversial.43

10.19 Internationalization It is important to promote the internationalization of education foreign universities ranked among the top hundred will be facilitated in setting up campuses in India. The question is, will such foreign universities want to do so? Greater clarity will be needed on their fee structure; the affirmative action policies that they would need to follow; and the salaries that they would offer to the teachers. Parity with Indian institutions will close monitoring. A robust legislative machinery would be needed to ensure speedy resolution of disputes if any arise. The judicial processes in India are complicated and dispute resolution is so slow that in the interim period, the institution goes downhill. Internationalization must be a two-way process. The present ground reality is that India sends the largest number of students to study overseas, while of the reverse process of students coming from abroad is abysmally low. In 2019–2020, a total of 49,348 students came from foreign nations to India. Although this was an increase from the 47,427 students who made India their study destination in the previous year, the number is still very small. The figure becomes more glaring when it is seen that 133,135 students went abroad to study from India in 2021–2022. The NEP-2020 aims to have 200,000 students come to India by 2023. This is a tall order. A step towards internationalization is to provide twinning and joint-degree programmes. The UGC has drawn up the guidelines for twinning arrangements whereby a student who is enrolled in a HEI in India can do a part of his programme in his host institution and part in a foreign HEI. The diploma or degree will be awarded by the Indian institution only, although the credits earned by the student in the foreign institution will be counted towards his or her degree. The only caveat is that these should not be in overlapping courses. Each institution will issue a transcript for the respective courses taught by them. The Indian institution and foreign institutions will need to design the joint-degree programmes in unison. The degree will be awarded by the two universities together. The student would need to earn at least 30 credits from each of the institutions and the credits must not be from overlapping courses. The student will be required to take only one examination, and the evaluation process for each of the courses will be according to the institution in which the student is registered. In case of a doctoral degree programme, the student must have a supervisor at each of the institutions. Each HEI shall issue a transcript for the courses it is conducting. The HEIs will also make exit pathways available for those students who are unable to complete the joint degree with clear specifications regarding the credits they have earned already.44

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10.20 Mentoring It has finally been recognized that adolescents and young adults need mentoring. Too many rapid changes happen in their lives, which often lead to confusion and bewilderment. It has been proposed that teachers should mentor their students. But in today’s world, the problems may be too complex for the teachers to handle without appropriate training. Together with academic mentoring by the teachers, a progressive step that has been proposed is to set up a National Mission for Mentoring. Retired and outstanding teachers who are fluent in some regional language can help out for long- and short-term mentoring. Apart from the services of employed and retired faculty, every HEI would need to have mental health professionals and the appropriate infrastructure for them to be able to function effectively. This is the first time that issues of mental health and the well-being of students have been highlighted as a policy.45

10.21 Summing Up The plans of the two countries reflect the gulf between them.46 China’s GER will go on increasing. It plans to take more universities to the top by improving their quality. It will concentrate on individual department in disciplines, which it considers of national importance irrespective of which institutions they are located in. It understands the difficulties that may arise because of its relationship with the West, in particular with the USA but will continue to make efforts to further improve its expertise in science and technology through collaborations. It aspires to become a leader in AI and has already taken steps in that direction. India on the other hand will make efforts to improve its GER. It has come to reforming its university education now, making it more flexible and giving opportunities for student mobility. It is eventually putting a credit system into place. It has belatedly realized the importance of internationalization and is trying to put twinning, joint degrees, and dual degrees into place. It must concentrate more on science and technology and learning through international collaborations. Its Information Technology infrastructure needs to be improved if digital education is to succeed at all. There is greater quality consciousness than before but it has to become more widespread. Its institutions are nowhere near global standards. This is obviously required while developing its own episteme if the country’s HES wants to be counted in the world.

