Prof. Altbach, http://www.bc.edu/schools/
[Please note that the CC-BY, Creative Commons Attribution license does not apply to this post.]
In the article Prof. Altbach mentions how top political and other leaders across the world, including India's Prime Minister, give tremendous value to university rankings like the Times Higher Education ranking (officially called World University Rankings), http://www.
The author of the article digs deeper into the above two rankings. He states that the Shanghai rankings are research based (teaching quality is not measured). The Times Higher education ranking gives research a lot of importance but also tries to factor in teaching quality and internationalization by using "weak proxies" to measure them. The article discusses some more issues related to the rankings.
In its conclusion the author states, "For India, or other developing countries, to obsess about the rankings is a mistake."
There was a response to this article from Mr. Phil Baty, editor, Times Higher Education rankings, "Why this global ranking process matters", http://www.thehindu.com/
Mr Baty wrote that Times Higher Education ranking (measures) "teaching, research, knowledge transfer and internationalisation".
Prof. Altbach wrote another article, seemingly in response to Mr. Baty's article, "Ranking obsessions and India’s educational needs", http://www.thehindu.com/
I am so glad to read the articles from Prof. Altbach, a distinguished educator, questioning the relevance of higher education rankings like Times Higher Education rankings or the Shanghai rankings for the vast majority of Indian universities/colleges (typically regulated by UGC/AICTE). While I am nowhere close to being a knowledgeable person on these matters from a country-wide perspective, it seems to me that his assessment that many of these higher educational institutions (of India) "mainly provide supervision of colleges and teaching in selected postgraduate fields, but perform little if any research" is correct. And, IMHO, there is nothing shameful about it! That's the role they are cut out to play, in terms of the finance available to them, the faculty available and the students they cater to. Teaching alone is not shameful but a very respected calling, IMHO.
I particularly liked him noting the "latest eminent person to castigate Indian higher education for its low quality". I think it has become a popular sport for India's top politicians. I would have hated to be in the shoes of the academics who had to listen to such castigation without any chance to respond.
He wrote, "It (India) needs a small number of top-quality, internationally competitive research universities." I guess the elite IITs, IISc, TIFR etc. have government or other funds support and limited teaching load for its faculty, to shoot for these goals.
"And it needs significant improvement in the overall quality of the system, and especially of the colleges." I think teaching quality needs a lot of improvement. BTW here is an interesting article about NPTEL tying up with some corporates (Google, TCS etc.) for its free online learning solutions: http://articles.timesofindia.
I think online education may 'revolutionize' Indian higher education landscape. I feel India is just about ready to get on to the MOOC bandwagon as the Internet has really caught on even in semi-urban India and some parts of rural India as well. If you want to read a short blogpost on why I feel MOOC may revolutionize higher education teaching, which is based on an external link article, you may please visit: http://eklavyasai.blogspot.in/
[Please note that the CC-BY, Creative Commons Attribution license does not apply to this post.]
In the article Prof. Altbach mentions how top political and other leaders across the world, including India's Prime Minister, give tremendous value to university rankings like the Times Higher Education ranking (officially called World University Rankings), http://www.
The author of the article digs deeper into the above two rankings. He states that the Shanghai rankings are research based (teaching quality is not measured). The Times Higher education ranking gives research a lot of importance but also tries to factor in teaching quality and internationalization by using "weak proxies" to measure them. The article discusses some more issues related to the rankings.
In its conclusion the author states, "For India, or other developing countries, to obsess about the rankings is a mistake."
There was a response to this article from Mr. Phil Baty, editor, Times Higher Education rankings, "Why this global ranking process matters", http://www.thehindu.com/
Mr Baty wrote that Times Higher Education ranking (measures) "teaching, research, knowledge transfer and internationalisation".
Prof. Altbach wrote another article, seemingly in response to Mr. Baty's article, "Ranking obsessions and India’s educational needs", http://www.thehindu.com/
I am so glad to read the articles from Prof. Altbach, a distinguished educator, questioning the relevance of higher education rankings like Times Higher Education rankings or the Shanghai rankings for the vast majority of Indian universities/colleges (typically regulated by UGC/AICTE). While I am nowhere close to being a knowledgeable person on these matters from a country-wide perspective, it seems to me that his assessment that many of these higher educational institutions (of India) "mainly provide supervision of colleges and teaching in selected postgraduate fields, but perform little if any research" is correct. And, IMHO, there is nothing shameful about it! That's the role they are cut out to play, in terms of the finance available to them, the faculty available and the students they cater to. Teaching alone is not shameful but a very respected calling, IMHO.
I particularly liked him noting the "latest eminent person to castigate Indian higher education for its low quality". I think it has become a popular sport for India's top politicians. I would have hated to be in the shoes of the academics who had to listen to such castigation without any chance to respond.
He wrote, "It (India) needs a small number of top-quality, internationally competitive research universities." I guess the elite IITs, IISc, TIFR etc. have government or other funds support and limited teaching load for its faculty, to shoot for these goals.
"And it needs significant improvement in the overall quality of the system, and especially of the colleges." I think teaching quality needs a lot of improvement. BTW here is an interesting article about NPTEL tying up with some corporates (Google, TCS etc.) for its free online learning solutions: http://articles.timesofindia.
I think online education may 'revolutionize' Indian higher education landscape. I feel India is just about ready to get on to the MOOC bandwagon as the Internet has really caught on even in semi-urban India and some parts of rural India as well. If you want to read a short blogpost on why I feel MOOC may revolutionize higher education teaching, which is based on an external link article, you may please visit: http://eklavyasai.blogspot.in/
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