Abstract
The promotion of US–Indian higher education partnerships affects those students who are most marginalized. This article explores the development, implementation, and reception of such partnerships to meet the needs of students who remain on the borders of educational access in India. This article addresses the ways higher education policies systematically universalize the marginalization of certain students, explores the impact of how policies of partnerships will address the needs of such students, and seeks to explore how administrators in higher education institutions see the growth of such partnerships shifting the status quo of privilege and power. Through the evaluation of policy papers, historical documents, media reports, survey data and informal conversations with stakeholders, the findings will address the underlying consequences and effects on higher education policy development in India. This article seeks to deconstruct the directions such relationships might take and consider the impact on students who remain on the periphery of higher education in India.
1935. Professor of Sanskrit
on cultural exchange;
passing through; lost
in Berlin rain; reduced
to a literal, turbanned child,
spelling German signs on doors, bus, and shop,
trying to guess go from stop
AK Ramanujan’s poem, Some Indian Uses of History on a Rainy Day speaks to numerous interpretations: of seeking familiarity in a foreign environment; the discomfort of seeing symbols of comfort subject to false reality; and the banal reading of the Indian student making his way in the West. The migration of the young Indian student has its roots in the narrative of the intelligent upper caste, upper middle-class son heading abroad to enhance his knowledge of science and technology, to bolster family pride, and to grow his economic and cosmopolitan prospects. With the growth of the middle class in India, the narrative altered to include upper caste, upper middle-class daughters, with an increasingly broad, nearly universal desire of larger strata of society aspiring for both middle-class standards and access to foreign, oftentimes US, university degrees.
Indian students are the largest contingent of international students entering the US, with a growth rate of nearly 37 percent over the past decade (Bhandari and Choudaha, 2010). Nonetheless, there remain nearly 370 million young people between the ages of 6 and 23 currently residing in India (Marmolejo, 2012), and it appears that the demand for higher education will continue to outpace the supply. The gap between supply and demand has not gone unnoticed by Indian higher education officials or US-based university administrators. There has been growing interest in developing partnerships of various kinds to fill this need. US administrators are keen to develop partnerships with India, seeing rich research opportunities, burgeoning talent pools and untapped tuition dollars. In globalized India, there is a cachet in being intimately attached or associated with US institutions, leading to both governments developing policies for what should appear to be mutually beneficial partnerships.
While India’s middle-class population is large, the bulk of the country’s population is primarily poor and rural. This article recognizes the symbiotic relationship beginning to emerge between the US and India, who share much in common, including a democratic form of government, as well as a history of policies and practices leading to marginalization and segregation. As a critical theorist, I attempt in this paper to shed light on how the promotion of US–Indian higher education partnerships affects those students most marginalized, and explore the development, implementation and reception of such partnerships to meet the needs of students who remain on the borders of educational access in India.
This article addresses the ways higher education policies systematically universalize the marginalization of certain students, explores the impact of how policies of partnerships will address the needs of such students, and seeks to explore how administrators in higher education institutions see the growth of such partnerships shifting the status quo of privilege and power. Through the evaluation of policy papers, historical documents, media reports, survey data and informal conversations with stakeholders, the findings will address the underlying consequences and effects on higher education policy development in India. This article seeks to deconstruct the directions such relationships might take and consider the impact on students who remain on the periphery of higher education in India.
Contextual framework
This contextual framework addresses the current situation of higher education in India, the marginalization of its students, the growing practice of developing partnerships between universities located in different countries, and the impact such partnerships have on economics and education. The theories that inform these areas of policy provide a foundation to answer some of the fundamental questions raised as we look at the effects and consequences of higher education partnerships. How do such programs reach all students? What reactions and beliefs do administrators in India feel about the nature of these partnerships in meeting the needs of marginalized students? How do motives of profit and growth affect students who have limited means and limited access?