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10.22 The Gulf Between China and India Why has such a gulf arisen between the two countries? Shyam Saran has pointed to some fault lines which have made India’s progress slow. 1. China has a vast accumulation of document history because of its tradition of writing and record keeping. It is accessible to all because of a unified script. This works as a tool in the hands of policymakers to build a suitable narrative for nation building. India on the other hand had an oral tradition and recorded history has been hard to come by. Furthermore, during the second millennium, several regional languages with their own scripts developed leading to a rich store of local histories but not a unified national history. In fact, there has been a steady loss of memory about the country’s ancient civilization and culture as Sanskrit, the vehicle of its record became the preserve of a small circle of scholars. A lot of this history was later reconstructed by British Indophiles during the colonial rule. They did excavations, reconstructed the history of empires, propagated Sanskrit to some extent as a vehicle of India’s culture and civilization and revived the memories of India’s past. However, this was all through British eyes and in a language alien to the common people, that is, English. Hence, it was not available to the common man and the elite studied the British version of India’s history. The point being made is that civilizational pride did not develop which made it difficult to inspire people to a nationalistic response in India’s growth and progress. 2. In the absence of a national history, religion has been a major force in mobilizing nationalist sentiment in India. Leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi made good use of it to bind the nation into a pan-India movement. However, religion has also led to long standing fault lines. In China, on the other hand, religion has no role to play. The Confucian norms are only a set of ethical principles rather than matters of faith. 3. PRC was established in 1949 as a Marxist-Leninist state in a clear break from the past. The ethnic minorities and the variety of ethnic languages were not allowed to interfere with the way of life of the Han majority. In India, the diversity has been respected and given space. This undoubtedly creates a vibrancy and dynamism in society, but also leads to a lot of identity politics which can be very fractious in the turbulence of a multiparty democracy. 4. China had a long-standing tradition of meritocracy because of the examination based civil services, which persisted through all the changes in dynasties. In India the distribution of power within the State was based on caste, religious, and kinship networks. This perpetuated social inequities. Although India has ostensibly adopted a merit-based bureaucracy selected through an annual competitive exam, these inequalities persisted, perhaps because they were made a part of both the education and governance structures.

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5. Unlike China, India carried on with the colonial education system and the governing institutions and processes. This may have made the transition smooth from a colonial to a sovereign state, but these were alienating and not suited to the needs of a newly independent India.47 All these fault lines are evident in Indian society, but they can be overcome. It might be worth recalling what Jagdish Bhagwati said way back in 1993 and cited by Mohan Guruswamy and Zorawar Daulet Singh in their book, “Chasing the Dragon: Will India Catch Up with China?”: “Indian planners underestimated the productive role of better health, nutrition, and education and hence, under-spent on them.”48 This holds good even today. Similarly, Devesh Kapur and Sunil Khilnani remarked, “no aspect of India’s developmental experience has been so marked by disparities between rhetorical ambitions and actual achievement as our education system.”49 This neglect has carried on. Therefore, the key lies in education. Where do we go from here? While crystal gazing is always hazardous, some speculation can be done on whether China and India will succeed in their plans. China has all the systems and structures in place to make it succeed. It also has a track record of achieving its goals even before time and the implementation of policies has been excellent. However, there are certain impediments which have to be overcome: the uncertain and increasingly relationship of rivalry with the West; the difficulty in innovating in an authoritarian dispensation because innovation requires an independence of thought, a bit of India’s rebellious spirit. While great strides have been made in higher education, the availability of expertise is imbalanced and deficient. Universities in the poorer regions lose expert academic scholars to the universities in the more prosperous regions. It is difficult to replace these scholars. This feature is common in all countries, especially in developing countries. Currently, there is a lot of uncertainty on whether Xi Jinping will continue, or whether there will be a power struggle. This can have its own repercussion. Also, Xi Jinping is determined to tighten control over the university system as also over society. The thinking is that China has gone too far away from its socialist values towards capitalism and its attendant ills. It must be brought back to its socialist vision. In a sense, Deng Xiaoping needs to be reversed to a certain extent and the country made to move towards Mao’s vision once again. How this will play out in higher education is difficult to say. As far as India is concerned, the NEP-2020 has been well received. However, it seems like a dream from which one fears a rude awakening. Apart from making the rules, regulations, and guidelines, the only steps that have been taken so far are is instituting the three- or four-year Bachelors courses in the Central universities and instituting the Central University Entrance Exam (CUET) for admission to colleges and universities. This will be conducted by the National Testing Service, which has been established. The qualifying marks for participating in the entrance exam are 50% in the Class XII Board Exams. This gives even those students who have not fared well in the Boards another chance by which they can join college by doing well in the entrance examination. In case of a tie between two or more candidates, the tie breaker will be the marks of the Class XII Boards. There are bound to be a few initial glitches, but it will settle down. However, while guidelines have been made

