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Enrolment and graduation
Early professionalizing reflects a need for employability discernible in
the rising enrolments for bachelor’s degrees in business management,
mass media and computer applications that have become increasingly
popular since the late 1990s when first introduced at the undergradu-
ate level. Only recently are some of these degrees even being offered in
languages other than English. While the eschewing of local relevance
is exacerbated by franchises and the trend to twinning degrees (where
students study in India, but pay exorbitant fees to receive their degrees
from abroad), state-owned private colleges have long since rendered
many debates on local and federal controls moot. One example of
this is manifested in the issue of reservations and caste-based quotas.
Regulations on universalizing access and quotas for disadvantaged
classes to secure admissions have historically not been applicable in
private colleges that receive no aid from state funding. While state assis-
tance could enhance the ability of private colleges to better provide for
linked research resources and enhanced exposure, even heavily subsi-
dized state colleges do not presume to provide such infrastructure, and
private investors prefer to preserve their autonomy over accepting the
strings attached with state aid. Consequently, several debates that focus
on quotas, grants and regulations do little to genuinely push for an
increased quality of education for Indian college students.
For India’s young demographic to compete globally, the need for
updated choices, access to research resources and a talented faculty
have justified the push to liberalize education. Despite the noise about
growth rates and newmarkets, excellence in college education cannot
be represented by enrolment ratios and consumer choices, but by the
quality of graduating classes. True liberalization would go beyond
viewing education as a sector only in need of regulation and invest-
ment in scale, to tackling the bigger challenge of producing much
needed excellence. Early professional specialization, privatization of
infrastructure and maximally efficient mass testing through competi-
tive examinations might be perceived as answers to closing the gap
between outdated curricula and current needs. However, these meas-
ures barely begin to confront questions of student-teacher ratios, or
affording the time needed to fully explore options and strengths in
the quest for true graduation. The sheer scale of India’s
youth ought to invite honest reflection on what it means
to liberalize the quality of college education, especially
since it is quality that remains in short supply.
The FLAME experiment
Since decisions made at college fundamentally determine
career choices in India, the quality of college education
is deeply related to individual happiness later in life. At
the tender age of 18, not every student already knows
their strengths or inclinations towards making irrevers-
ible decisions with regard to their careers. Consequently,
a pioneering effort at providing students with choices
to fully explore their options and reverse the watertight
selections between arts, science and commerce has been
attempted since 2007 at The Foundation for Liberal and
Management Education (FLAME) in Pune.
It is a unique and singular experiment in the Indian
education landscape, and has attempted to prove that
liberal education can work in a competitive Indian
educational environment. According to the FLAME plan
of study, students spend their first two years acquiring
a solid foundation in the fundamentals of several disci-
plines. Simple as this may seem, this pattern stands in
direct contrast to the tendency towards specialization
that is encouraged very early in the Indian system. The
liberal education model seeks to push away from that
dominant logic, instead encouraging a breadth of expo-
sure to the inherent inter-disciplinarily of all knowledge.
The cornerstones of liberal education are the promo-
tion of a true understanding of global affairs and the
fostering of individual curiosity. Class size and scale
are important to cultivating individual learning, and
despite the small size of a college, FLAME has managed
to keep the student teacher ratio at 15:1 and to offer
as many as 80 courses to less than 160 students. This
The quality of college education is closely related to individual happiness in later life
Image: FLAME