[Assam] Globalization or Privatization?

Sun Feb 4 17:15:29 EST 2007

Interesting. Ofcourse foreign univs and people and their views are always viewed with suspciion. Thats why Indian govt (or perhaps even US one) does not allow foreign owned media to operate in the country.

  Univs shape public minds and opinions. So teaching that Hindu religion is full of myth (as per Western univs) and that freedom of speech includes allowing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad --may not go down well in many developing nations. Thus, cultural adaptation of Western univ courses is a must. Just like McDonalds have a completely vegan/vegetarian joint at some Indian cities -- Western Univs have to become Glocal (Global -but Local).

  Also, NO western univ can really teach in India what they teach in their own country --when it comes to advanced or cutting edge research in sciences etc ---since it is top secret info. I cannot imagine Stanford or MIT doing the defense related research in India -which they do in US -- the US security organizations would not allow that. So Indians get a watered down version of the latest research.  Although even this may be good - to get lower level research related jobs into India -- like si being done by MNCs in India now.

  On the other hand, 100% foreign ownership of univs (we already have a number of B-grade ones in India) might see local private efforts in India go downhill. Though competetion is generally good . If Indian univs beat the foreign ones on Indian turf they can get an  image useful in setting up operations in the West!!  Govt univs ofcourse have only a "Few Good Men/Women"  

  Umesh

Dilip/Dil Deka <dilipdeka at yahoo.com> wrote:
    The following is from the Assam Tribune. The conference was attended by college teachers. 
  Was the word 'globalisation' wrongly used in place of 'privatization'? Where is the fear - private sector owning and running the institutions of higher learning, or multinational corporations like GE, IBM, Sony, Tata or Mittal running the institutions?
  If someone can explain in the net, I'd appreciate. 
  The private sector has been investing in education in other Indian states for a while. How are those colleges faring - in quality of education and affordability? 
  Dilip Deka

  STATE  
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    ‘Globalisation of education harmful to poor students’
>From Our Correspondent
 DHUBRI, Feb 2 – The 3rd zonal conference of ACTA’s west zone consisting of ACTA’s units of Dhubri, Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon and Chirang districts, was held on January 22 on the BN College premises of Dhubri. The conference was attended, besides delegates from the colleges of the four districts, by Jyoti Nath Gogoi, president, ACTA, Dr Apurba Kr Das, GS, ACTA and Ramesh Ch Barman, central observer.

The delegate meeting was held under the presidentship of Nagendra Nath Roy, president of the zonal committee. The meeting observed two minute silence at the beginning in the memory of educationists, litterateur, artists, political leaders and victims of extremists’ mayhem during the last one year. Addressing the session, Dr A K Das gave a detail account of the ACTA activities in connection with implementation of pension scheme for college employees, payment of arrrears, placement in senior and selection grade of teachers, filling up of vacant posts in the colleges, etc. The secretarial report was distributed by Sheikh Hedayetullah, secretary of the zonal committee. The conference adopted seven resolutions.

Earlier, a seminar on Impact of globalisation on higher education with special reference to North East region was held which was formally inaugurated by G K Srivastava, retired HoD English deptt, BN college. It was conducted by TN Chakravarty, former vice-president of ACTA and the main speaker Abdul Mannan, lecturer, Statistics Deptt, GU. In his deliberation Mannan drew a gloomy picture of higher education in India in the future if globalisation is allowed to grasp the field of education. According to him MNCs treat education as a consumer commodity. If they succeed it will give them a market of 4700000 crore rupee-business Higher education will be costly and our poor students will be unable to afford it. By signing the WTO by the Government of India in 1994, it has already stepped into the death-trap of the GATS (General Agreement in trade Services).

Government has started avoiding its social responsibility in education by not filling vacant posts and by imposing ever new conditions in appointment of teachers. In NE region, which is already educationally backward, globalisation of education will bring doom to oue aspiring students, Mannan said.

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Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
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(Washington D.C. Metro Region)
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1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]

Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005

weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
website: www.gse.harvard.edu/iep

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