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for many other recommendations of the NEP, no university to date seems to have yet announced their implementation. For the recommendations of the NEP to be accepted and implemented, teachers must be taken on board at every step, and intensive training given to them at every level. Change is uncomfortable, and very few will want to come out of their comfort zones. However radical they may sound, many of the recommendations were made before, beginning with the Kothari Commission. Over the years, words such as excellence, quality, and merit have begun to sound hollow and meaningless as the gulf between policy, its implementation, and the ground realities seems almost insurmountable. While political will is required for implementing the Policy, politicization must be kept at arm’s length. A detailed roadmap for implementation, together with realistic timelines and necessary finances, is required if the Policy is not to remain a pipe dream. It lies in India’s interest that it does not once again miss the opportunity. Endnotes and References 1. 19th Party Congress: China hopes to play leading role in education worldwide,” The Straits Times, October 23, 2017 https://www.straittimes.com. 2. Xi Zhang, “2050 China: Strategic Goals and Two Stages,” Chap. 4 in 2050 China: Becoming a Great Modern Socialist Country, by Angang Hu, Yilong Yan, Siao Tang, Shenglong Liu, Springer, 2020. Chapter 1 “China’s Road to Socialist Modernization” in 2050 China Becoming a Great Modern Socialist Country, op.cit. 3. Cao Deshang, “Xi calls on building into education powerhouse,” China Daily, 11th September 2018, https://www.chinadaily.com. Zheping Huang., “Chinese universities arefalling over themselves to teach ‘Xi Jinping Thought,’ Quartz 30th October, 2017, https://114975/the-19th-communist-party-congress-chinese-universit ies-are-falling-over-themselves-to-teach-xi-jinping-thought/. “CPC Constitution enshrines Xi’s thought as part of action guide,” China Global Television Network (CGTN) https://news.cgtn.com Observer Research Foundation, “The 19th of the Communist Party of China and its aftermath,” https://www.orfonline.org/research/19th-congress-commun ist-party-china-aftermath. 4. Zou Shuo “2 plans detail China’s goals for education,” China Daily, Global edition, 25th February, 2019. Yiming Zhum “New National Initiatives of Modernizing Education in China,” ECNU Review of Education, 2019, Vol. 2(3) pp. 353–362. 5. “China’s education modernization plan towards 2035.” 1st April 2020, Australian Education International, https://internationaleducation.gov.au/int ernational-network/china/PolicyUpdates-China/Pages/China’s-education-mod ernisation-plan-towarsa-2035-.aspx. Eugene Clark, “Chinese Higher Education lays foundation for brighter future,” August 16, 2021, china.org.cn. 6. “China’s education modernization plan towards 2035” op.cit.

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7. Ibid. 8. “State Council encourages vocational education reform,” Ministry of Education, People’s Republic of China, https://en.moe.gov.cn. 9. “China announces vocational education action plan for 2020–2023,” Australian Government, Department of Education, Skills and Employment, 10th December 2020, https://www.education.gov.au. Zoey Zhang, “China’s Vocational Education Reform and Foreign Investment Opportunities,” China Briefing, October 22, 2021, www.china-briefing.com. 10. “China’s education modernization plan towards 2035,” op.cit. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. Xiaozhe Yang, “Accelerated Move for AI Education in China,’ ECNU Review of Education 2019, Vol 2, Issue 3, pp.347–352, https://doi.org/10.1177/ 2096531119878590. 13. Fei Wu, Qinming He, Chao Wu, “AI + X Micro- Program Fosters Interdisciplinary Skills in China, Communications of the ACM,” https://m-cacm. acm.org. 14. Xiaozhe Yang, “Accelerated Move for AI education in China,” op.cit. Graham Webster, Rogier Creemers, Paul Triolo and Elsa Kania,” Full Translation: China’s ‘New Generation Artificial Intelligence Plan’ (2017)” New America, July 10, 2017. 15. “China’s education modernization plan towards 2035,” op.cit. Xiaozhe Yang, “Accelerated Move for AI Education in China,”op.cit. Huw Roberts, Josh Cowls, Jessica Morley, Mariarosaria Taddeo, Vincent Wang, Luciano Florial, “The Chinese approach to artificial intelligence: an analysis of policy, ethics, and regulation.” AI and Society (2021) Vol. 36, pp. 59– 71, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-020-00992-2. 16. “China to further promote the Double First Class Initiative,” Ministry of Education, People’s Republic of China, Feb. 16, 2022, www.moe.gov.cn. 17. “China’s double first-class university strategy,” Editorial, Educational Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 50, No. 12, pp.1075–1079, https://doi.org/10.1080/001 31857.2018.1438822. 18. Huiyao Wang “China’s New Talent Strategy: Impact on China’s Development and Its Global Exchanges” SAIS Review of International Affairs, Vol. 31, 2011; https://papers.ssrn.com. 19. Jing Liu, “China expands Double First Class universities list.” The Times Higher Education Feb. 21, 2022, https://www.timeshighereducation.com. David Turner, Xiaoli Jing, Qiang Lu, “The Double First-Class Initiative in China: Background, Implementation and Potential Problems,” Beijing International Review of Education 1(2019), pp. 92–108, https://www.resear chgate.net/publication/332051872_The_Double_First_Class_Initiative_in_C hina_Implementation_and_Potential_Problems. Raye Wu, “China’s 14th Five Year Plan: what does it mean for the education sector?” The Pie News, Nov, 25, 2021, https://thepienews.com/anallysis/chinas14th-five-year-pan-what-does-it-mean-for-the-education-sector/.