Changes in higher education in India
India is currently facing a crisis in higher education (Hill, 2012). This crisis is manifested by an increase in the numbers of students, a shortage of institutions to support the rising numbers of students, and the complexity of regulations and policies governing higher education in India. Concurrently, policies and practices of global higher education are undergoing immense change. Eckel et al. (2004) quote the work of Van Damme highlighting how “globalization will create new demands on universities to serve as knowledge centers…(envisioning) an erosion of national regulatory and policy frameworks as a result of borderless higher education” (p. 300). Higher education promotes a national agenda of increasing skills and knowledge and enhancing professional opportunities for citizens. This agenda is also being simultaneously affected by the increasingly outward foci of many higher education institutions (HEIs) around the world.
This emphasis on employability leads to a second change in higher education. Walker (2010) argues that the “downgrading of the intrinsic goods of learning and democratic citizenship” is linked in education policy discourse to market fundamentalism (p. 219). On one hand, universities in the West have been operating with greater attention to corporate marketability, viewing students as consumers, fine-tuning the non-academic offerings to entice larger numbers of students, and balancing the need to cut costs while also protecting those options that promote marketability. On the other hand, universities are noticing the richness and depth of content and experience built with a more diverse and international student body, and seek to promote international experiences to engage American students to live, study, and work to promote their development through international experiences.
The engagement of universities with partners in other countries has both benefits and challenges, but it is the explicit connection to market forces that encourages HEIs in the West to look towards many middle-income and developing countries to promote their brand, increase enrollment, and be seen as a model for internationalizing their campuses. As HEIs seek to expand, Asia is currently the destination of choice. It is estimated that by 2025, Asia will “represent some 70 percent of total global demand” with growth rates over 25 percentage points from 2000 (Unterhalter and Carpentier, 2010: 22). The numbers from India are substantial as well. To meet the demand for the nearly 370 million young people between the ages of 6 and 23, India will need to build nearly 1000 new universities and 50,000 colleges by 2020 (Marmolejo, 2012). To understand the scope of this growth, the number of universities in India increased 18 times between 1950 and 2009, growing from 27 institutions to 504, with the number of colleges rising from 578 to more than 30,000 (Government of India, 2012). Though this level of growth is impressive, will not be enough to fuel the demand of a growing youth population.
Recognizing the picture painted by the numbers, and to support higher education policy development, the National Knowledge Commission was set up in with a mandate to “incorporate issues like access to knowledge, knowledge concepts, creation of knowledge, knowledge applications and delivery service” (Government of India, n.d., n.p). In the most recent 5-year plan, the 11th since independence, the planning commission outlined a number of general goals, with five specific to higher education:
Renewal of curriculum to meet evolving challenges in information technology and support for development of centers of excellences at the tertiary level; Increase the Gross Enrollment Ration in higher education from 11% in 2006 to 15% by 2011–12 (and to 21% by 2016–17); Infuse quality and inclusiveness while expanding higher education system; Restructure and reorient higher education system to provide globally competitive skills and capabilities; and Nurture institutions of excellence aspiring to international standards (Government of India, 2009: 4).
The government has been actively pursuing the development of broad-based policies around higher education. These considerable numbers promote the growth of public and private institutions, but significant attention needs to be paid to regulation, quality, and effectiveness. An integral aspect of the picture are the majority of young people who, due to their class, caste, gender, ability, state of residence, and geographic residence, are unable to take advantage of the rhetoric of policy development and remain marginalized on the fringes of access and quality in education.
Marginalization in higher education in India
Within India, high hopes were pinned on higher education for the post-independence period. Higher education, as a “capstone solution: an institutional response (to) produce alignment among a common set of social goals, from the creation of new intellectual capital…effective workforces, to diffusion of effective ‘ways of being’ in this world of escalating change” (Hawkins, 2008: 533), was designed to be the source of upwardly mobile professional opportunities for the small but powerful middle class.
As India’s status in the world changes, there is a need to check the growing inequity between the majority poor and minority middle class. The national government has sought to offer multiple ways to make higher education accessible. Policy makers worldwide often use the rhetoric of equitable access and opportunity in higher education as platforms for development. In a strongly worded series of recommendations, Sam Pitroda, the Chairman of the Indian National Knowledge Commission, urged the national government to realize that “education is the fundamental mechanism for social inclusion through the creation of more opportunities. It is, therefore, essential to ensure that no student is denied the opportunity to participate in higher education due to financial constraints” (Pitroda, 2006: 6).
