Remarks
by former Ambassador T.P.Sreenivasan, Executive Head of the Kerala State Higher
Education Council at the UNC-India Summit II at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. June 25, 2014.
Member
of the UNC Board of Governors, Hari Nath,
UNC
President Tom Ross,
VP
for International Engagement, UNC, Leslie Boney,
Scott
Simkins of NCA and TSU,
International
Programs Coordinator Bonnei Derr,
Members
of the faculty,
Friends,
The
campus air in Chapel Hill exhilarates me even though I have been on the road
for more than 24 hours and I am not sure when the jet lag will hit me. It is
indeed an honour to be invited as the Keynote Speaker at the UNC-India
Education Summit II, 2014. I recall how the idea of Kerala-UNC collaboration arose
at a seminar organized by the Wadhwani Chair of the CSIS a year ago, at which I
made a presentation on the Kerala State Higher Education Council under the
chairmanship of Ambassador Rick Inderfurth, himself an alumnus of the UNC at
Chapel Hill.
Leslie
Boney and Scott Simkins should be in the category of pioneers and explorers
like David Livingstone and Christopher Columbus, as they came to the distant
Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala State in their quest for new frontiers of educational
cooperation. Today, we are reaping the harvest of their efforts by celebrating
the growing cooperation between UNC and Kerala. I am here to reciprocate their
visit and to see how far we can go on our path of collaboration. During the
initial visit itself, they made a contribution to our thinking at the
International Meet on Transnational Education (IMTE) as well as at the seminars
in the Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU) in Kottayam and the Cochin University of
Science and Technology (CUSAT) at Kochi. Two more experts, Sanjiv Sarin and Jerono
Rotich have also been to MGU even within the first year of our cooperation.
This Summit will give us an opportunity to assess the work of UNC not only in
Kerala, but also in the rest of India. The pace at which UNC has begun to work
in India is truly remarkable.
Leslie
has asked me to place the educational reforms in Kerala and India in the
context of the advent of the new Government under Prime Minister Nrendra Modi.
Neeraj Agrawal has already spoken of the prospects of the Narendra Modi
Government from the point of view of a BJP insider. I share his view that there
is much excitement about the change in Government and there is an air of new
purposefulness in India. Many policies of the new Government are yet to be
announced, but the indications so far are that there would be change, but also
continuity, particularly in foreign policy. As for education, the concerned
Minister, Smriti Irani, who was initially criticized for not having been to a
University, has made a mark as a young, energetic and visionary person. A new
educational policy is said to be on the anvil and all indications are that it
is likely to be forward looking, modern and technologically savvy. She has
spoken of excellence in institutions in every state and the adoption of modern
techniques of education like MOOCS.
The
reports from Leslie and Scott have indicated the efforts we are making to build
Higher Education 2.0, with six areas identified for special attention. The Central
Government too seems to be introducing reforms, building on the good
foundations laid in the past to meet the challenges and use the opportunities
of the 21st century, particularly the demographic dividend India
will have in the next few years. In my view, what is needed is not just a new
education policy, but a new education system.
The
new Government has inherited a substantially diminished relationship between
India and the United States, compared to its heyday at the time of the India-US
nuclear deal. President Barack Obama came to India in 2010 with the intention
of building a defining relationship of the 21st century, expecting
to benefit from the nuclear deal, purchase by India of military aircraft and
the liberalization of the Indian economy. Those hopes have been belied for
various reasons, most notably because of the policy paralysis in Delhi. The “roller
coaster ride” of India-US relations had reached a deep trough, with the
Khobragade incident and the visa denial to Narendra Modi imposed in 2005. But
as it has been made clear by recent events, the roller coaster has begun to
move up again. Since the priorities of the Modi Government are domestic
development and strengthening India’s strategic space, the US will be a natural
partner and the baggage of the past will be left aside. Prime Minister Modi is
scheduled to visit the US this September and no visa hassle is expected!
It
must be remembered that even in the midst of the din and bustle of political
controversies, quiet work in the various working groups has been taking place
and education is one of the areas in which progress has been made. I have no
doubt that this will continue and new areas of cooperation between the two
countries will emerge. I hope that the modest success we have achieved in
Kerala-UNC cooperation will be a contribution to the larger picture.
The
reports we have received today on the various ongoing programs like UNC’s
Hindi-Urdu Language Consortium Program, its MOOC on the Asian economies, Social
Work cooperation between UNC Wilmington and Bangalore University and others
show how much UNC is involved in India already. There was a time when India was
hardly on the American radar, political, economic or educational. But today,
India is very much in the consciousness of the US and the prospects are bright
for multifaceted collaboration. From being “estranged democracies”, the two
countries have become “engaged democracies”. The UNC-India Summit II has been a
significant milestone in our journey together.
Thank
you.