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20. Futao Huang, “What does China’s circulation policy mean?” University World News, 13 February, 2021, https://www.inversityworldnews.com. 21. “China’s education modernization plan towards 2035,” op.cit. Outline released to build China into sports leader,” The State Council, The People’s Republic of China, September 2, 2019, https://english.www.gov.cn/ policies/latestreleases/201909/02/content_WS5d1a966dOc6695ff7faa3.html. Zou Shuo, “Students put their physical skills to the test,” China Daily 16.12.2021; https://www.chanadaily.com/a/202112/16/WS6/ba310xss3 9bc7ba19_3.html. 22. “China’s education modernization plan 2035,” op.cit. 23. In order to fully grasp the NEP 2020, it is necessary to read both the Draft Policy of 2019 and the final policy of 2020. UGC too has an excellent summary of the salient features of it entitled “New Education Policy, Salient Features of NEP2020: Higher Education,” https://www.ugc.ac.in. 24. National Policy of Education, 2020, Ministry of Education, Government of India, p. 4, hereinafter referred to as NEP, 2020, https://www.education.gov.in. Draft National Education Policy, 2019, Preamble, Ministry of Education, Government of India, p.24, hereinafter referred to as Draft Policy, https://www. education.gov.in. 25. NEP2020, p. 3, op.cit. Draft Policy, pp. 24–25; p. 27, op.cit. 26. Draft Policy, op.cit. pp. 26–27; NEP2020, p. 3. 27. NEP 2020, op.cit. pp. 37–38. 28. Draft Policy, op.cit. Chapter 2, pp. 223–238, paras 11.1.1–11.4.2. 29. NEP 2020, op.cit. p. 38, Draft Policy, op.cit. Chapter 2, pp. 235–236, paras 11.4.1–11.4.2; Chapter 16, p. 298, para 16.3. 30. NEP 2020, op.cit. p. 46. Draft Policy, op.cit. Chapter 14, pp. 265–282, paras 10.1.1–14.5.1. 31. NEP 2020, op. cit. pp. 46–48. Draft Policy, op.cit. Chapter 23, pp. 391–396. Paras 23.1–23.1.9. 32. NEP 2020, op.cit. p. 35. 33. All India Survey on Higher Education, 2019–2020, Ministry of Education, Government of India, http://www.education.gov.in. 34. NEP 2020, op.cit. pp. 48–49. Draft Policy, op.cit. Chapter 18, pp. 334–335, paras 18.6.1–18.6.4. 35. NEP 2020, op.cit. pp. 37–38. 36. NEP 2020, op.cit. p. 37, Draft Policy, op.cit. Chapter 11, pp. 228–230; 225–226, paras. 37. Draft Policy, op.cit. Chap. 9, p. 204; Chap. 10, pp. 213–214. Paras 10.3–10.4. 38. NEP 2020, op.cit. p. 44. Draft Policy, op.cit. Chapter 20, pp. 371–372, paras 20.6–20.6.3. 39. Draft Policy, Chapter 13, pp. 259–260, paras 13.1.3–13.1.4. 40. Ibid, Chapter 19, pp. 346–347, paras 19.3.1–19.3.3; Chapter 22, pp. 385–387, paras 22.1–22.5. 41. NEP 2020, op.cit. p. 43.