So who is considered marginalized? For the purposes of this article it is broad group that moves beyond the government-defined populations of Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Tribes. Also included are girls, the rural poor, minority religious group members, and those with physical and mental disabilities. Members of these groups face endemic marginalization and discrimination in India. The importance of looking at marginalized populations is critical as India faces a higher education crisis. Inequities “reflect persistent differences in the capacity of individuals from different social groups to seize…opportunities due to discrimination or market constraints” (Asadullah and Yalonetzky, 2012: 1151). India sustains immense gaps in educational inequity across gender, religion, caste, and rural locations that highlight how India’s educational inequity, one of the highest in the world, has shown very little change over the past three decades (Asadullah and Yalonetzky, 2012).
Inequity is structural and often begins in the earliest years of schooling, continuing throughout a student’s educational life. While efforts to improve basic education in India are commendable (Mehrotra, 2006; Siddhu, 2011), the quality of education differs vastly. Only a small percentage make it to the upper secondary levels and even then, the foundation on which they can build further forms of quality higher education, whether it be public, private, vocational, technical, professional, or general, is questionable.
While India has maintained a system of reservation for the Schedule Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Castes, the 6–9 percent enrollment rate for these groups still lags behind the general public’s enrollment rate of 17 percent (Government of India, 2009). Policy makers are aware of the gap. The Chairman of the Oversight Committee on Implementation of the Reservation Policy has stated that “a society which keeps a large section if its people in a state of denial or deprivation of where all its citizens do not enjoy equality of opportunity…can never be in a state of stable equilibrium” (Moily, 2006: n.p.). While the words are powerful and highlight the level of awareness in some political quarters, it remains that higher education is often out of reach for many of the most vulnerable in India and may threaten the evolution of the country in the upcoming decades.
Funding also plays a significant role in educational inequity. While this aspect is not limited to developing countries, it has significant effects on maintaining the ascendency of the middle class. For instance, the disparity in funding affects low-income and marginalized students in many developed countries as the government often subsidizes undergraduate education. Yet the students in these undergraduate institutions predominantly come from middle-class households (Brighouse, 2010). Access to subsidized higher education is “conditional on having already met certain academic requirements, which depends on having attended good enough schools and on having had the traits that education rewards” (Brighouse, 2010: 287). Brighouse (2010) goes on to provide an American example: the State of Wisconsin subsidizes nearly $58,000 per undergraduate student over the course of 4 years, yet “there is no program for 18-year-olds who either had poor quality k-12 education…to access a grant or even a loan of $58,000 to start a small business”(p. 287, italics in original).
Such state discrepancies exist in India as well, extrapolated by the increased gap between public and private spending on higher education. For example, an issue to consider is the discrepancy from state to state as it pertains to enrollment and expenditure. In the South-eastern state of Kerala, public support of higher education has decreased from 75 to 48 percent. Less dramatic is the northern state of Madhya Pradesh, where funding of higher education decreased a less severe 13 percentage points from a high of 80 percent to the current 67 percent. The reasons for these decreases are beyond the scope of this paper, but the rising numbers of private institutions catering to middle-class families where private fees and funds are generated to provide equally good, if not better education, resulting in the government seeing less need to continue to support public education, could be one reason.
In India, private expenditure has increased nearly 11 times over the past 16 years. Over that span of time, many poor students, seeing the long-term value of advanced education, are paying approximately 13 times more from their own incomes (Kapur and Mehta, 2004). This is especially important to understand as the numbers of private colleges, universities, institutes, and technical centers have increased dramatically to fill the vacuum that is being left by publicly supported higher education. The growing role of private entities operating with little regulation and with a focus on profits makes the situation ripe for the growing instances of domestic and international partnerships to fill the gap and the desire for access to education.
