Mood of the time

I was thrilled to read your cover story ‘Time to welcome foreign universities’ (EW October). The article captures the mood of the time perfectly. Dilip Thakore has made a strong case for government to unshackle the education sector, and allow foreign universities into the country. This will give a dual benefit. First and foremost, Indian students will get access to globally recognised higher education at an affordable price. Another advantage is that the country will save enormous amounts of foreign exchange spent in the form of fees and living expenses by students going abroad to study. Moreover with the exponential increase in the number of youth entering university year after year, India needs huge capacity expansion to enroll all these young students. A further benefit of inviting foreign universities is that they will inevitably attract students from third world countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Africa etc. This could earn us valuable foreign exchange. On balance, there are more advantages in welcoming foreign universities rather than in hindering them. I hope the government realises this and we soon have Stanford and Harvard establishing campuses in India. Suresh Kamat Mangalore (Karnataka) Much too few I am a regular reader of EducationWorld since the past three years. I look forward to reading every issue of the magazine, because it contains detailed information about various aspects of education. The special report on Kendriya Vidyalaya schools in the October issue was very impressive. I didn’t know there were so many KVs in the country and that they had produced such illustrious alumni, who have contributed to the growth of the nation. But with a huge population of 200 million school-age children, India needs more top-quality schools, especially in rural areas. The disadvantage of KVs is that they are mostly urban based and are accessible only to children of pampered government employees. It’s high time the Central and state governments promoted several thousand more KVs in rural India to give the benefit of quality education to rural children, as well. After all government has a wider responsi-bility than merely providing for its own employees. Satya Narayan H.V. Bangalore Curious nationally representative sample With reference to the August 2007 cover story, we are impressed with your ambitious ranking of ‘India’s most respected schools’ using a “nationally representative sample”. This objective is indeed path-breaking and commendable. But in such an ambitious project there are bound to be some discrepancies. I would like to place on record our observations on your survey. In the east zone top schools’ league table, Loreto Convent, Darjeeling is ranked eighth and in India’s boarding schools’ league table, it is ranked as one of the top residential schools. This is surprising, because if the “nationally representative sample” had done their research, they would have been shocked to learn that Loreto closed down its boarding section almost 20 years ago! However it is heartening for our school teachers to note that “eastern zone parents and teachers” acknowledged St. Joseph’s School, North Point as one of the heavyweights in the east zone. It…