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42. Ibid, p. 41. Draft Policy, op.cit. Chapter 19, pp. 343–344, paras 19.1.1–19.1.4. 43. NEP 2020, op.cit. p. 25. Draft Policy, op.cit. Chapter 6, p. 141, para 6.1.2. 44. NEP 2020, op.cit. p. 39, Draft Policy, op.cit. Chapter 12, pp. 249–253, paras 12.4–12.4.13. 45. Draft Policy, op,cit. Chapter 12, p. 245, para 12.2.3. 46. On the gulf between the two countries see, Vidya Rajic Yeravdekar, Gauri Tiwari, “China’s lead in Higher Education: Much to Learn for India” International Relations Conference on India and Development Partnerships in Asia and Africa: Towards a New Paradigm, (IRC-2013), www.sciencedirect.com. 47. Shyam Saran, How China Sees India and the World, Delhi: Juggernaut, 2018, loc 56–64; 244–276; 293–294; 607; 1347; 1956–2386; 2391–2393. 2437–2440. 48. Mohan Guruswamy and Zorawar Daulet Singh, Chasing the Dragon: Will India Catch Up with China? Pearson Education India, 2009, loc.399. 49. Devesh Kapur and Sunil Khilnani, “Primary Concerns,” Hindustan Times, April 23, 2006, http://www.hindustantimes.com/onlineCDA/PFCersion.jsp?article= http:.

Index

A Academic Degrees Committee, 198 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), 201 Acharya Ramamurthy, 73 Action plan, 202 Action plan for invigorating education from 2003 to 2007, 108 Action plan of July 2016, 154 Africa, 164 AIU, 177 Ajit Ghosh collection, 168 All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), 177, 213, 214 All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE), 126, 220 American Association of University Professors, 151 Annie Besant, 20 Annual Quality Assessment Report (AQAR), 219 Area study programmes, 69 Article 4 of the 1982 Constitution, 97 Ashoka Kumar Thakur vs Union of India and others 2008 SCR, 122 Asia, 164 Asia Society’s Centre on US-China Relations, 151 Association of Science and Technology, 56 August 13, 1990, 120 Autonomous regions, 96

B Backward Class (BC), 115 Banaras Hindu University, 20 Bateille, 130

Beijing, 8 Beijing Foreign Studies University, 156 Beijing International Studies University, 156 Belt and Road (B&R), 153 Bibek Debroy, 131 Bindheshwari Prasad Mandal, 120 Biyong, 3 Boxer Rebellion (BR), 8, 153 Brahminical education, 10 Branch campuses, 144 British, 163 Buddhism, 10, 13

C Calcutta University Commission, 20 Central Advisory Board, 65 Central Advisory Board of Education, 71 Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), 177 Central Government, 118 Central Minzu University (CUN), 102 Centre for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC), 151 Centre for Mediterranean Integration, 203 Centres for Advanced Studies, 69 Centres of area studies, 69 Champakam Dorairajan, 117 Charter of 1813, 16 Chiang Kaishek, 32 Chief Khalsa Diwan, 21 China’s education modernization 2035 Plan, 230 China’s Ivy League, 199 China’s MIT, 205

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 K. A. Sharma, India and China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5628-9

253

254 China Academic Degrees and Graduate Education Development Centre (CDGDC), 201 China-Central Asia University Alliance (CCAUC), 153 China National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, 149 China Scientific Evaluation Research Centre, 201 Chinese Academy of Sciences, 48 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 156 Chinese Association for the Promotion of Learning, 31 Chinese Institute Education Foundation (CIEF), 151 Chinese University Alumni Association (CUAA), 201 Chunhui Scholar Program, 139 College English Test (CET), 104 College preparatory courses, 108 Colombo Plan, 171 Colombo Plan Technical Cooperation Scheme, 170 Committee for the Promotion of Indian Education Abroad (COPIE), 177 Communist Party, 29 Communist Party of China (CPC), 1 Comprehensive Long-term Programme, 167 Comprehensive universities, 41 Compulsory education, 96 Confucian school, 2 Confucius Institute Leadership Council, 149 Confucius Institute Programme, 149 Consortium, 177 Consortium for Educational Communication, 74 Consortium for international education, 176 Constituent Assembly, 116 Constitution of India, 66 Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), 177 Countrywide Classroom Programme, 79 Covid-19 pandemic, 232 Cultural Revolution, 44