The growing policy and practice of partnerships
In 2011–2012, the US and India began a series of meetings that engaged the two countries in “more purposeful…sustainable partnerships between higher education institutions in both countries” (Fischer, 2012: n.p.). In this bilateral relationship, key areas of growth include workforce training, student exchange, access to education through technology, and joint research opportunities (Fischer, 2012). Motivations for partnerships include the desire to “enhance research and knowledge capacity and to increase cultural understanding” (Altbach and Knight, 2007), and due to the dramatic shortage in higher education opportunities for students in India, includes an awareness of the potential profits involved in developing partnerships (Knight, 2004).
While only 12 percent of the college-age population is enrolled in a higher education program in India (Fischer, 2012), international HEIs are strategizing on how to meet the need and situate themselves to be well regarded in India. Curricular joint ventures (CJVs) are one direction for such partnerships. The goal for many of these ventures is often been “to position institutions in new markets and create the potential to generate new tuition dollars; however they have other benefits as well…but remains for the most part uncharted” (Eckel et al., 2004: 300).
The history of university partnerships is not limited to collaborations between universities in different countries. Increasingly in the US there have been partnerships evolving between corporations and universities. The ‘win–win’ situation has been one that has been dependent on the profit motive, where universities gain access to large numbers of new students, while corporations signal an understanding that the reason to partner univocally with one institution is the offer of steep discounts from the university in return (Waks, 2002). With competition fierce and for-profit universities offering competitive rates as a result of lower overhead costs, mainstream universities are seeking to continue to cut costs and build collaborations to ensure a steady stream of students. Universities are striving to show enrollment growth, and the international education arena is increasingly seen as a space to mimic the strategies streamlined in corporate partnerships, where students of today are merely employees of tomorrow. As a result, the bare necessities of training are provided, and the old fashioned notions of a ‘well-rounded education’ are becoming too expensive and subsequently left at the door.
Increased privatization has also led to a growing need for partnerships. As mentioned earlier, the gap between private and public universities is growing. In Asia, many public universities have moved to seek further private funding in order to support programs with the “introduction of corporatization strategies” (Mok, 2007: 440), and India has not been left behind. The evidence of growth in private colleges is especially vivid in enrollment in private engineering colleges. In 1960 only 15 percent of students were enrolled in private engineering colleges, but by 2004, 86 percent of the engineering students enrolled were in private colleges (Kapur and Mehta, 2004). Kapur and Mehta (2004) argue that de facto privatization is occurring rapidly. For many of these private institutions, their reputation and marketability often depends on the connections they have with western HEIs. For western HEIs, their interest stems from the knowledge that between $700 million to $1 billion dollars is spent every year on “purchasing” higher education abroad (Kapur and Mehta, 2004: 7), opening the door to ask: what profit might exist for a university if was located in country as well as out?
Critical findings
The findings for this paper come from an analysis of policy documents and news articles. A survey was sent to 75 higher education administrators in three primary cities: Mumbai, Delhi, and Hyderabad, resulting in a response rate of 26 percent. These responses were collected and analyzed for common themes that were then cross-analyzed with the policy documents and news articles. Informal conversations with administrators also advised the findings outlined below. The results centered on an awareness of the tension between profits and education; the growing discrepancy between education for economic growth and individual empowerment; and the dichotomies between the needs of the US and Indian partners, all of which relate directly to the impact of higher education partnerships on marginalized students.
Tensions between profits and education
The tension between providing education for marginalized students and the motivations for profit for international HEIs was the most common concern emerging from the data. In the survey, when administrators were asked their opinion of the increased numbers of partnerships between HEIs in the US and India, the responses overwhelmingly expressed concern about the economic purposes of such partnerships.
For instance, one administrator said that: … current partnerships are focusing only on business propositions to earn revenue for the US Institutions. The partnerships must focus towards adding value to the Indian education system and not look at the Indian student population as a market to make money.
When the question asked how those students who were marginalized by higher education policies might be impacted by such partnerships, the answers were forthright. One administrator stated that such partnerships: … will not help … where will they get the financial support for travel, stay and tuition? Every partnership must have a huge endowment fund to support the needy students—but this is unlikely to happen so long as the US universities treat India simply as a market place.
