A Better Education

We caught up with Narayana Murthy at Whistling Woods' 8th Annual Convocation Ceremony, and found him quite articulate about the things that can be done to change education as we know it.

1) The Right People: Put together a governing board of people highly respected in their field and empower them to decide what works best for a given institution.

2) The Freedom of Choice – The board ought to have complete autonomy on matters pertaining to education—from from who would make the best director and how to spend their resources to what the curriculum will include, what sort of students they will and won't admit and how examinations will be conducted and evaluated.

3) The Great Exchange – There should be a provision for students and faculty to visit and study at institutions of higher learning in developed countries, and thereby gain a world-class education. We should also be able to invite students and professors from foreign universities here, to learn and teach.

4) More Scholarships - We need more scholarships for PhDs. We should be sending at least 2,000 youngsters abroad for PhDs to well-known universities, with the strict condition that they will not take on a job there and come back to serve in India for at least 10 years.

5) Set a target – India is not even amongst the Top 100 Institutes of learning in the world. I think the highest is the Indian Institute of Science at around 300. We should all say 'yes we will change'; and try to make it to the Top 100 in five years or the Top 50 in 10 years.