D David Hare, 17 Daxue, 2 Dayanand, 21 Dayanand Anglo Vedic College, 21

Index Deccan Education, 21 Deccan Education Society, 21 Degree programmes, 143 Deng Xiaoping, 43 Department of education, 97 Department of science, technology, and informatics work plan, 235 Dingxiang, 101 Dingxiang sheng, 101 Double First Class Project, 147 Double first-class universities, 107 Dr Ambedkar, 116 Dr Kasturirangan, K.., 238 Dual-circulation policy, 236 Dual degrees, 242

E Eastern Scholars Programme, 139 East India Company, 16 Educational Consultant India Ltd (EDCIL), 177 Education Commission, 69 Education Informatization 2.0 action plan, 233 Education Revitalization Action Plan, 193 Eighth Five-Year Plan, 50, 75 Eleventh Five Year Plan, 83 11th Party Congress the State Council, 47 Eleventh Plan, 225 111 Project, 139 Emperor Guang Wu, 4 Emperor Renzong, 5 Emperor Wen, 4 Equal Opportunities Commission, 131 Ethnic Education, 96 Ethnic Regional Autonomy, 96

F Fifth Five Year Plan, 72 Fifth National Education Work Conference, 48 Fifth National People’s Conference, 48 First Backward Class Commission, 118 First Doctoral Research Centre, 55 First-five-year-plan, 42 First Five Year Plan (1951— 1956}, 67 First General Reform Plan, 37 Fourth (1969-1974) Five Year Plans, 71 Fourth National Conference on Education for Minority Nationalities in 1992, 107

Index Fourth Session of the Seventh National People’s Congress (NPC), 50

G Gaokao, 100 General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), 174, 179 German model, 30 Global Initiative of Academic Networks in Higher Education, 180 Global Think, 156 GMD, 29 Govind Ballabh Pant, 118 Great Leap Forward, 43 Guangdong Research Institute for Management, 201 Guangxi, 96 Guangzhou, 106 Guiding policy regarding studying abroad, supporting overseas studies, encouraging return in securing free movement, 137 Guoxue, 2 Guozijian, 4 Guru-shishya parampara, 10

H Hanban, 149 Han dynasty, 3 Higher Education Commission of India (HECI), 240 Higher Education Evaluation Centre (HEEC), 194 Higher education indices, 205 Higher Education System (HES), 164 Hindu College, 17 Hongdumen, 5 Hoover Institution, 151 Hua Guo-feng, 47 Hukao, 138 Hundred Flowers Campaign, 42 Hundred Schools of Thought, 2 Hundred Talents Program, 138, 139 Hu Yaobang, 47

I Imperial University, 4, 8 Implementation Plan on National Vocational Education Reform, 231 Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), 163

255 Indian Education Commission, 18 Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 74 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), 115 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), 115, 164 Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC), 171 Indigenous knowledge, 243 Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), 164 Indo-Russia Collaborations, 167 Indo-US Collaborations, 165 Indra Sawhney case. (In Indra Sawhney vs Union of India, 1992, SCC (3) 20), 121 Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET), 74 Interim Provisions for Study Abroad with Self- Funding, 136 Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC), 218 Inter-University Centres (IUCs), 74 Islamic Academy Case (Islamic Academy of Education and Another vs. State of Karnataka and others, 2003 (6) SCC 697), 122 Itsing, 14 J Jamshedji Tata, 22 Janardan Reddy Committee, 75 Japan, 30 Jawaharlal Nehru, 117 Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), 130 Jiangxi, 33 Jiangxi Soviet, 32 Jiang Zamin, 57 Jinshi, 5 Justice Dalveer Bhandari, 123 Justice Kuldip Singh, 130 Justice Miller, 116 Justice Party, 116 Justice Pasayat, 123 Justice Rajinder Sachar, 131 Justice Ravindran, 123 Justice Thakker, 129 K Kaka Kalelkar Commission, 117 Karve, D.K., 22 KMT, 29

256 Kothari Commission, 69 L Later Han dynasty, 4 Law on Regional National Autonomy, 1984, 98 League of Nations, 32 Legalist, 2 Le Keqiang, 153 Lenin, 110 Li Changchun, 151 Little teacher, 31 Liu Shaoqi, 43 Lok Vidya, 243 London University, 18 Long March, 94 Lord Curzon, 18 M Madan Mohan Malviya, 20 Madarsas, 10 Magadh, 10 Mahatma Gandhi, 21 Maktabs, 10 Mandal Commission, 121 Mandarin Chinese, 101 Mao, 29 Marx, 118 Marx and Lenin, 34 Marxist teachings, 34 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 164 Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, 65, 167 May 1944, 34 Measures for education subsidies for state-funded high-level graduate students, 137 Medical college, 31 Memorandum of Action taken, 118 Midwest Higher Education Promotion Plan (2012–2020), 231 Midwest Region Development Promotion Plans, 231 Mingjing, 5 Mingtang, 3 Ministry of Education (MoE), 67, 163 Ministry of External Affairs (MoEA), 169 Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), 73, 177 Minutes of Macaulay, 17 Mohists, 3 Mongolia, 96