Other issues that emerged linked more unsavory aspects of higher education to economics. For instance, with the rapid growth of private and international institutions, regulation is often unable to keep up, leading to the danger of “shadow” universities that prey on those who are less savvy regarding the reputation of international institutions. These “imperfect models of, or delusive semblances of, established universities…(are) shaped by the profit motive” (Waks, 2002: 286) and find easy targets for expansion and enrollment in developing countries where the desperation for access leads to the willingness of students to be duped by these “shadow” universities.
Another issue that emerges in the data is the economic value of the university degree and the “payback period.” Due to the higher fees and length of courses, many foreign programs are operating below capacity, and students are constantly facing administrative threats related to closing down programs (Sharma, 2012). Sharma (2012) also adds that unless the university is a top-tier or “Ivy League” university, the student may in fact prefer an Indian institution. The “payback” period to clear the debt for an international program is nearly 6 years in India, 4 years more than for a local program. While the payback period in other countries is far lower—in Malaysia is only 18 months and in Indonesia, just a year—the debt of such a lengthy payback period affects lower-income students far more inequitably than those with more resources at their disposal.
Education for individual versus economic development
Government reports recognize that education has to be considered more than merely a “tradable commodity…contrary to the sanctity attached to education and knowledge … in terms of protecting the culture, intellectual independence and the values of a civil society” (UNESCO, 2005: 139). Yet, linking education to employment has hindered notions of building social equity, and Naidoo (2010) asserts that the Government of India has stepped away from its role as a facilitator towards social equality, seemingly catering to the needs of the West in ensuring that the market for high-quality technology graduates supports the “elite who join the research and development wings of US corporations” (Naidoo, 2010: 75). Her focus on technology knowledge highlights the ways in which the non-elite or the “masses” (p. 75) are expected to provide labor and skilled support with limited general education. Naidoo (citing Kamat et al.’s work in 2007) points out that this situation often sustains caste and class divisions where the “marginalized … have little or no access to the dream of technology modernization” (p. 75).
In India currently only 17 percent of India’s college students graduate and transition to work immediately (Arnoldy, 2012). While this number is very low, Hill (2012) reports the chances of India building 50,000 brick and mortar schools is untenable, opening the establishment of new schools more along the model of small internet companies where they develop an identity resembling “for-profit entities that lift the burden of in-house training off of companies by partnering them with directly to custom fit student education directing into existing workplaces” (n.p). While Hill is optimistic that that such programs will blend liberal arts studies with employable skills, the chances of less privileged students with less than stellar secondary education seem unlikely, and the focus of their education may remain vocational in nature, thereby continuing to create a separation between those students who have access to quality education from birth and those who do not. This thought is extended in Arnoldy’s (2012) article, where India will have more new schools that are “virtual, for-profit and integrated closely with workplaces… (becoming) the petri dish for how to build an education system in the Information Age” (n.p.).
In the survey data collected, administrators envisioned a wide range of options emerging from partnerships between the US and India. Some talked of a direct link to employment, with comments such as “create industry-ready individuals.” Few encouraged personal development by saying that education should “inculcate values-based education that enables responsible behavior among the youth.” The majority focused on the potential employability of students. For example, another administrator stressed that the: … presence of multi-national corporate fraternity it is essential (so) the students be made global managers. It is essential for the students to get first-hand knowledge of various cultural aspects. This is only possible by visiting the respective countries rather than studying for textbooks. The partnership between US and Indian HEIs will foster experiential learning to the core.
Dichotomies between partner needs
Finally, the data suggested that the sometimes contradictory needs of the partner institutions would create challenges when their objectives conflicted with each other. For instance, one issue that emerges in the analysis is the legacy effect among the current political leadership in India and the desire to offer “bold action” by expanding higher education (Subramanian, 2008). Attributed to Prime Minister Manmahon Singh’s final years in office and his interest in making higher education policy a part of his legacy, these effects open up a larger, more grandiose vision of higher education than might be envisioned by collaborating partner institutions.
Administrators talked of the goals of higher education being unclear to the various stakeholders. For instance, one administrator said, “For whom? For students (it is a) job or time pass, for teachers its employment, for policy makers I assume they are still figuring it out!” Another brought up the idea that US universities might be willing to learn from Indian social structures: “The American institutions will benefit from the new insights and solutions to societal issues like affordable health care which are being pioneered in India.” There was no evidence in the data to suggest that there was any interest on the US side to better understand policy issues through such partnerships.
