Georgia Tech said that most of the faculty members in its research centre would be from Atlanta. “People who join us from India will have to go through the US campus to be able to teach there. Our goal is to start small, create a quality research programme. We don’t want to go there and just start admitting students. We want to start a world-class operation in India and use that to develop more and more PhD holders who will become our brand ambassadors and future faculty in Indian universities,” said Madisetti.
The entry of foreign universities could help India boost its higher education. A study by Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering found that China is racing ahead of both India and the US in the production of PhDs in science and engineering and thus in the capacity to perform basic research. Building research-and-development capabilities is the key to competitiveness, the study found. India’s engineering PhD numbers have remained flat — less than 1,000 per year — while China graduated 9,427 in 2005 and the United States graduated 7,333.
“India could disintegrate within a couple of decades if we don’t upgrade our education system fast,” said an Indian educationist.
For all its prospects for the future, the enthusiasm about India is tempered with realism. Columbia University is not rushing in headlong but testing the waters with a South Asia centre in Mumbai.
“Clearly India has been one of the most dynamic societies on the planet and therefore it is a place that we feel we need to know more about. We have things to contribute. But we need to learn more about the country,” Columbia University president Lee Bollinger told journalists last week while announcing the launch of the Columbia Global Center for South Asia in Mumbai. Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation will also launch Studio-X Mumbai which will join the network of Columbia architecture labs in Beijing, Amman, Rio-de Janeiro and Moscow.
Kenneth Prewitt, vice president for Columbia Global Center, said the rationale behind the global centres was not the familiar “campus abroad” model, but rather an extension of the university’s research, curricular and service footprint in every world region.
Yale president Richard Levin has also indicated that Yale is looking to build “a broad set of connections” with India.
US universities also want to see how the bill will shape up after moving through parliament. “We are studying whether we as a non-profit educational institution will be liable for tax. How do we get money transfers for various funding activities? There are a lot of small issues,” said Madisetti.
Nikhil Sharma, an engineering student at the University of California San Diego, noted that for his field, engineering, a popular academic and career path for many Indian students coming to the US, the research opportunities just weren’t there in India.
“India is in its nascent stage as far as research is concerned — the infrastructure there is not strong enough to support meaningful research. It’s kind of a tradition for Indian students to come to the US,” said Sharma. “It will be brilliant if US universities set up campuses in India. It could turn everything on its head.”
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