Index MR Balaji vs State of Mysore (AIR 1963, SC 649), 119 Muslim rule, 15 Mysore statement, 174 N NAFSA, 179 Nalanda, 15, 163 National Accreditation Council for higher education, 74 National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), 177, 211 National Board of Accreditation (NBA), 214 National conference, 48 National Conference on Higher Technical Education, 39 National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), 232 National Education Commission, 240 National Education Policy 2020 (NEP-2020), 71, 237 National Entrance Test, 77 National Institute of Education Planning and Development (NIEPA), 174 National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), 211 Nationalist Government, 30 Nationalist Party, 29 National knowledge, 71 National Knowledge Commission, 71, 240 National Level Review Committee (NLRC), 211 National Plan for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010 – 2020), 57, 138 National Policy of Education 1968, 71 National Research Foundation (NRF), 239 National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), 126 National Social Science Fund, 205 National Strategy for Higher Education Reform and Development for 2010 to 2020, 109 National University Council, 30 National University of Education Planning and Administration (NUEPA), 174 Net big.com, 201 New Silk Road, 154 New Silk Road University Alliance, 156 Ningxia, 96 19th People’s Congress, 230 Ninth Five Year Plan, 78

Index National Knowledge Commission (NKC), 80 Nomenklatura, 151 Non- Resident Indians (NRIs), 178 Normal School, 31 O Office Memorandum, 120 One Belt and One Road (OBOR), 153 One Belt One Road University Strategic Alliance (OBORUSA), 153 Online education, 233 Opium wars, 7 Oriental College, 21 Other Backward Classes (OBCs), 115 Outline for Building the Leading Sports Nation, 236 Outline of the 13th Five-Year Plan for the Educational Development of the People’s Republic of China, 147 P Pai Foundation Case (TMA Pai Foundation and others vs State of Karnataka and others (2002 (8) SCC 481), 121 P.A. Inamdar case (P.A. Inamdar and Others vs. State of Maharashtra and Others 2005 (6) SCC537), 122 Pandit, 20 Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, 167 Party Central Committee, 60 Peer Team Document, 216 Peking Union, 31 Peng Dehuoi, 43 Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs), 178 Piyong, 2 PLA, 56 Plan, 57 Pointers of Quality and Framework for Peer Assessment, 216 Post-Mao administration, 47 Preparatory Programme, 101 President Hu Jintao, 151 Prof D.S. Kothari, 69 Program of Introducing Discipline-based Talent to Universities, 138 Project 211, 107 Project 863, 199 Project 973, 199 Project 985, 107, 138 Project of Thousand Talents, 139 Project of Thousand Youth Talents, 139

257 Promoting the construction of new type of university think tanks with Chinese characteristics, 156 Promotion of Indian Higher Education Abroad (PIHEAD), 175 PV Indiresan vs Union of India: (2011, ACC (8) 441)

Q Qin dynasty, 3 Qing dynasty, 7 Quality and economic growth, 106 Quality Assurance (QA), 192, 198

R Rabindranath Tagore, 21 Raja Ram Mohan Roy, 17 Ram Manohar Lohia, 118 Rankings and Accountability of Higher Education:uses and misuse, 210 Rashtriya Shiksha Ayog, 240 Rashtriya Uchchtar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), 86, 224 Reform Plan of Yan’an, 34 Regulation of Higher Education Institution Academic Committees, 146 Regulation of University and College Charters, 146 Regulations of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on Chinese Foreign Cooperation in operating schools, 142 Renmin University, 156 Republic of China, 8 Review Committee, 217 Road economic belt, 153 Rockefeller foundation, 31

S Sachar Committee, 130 Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, 66 Scheduled Tribes (STs), 119 School of Combined Learning, 7 School of Four Gates, 4 Science Citation Index, 204 SCO University, 155 Scheduled Castes (SCs), 119 Second Backward Classes Commission, 120 Second Five Year Plan, 68 Second Yashpal Committee, 81