Other articles point out that the growing internationalization of new universities in India lead to the creation of an “internationally oriented faculty body… (or the creation of) internationally oriented curriculum” (Marmolejo, 2012: n.p.). Unfortunately, current realities in US universities prevent young faculty from being able to spend significant time abroad due to decisions of tenure and promotion. Indian faculty members who have never lived or worked in the US are also not paid enough to take time off to come teach in US universities and while the sharing of faculty is a strong idea, the structures of higher education in both countries are ill-equipped to ease such exchanges. Yet Indian administrators believe that the importance of the partnerships should benefit junior faculty. As illustrated by a point made in the survey, “The stress should be more on research collaboration between universities along with mobility of researchers, especially the young ones.” This is yet another example of the dichotomy that exists between the two countries and the way in which such different goals offer mixed messages for collaboration.
Finally, economics holds a function in this area as well. Many US HEIs see how international students in the US benefit the bottom line of the university, as most international students pay out-of-state fees and tuition. Taking programs to India will not be a philanthropic effort, yet many administrators believe that low costs will be pivotal in helping those students who are marginalized. An administrator says, “Affordable quality education will directly lead to better earning capacity. Loans (and) scholarships for high merit students will further benefit the less privileged students”. Another said, “It is extremely expensive and not affordable for less privileged students. (Corporations) must make massive investment in scholarship programs for higher education as there is no state subsidy in this area.” These expectations are unrealistic given the budget crunches currently facing many US institutions, and their leaders will be hard-pressed to explain any discounts given to foreign students, especially in the current US economic and political climate.
The dichotomies that exist between partner institutions also emerge in the accreditation process. At the time of this writing, the Indian government has developed a new set of criteria to guide the University Grants Commission (UGC, the oversight body for higher education in India) regarding partnerships with foreign universities. High international ranking, central and state approval, as well as stringent requirements regarding years of experience are being adopted (Mukul, 2012). Hill (2012) finds that for many Indian HEIs, the preference would be to “go ‘off grid’, by bypassing the burdensome accreditation process…increasingly calling upon US institutions to do (so as well)” (n.p.).
This has been the operating model for a number of prestigious institutions, including the Indian School of Business (ISB) which provides certificates rather than diplomas for its graduates. Northwestern University and University of Pennsylvania—both top-tier schools in the US—are partners of ISB, signaling a relationship based on prestige and privilege. Top-tier Indian universities are also aware of the economic value they bring to the table and actively seek partners who protect the cachet they are developing. As a result, even with such partnerships, access to these institutions is limited to the second ‘1 percent’, who may not choose to leave India and are able to take advantage of such programs. This still leaves the rest of the country to figure out how to reach and teach all students, not just the ones with access to resources and opportunities opening up to them through such partnerships.
Kapur and Mehta (2004) found that the crisis in higher education in India is being covered up by the relative success of a few stellar professional schools. The presence of international HEIs can meet the needs of students who are in need of access to education, but students will be ill-served if the programs offer neither strong programs for students’ long-term success nor build a cadre of students who can critically think, speak and act. With students who have already been marginalized in their early years of education, yet believe in higher education as “the swiftest elevators to the pinnacle of modern Indian power and opportunity” (Wolpert, quoted in Kapur and Mehta, 2004: 5), the responsibility lies in both the focus with which HEIs enter India and the regulations the Indian government establishes to monitor their role in higher education.
Concluding thoughts
When one contemplates the urgency with which India seeks to address the higher education situation within the country today, it is clear that the current structure of US–India partnerships does not meet the needs of those students who are already marginalized by nature of their birth, socio-economic status, caste, class, gender, religion, and levels of physical ability. While equity and social justice in higher education may not be the reason for the establishment of such partnerships, the data suggest that the inequities might in fact be further heightened due to the high fees, the disconnect between country goals and student goals, and the provision of education that promotes skills rather than knowledge.
