Philanthropy Powers Paradigm Shift in Private Education

Online, October 31, 2013 (Newswire.com) - In a tottering economy his core business, he says, is not performing on expected lines but his concern now is Ashoka University (AU) that he and 11 others have founded in Kundli, Haryana.

On the other side of the NCR, another philanthropic venture is getting noticed in Noida. Unlike AU, a brainchild of mostly first generation entrepreneurs and successful corporate leaders, Shiv Nadar University (SNU), spread over 286 acres, is being put together with HCL founder's personal fortune. What binds the two is their avowed claim not to make profit but build world-class varsities brick by brick. Far away in Bangalore, Azim Premji University is following the same mantra. Some of the biggest names like economist Subhashis Gangopadhyay, sociologist Dipankar Gupta, physicist Rupmanjari Ghosh and historian Rohan D'Souza have left prestigious assignments to become part of SNU. AU's academic council consists of veritable who's who like Andre Beteille, Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Sunil Khilnani, Ramchandra Guha, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Christophe Jaffrelot, Kaushik Basu, Devesh Kapur, A K Shiva Kumar, Kenwyn Smith.

In a country where private education is all about profit, AU and SNU could herald a paradigm shift. Bikhchandani says the idea of a university was borne out of many eureka moments in his life like coming out unfulfilled from three years in St. Stephen's College, meeting a college junior who said Delhi University (DU) undergraduate syllabus in economics had not changed since 1980 and many others. "We have adopted the British system of working in silos," he says. Bikhchandani got in touch with few like-minded people like Yale and Harvad alumni Ashis Dhawan of ChrysCapital, Ashish Gupta of Evalueshare and many others. Meeting Pramath Sinha, founding dean of ISB, Hyderabad, was godsend for them. "Pramath brought another group that wanted to start technological university. The two groups merged," Bikhchandani says. But the twin mantra was finalized: every founder will make personal contribution, there will be no profit and university will belong to no one. "People who are contributing are not part of the university. Our vision is new kind of college education that will act as a catalyst," Bikhchandani says.

Another first by the two universities is the way they are blending teaching of pure science and liberal arts in equal measure. The usual route of teaching management and engineering is not their immediate priority. Says Gangopadhyay of SNU, "University must have a large variety of disciplines so that both students and faculty members can work together, offer separate perspectives on a common issue and, learn from each other."

Vineet Gupta of Jamboree Education, one of the AU founders, says, "Professional education prepares you for one skill or one discipline but a liberal education which covers a broad range of subjects in pure sciences, social sciences and humanities is an education for life and prepares you for the interdisciplinary demands of the job market today."

AU, which has tied up with the University of Pennsylvania, Carleton College, SciencesPo of Paris, is in talks with Yale, Oxford, King's College, London and University of Michigan. It has decided to give admission through an application process that would not only look at marks but also evaluate Statement of Purpose (SOP) and essay that an applicant writes. SNU has a flexible system that looks at English marks in class XII and two other subjects. Fee in both the universities would be on the higher side for those who can afford but there will be enough scholarships for meritorious students. AU says it has distributed Rs 13 crore worth of scholarship through its Young India Fellowship, the university's first post-graduate programme.

Pedagogy in AU and SNU will be flexible enough. In AU, students will go through a breadth of education that covers sciences, social sciences before they decide to major in their chosen field. SNU also allows students to move to another stream after the first year. Gangopadhyay is confident that if an institution like SNU can "offer globally comparable programmes, there is no reason why parents will not pay to an Indian institution".

SNU has already started, and AU will from next year in its modest 25-acre campus. Individual philanthropy of one and collective philanthropy of another geared towards excellence could herald a new change and make private education no longer a dirty word.