258 Sergeant Committee, 21 Seventh Five Year plan, 74 Several opinions on promoting education opening up in a new period, 147 Shahuji Maharaj, 116 Shandong question, 31 Shanghai, 8, 106 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 155 Shanghai World Class University Rankings, 142 Sharma, G.D., 209 Shodh Ganga, 85 Shudras, 116 Shuyuan, 2 Shyuan, 5 Silk Road Economic Belt, 153 Silk Road Education Cooperation, 154 Silk Road Research Institute, 156 Singh Obama initiative, 175 Singh Sabha Movement, 21 Sir Michael Sadler, 20 Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, 21 SNDT Women’s University, 22 Southern tour, 136 Soviet model, 37 Soviet Union, 35, 163, 167 Special Commonwealth African Assistance Programme, 171 Special Economic Zones (SEZs), 106 Spring and Autumn period, 2 Stalin, 95 State Commission of Science and Technology, 49 State Council General Office Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Education in the Midwest, 231 State Education Commission, 52 State Education Council, 51 State plan, 42 State Science and Steering Group, 199 Student feedback, 197 Study abroad, 152 Study India Programme (SIP), 178 Sui dynasty, 4 Swadeshi Movement, 22 SWAYAM, 244

T Taixue, 2 Takshashila, 12 Tang, 5

Index Tank Evaluation Research Report, 2019, 156 Taoists, 2 Tata Institute of Science, 22 Taxila, 163 Teaching affairs, 197 Teaching evaluation centres, 197 Teaching Management Office, 197 Technical Co-operation Scheme, 171 Technical Higher Education Institutions, 211 Tenth Five Year Plan, 79, 175 Tenth Five Year Plan (2001–2005), 200 10th Five Year Plan for National Education. Policies, 108 Tenth Five Year Special Development Project Planning in Education, Science, and Technology, 191 Test of English Major (TEM), 104 The Association of Indian Universities, 174 The Chinese Stalinist approach, 95 The Education Ministry, 32 The Eighth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, in 1953, 99 The Gnanam Committee, 76 The Kundu Committee, 131 The Ministry of Education, 97 The Narayan Murthy Committee, 87 The National Association of Scholars, 151 The National Plan on Key Basic Research and Development, 199 The Neighbours, 169 The Regulation on Quality Evaluation of Chinese Foreign Collaboration and Educational programmes, 146 The Sachar Committee, 131 The Second Five Year Plan, 42 The Ten-Year Layout Plan for National Economy and Social Development, 50 Third Plan, 68 Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party, 136 Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, 153 13th Five-Year Plan, 147 Thompson citation index, 203 Thought Reform Campaign, 37 Tianjin, 8, 106 Tibet, 96 Times Higher Education Rankings, 189 Tongwen Guan, 7

Index Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Co-operation, 167 Twelfth Five Year Plan, 86, 180 21st-century Maritime Silk Road, 153

U UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI), 174 Undergraduate Teaching Evaluation, 193 UNESCO report of 2013, 210 United Front Work, 152 Universities Alliance of the New Silk, 153 University Education Commission, 66 University Governance Screening Card Project, 203 University Grants Commission (UGC), 67 University of Nationalities (UN), 102 University of Peking, 8 University of Science and Technology of China, 49 United States of America (USA), 30, 163 US-India Strategic Dialogue, 175

V Varghese, N.V., 126 Vishwanath Pratap Singh, 120 Visva Bharti, 21 Vocational and Education Training (VET), 232

W Wang Mang, 3 Warring States, 2

259 Western learning, 30 West Germany, 56 William Bentinck, 17 Wood’s Dispatch, 18 World Bank, 189 World Bank Report, 191 World Trade Organization (WTO), 142, 174

X Xiangnu, 3 Xi Jinping, 60 Xinhai Revolution, 8 Xinjiang, 96 Xitongs, 150 Xuanzang, 12, 14

Y Yan’an, 33 Yashpal Committee, 71, 240 Yellow River, 43 Yin Yang, 2 Youxue, 2 Yukeban, 101

Z Zhang Baixi, 8 Zhao Ziyang, 47 Zhongyang Institute for Financial Studies, 156 Zhou Dynasty, 2 Zhou Enlai, 38 Zhou Ji, 194 Zhou Rongxin, 46