Unterhalter (2010) considers the notions of equality and equity in higher education and describes higher education as needing to move beyond the immediate response to our new knowledge society as “these imperatives are couched in terms of efficiency, human capital, or cost-benefit.”(p. 93). Unterhalter (2010) continues by saying that transformative higher education “stretches beyond the bounded formal institutions … (with) critical engagement with knowledge, interwoven with the processes of freedom … identity formation, organizational change … student well-being and agency development.”(p. 93). For Unterhalter (2010), to talk of equity and equality in higher education requires understanding the differences between pedagogies of consequence, construction, and connection. Understanding the principles of these three broad pedagogies will allow for a better appreciation of the current state of higher education partnerships in India, and subsequently the impact such programs will have on the equitable development of Indian society.
Pedagogies of consequence are defined as the status quo of higher education, or the “technical position on teaching and learning … with the view that the purpose of higher education is primarily to develop human capital and improve economic growth” (Unterhalter, 2010: 95). Unterhalter (2010) cites examples in countries such as India and South Africa where new institutions, greater enrollment, and innovative ways to use technology to teach are being adapted, but there is little understanding of how to undo structures of inequity and discrimination. Pedagogies of construction move further along the continuum of addressing equity and equality in higher education to “assert and practice the importance of moral equality as a supreme value” (p. 100) and to utilize higher education as a means of promoting democratic community and dismantling oppression. In India, some elite schools bring a social justice vision to their curriculum, but for pedagogies of construction to be effective, the presence of such curricula in all schools, colleges, technical training institutes, universities, and other forms for formal, nonformal, and informal education ought to be the goal. Finally, Unterhalter (2010) discusses the notion of pedagogies of connection, which are “concerned with building engaged conceptual, empirical, and professional practices that allow for the evaluation of different situations and guide action” (p. 105). The directive in pedagogies of connection appears to be the link between theory and action in a concerted effort to move away from structures of oppression to systems of inclusion.
Unterhalter (2010) supports the need for all three forms of pedagogy in higher education, yet as in the findings presented in this paper, we still see that in India the bulk of higher education is focused on the pedagogies of consequence. The developing partnerships speak to the notions of connecting the world of school/university directly to the world of work. While efforts to support critical thinking and dispositions of citizenship and agency are encouraged, the cost-benefit decisions may lead to a more immediate sacrifice of those principles in the attempt to promote national (economic) development.
Administrators maintained indistinct understandings of the overall nature of international partnerships. Many administrators talked about “win–win situations” “win–win formulas” or “win–win solutions”, and the development of partnerships was often described as showing “great potential”, but there was limited detail in what was offered on how the situation could be clarified as either a win–win or showing potential. The question then evolves to ask: Do the partnerships offer a chance for “pedagogies of construction or connection” to flourish? This is important, as with the large numbers of young people in India, “to have a stake in the future, it is important to allow systems of higher education (which have been very successful at maintaining the structure of a postcolonial middle-class bastion of economic and political hegemony) to evolve into something more innovative” (Baily, 2012: 381). What might be these innovative ways? Many administrators offered their hope for technology to help equalize education. One respondent stated, “To reach the more marginalized, (we need) …technology–but will that be second tier too?”, showing that administrators were not only questioning the opportunities, but the quality of the goods and services of education. Another hoped “American HEIs can bring their superior abilities in delivering e-learning to help Indian HEIs to affordably reach a large number of less privileged students.”
For India, higher education is no longer a luxury to be considered by a few policy makers as building a small cadre of middle-class professionals. The past success of basic education and the upcoming successes of secondary education will mean that a whole generation of young people will be looking ahead to their place in India’s trajectory. Quality of education at the basic and secondary levels will impact higher education, but those who are currently on the margins of society—the majority of the country at this moment—will be unsatisfied and unwilling to wait patiently for their chance for educational attainment. With the rising interests in partnerships, issues of profit, critical academic offerings, and ensuring parity between the goals of the two countries need to be addressed. This article offers an analysis on how these issues disproportionally affect marginalized students, and makes the case that for more equitable development of higher education through partnerships, policy makers would be well advised to think through how to evolve from rhetoric to action of equity and opportunity.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.