The Education sector can greatly benefit from the rising international stature of ‘Brand India’.

The education sector in India is studded with gems of unmatched quality, educationists who have set new benchmarks and have path-breaking ideas to make education standards better in India. One of these gems is educationist Amreesh Chandra, Trustee and Executive Principal, St. Paul’s School, Gorakhpur.

Last week Chandra spoke exclusively to a leading media portal on his thoughts how to improve education in India. Here is a rundown of this conversation.

The educationist feels that world-class educational institutes are the cornerstone for India to attract foreign students as well as make India more preferable to local students over foreign universities.

Sharing the problems of the education sector in India, Chandra said, “Education is looked at as an ‘industry’. This needs to change. It needs to be looked at from a charitable perspective and not a commercial perspective,” he said.

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These problems center around the 2 kinds of education infrastructure – physical infrastructure and academic infrastructure.

Physical infrastructure is dependent on investment. It is very difficult to secure bank funding in India as it is not a favoured sector, besides, there is a regulatory hurdle for the same. “Just as every district and state are divided into sub economic zones. Similarly, we can have education economic zones (in every state) where loans to set up educational infrastructure would get various subsidies, which will encourage people to invest in education,” he said.

The academic infrastructure is the resources that go in managing the education. “While we talk about improving the number of IITs and IIMs, we need to look at how to increase the number of institutes offering qualification for teachers as well. We need to have teacher training colleges at par with these,” he said, adding that there is a great need to impart soft skills such as communication skills to teachers.

Besides looking at the physical and academic infrastructure, attention needs to be paid to the recent upswing in offbeat professions and non-traditional career paths. This has structurally impacted the education sector in India and the world over due to the demand supply dynamics.

“For example, there are more people wanting to become chefs, for whom we now have culinary colleges or even hospitality colleges,” he said.

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Chandra points out that even after so many years, the number of students coming in to study into India is far lesser than the number of Indian students opting to study abroad. According to the educationist, the holistic experience and development offered by a university makes the institute overall attractive for the student besides offering academic excellence.

“The QCF quotient is so high in international campuses that it gives the students a great quality of basic exposure which we need to give to our students as well by building world class universities,” he said, giving the example of the number of school students going abroad for education having dropped due to international schools mushrooming in the country.

“The position of India globally at this point of time is something the education sector can take advantage of,” Chandra said. Further adding that the number of international students seeking internship India is swelling due to the recent upswing in the international perception of ‘brand India’.

Chandra is only the second Indian after Jawaharlal Nehru to be conferred the honorary title ‘Freeman to the City of London’, for his contribution to the development of global education. He is an ‘edu-preneur’ who is tirelessly promoting India as a premier educational destination.

* Read the original story by Shalini Rajvanshi on www.indianexpress.com

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