– Rahul Singh is the former editor of Reader’s Digest, Indian Express and Khaleej Times In the latest THE (Times Higher Education) World University Rankings 2013-14 published in October, none of India’s 33,000 colleges and 659 universities are ranked among the Top 200. As usual, the THE league tables are headed by American and British universities — California Institute of Technology, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Oxford, Stanford, University of California (Berkeley) etc. Several Asian varsities are ranked among the Top 50, such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Singapore and Seoul universities, as well as China’s Tsinghua and Beijing universities. We have to go to the Top 400 in THE World University Rankings league table to find any reference to India. Punjab University, believe it or not, is India’s top-ranked (#226-50) followed by IIT-Delhi, IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Roorkee (351-400). India’s vintage Bombay, Calcutta and Madras universities, established in 1857 and Delhi University (1922) are conspicuously absent from the Top 400. More tragic is the fact that the gap between Indian and foreign universities is widening. Ten years ago, Jawaharlal Nehru University’s department of social sciences was ranked a commendable 42. Now, it’s nowhere in the Top 400. The gap between foreign and Indian universities is widening because there is declining comprehension in the academy about the meaning and purpose of post-secondary education. Post-independence India’s academics tend to view college as an extension of school. There’s little awareness that higher ed institutions need to provide liberal environments in which students acquire academic as well as broad-based life skills and lifestyle education. The difference between collegiate education in India and abroad became clear to me way back in the 1960s when I was pulled out of St. Stephen’s, Delhi — one of India’s best liberal colleges — by my father and made to write the entrance exam to King’s College, Cambridge University (UK). I passed the exam and that’s how I found myself as a student of one of the world’s Top 10 universities. Among the first things that struck me at Cambridge was the wide choice of extra-curricular activities — debating, film, photography, dramatics, sports — available to students. The point is that while pursuing studies, one had the opportunity to also develop a variety of life skills. The Cambridge Union (debating society) sharpened the communication skills of innumerable British and non-native politicians and leaders including our very own Mani Shankar Aiyar, while the rival Oxford Union honed the skills of the likes of the late Benazir Bhutto. It was official policy not only to encourage academic excellence but also develop students with well-rounded personalities. Interaction and socialisation between the sexes was accepted as natural, and ‘bird-and-bottle’ parties were de rigueur. Moreover, unlike Indian universities, it’s not mandatory to attend a mini-mum number of lectures at Cambridge; you are free to opt out of all lectures as the university authorities presume you are adult enough to decide for yourself. According to Deepak Nayyar, a Rhodes scholar at Oxford and a former vice chancellor of…
