The Hindu Business Line : Taking a leaf out of Europe’s education book

The EU has educational objectives for 2010 designed to provide everyone with the basic essentials for a knowledge-based society. In this context, India will need to fine-tune policies to attract private sector participation and foreign direct investment in the education sector.

Mohan Murti

Two girls are sitting on the ground in a classroom devoid of writing tables and chairs and listening in rapt attention to their teacher. This scene from a school in India is on the cover page of the 2008 Education for All Global Monitoring Report of Unesco, released last week.

India figures close to the bottom of the stack in the ranking of countries in the report in terms of being capable of achieving the goal of ‘Education for All’ (EFA) by 2015.

Indian education scene

The Indian education system today does not stress enough on communication, articulation, team work and solidarity. Most students have a degree, but they are not employable. They lack technical and soft skills.

With an average of 9 per cent GDP growth expected to take place in India over the coming decade, I foresee an enormous skills shortage in the country. With IT exports expected to rise to $65 billion by 2010, the IT sector alone will create 2 million direct jobs. In this context, India will need to fine-tune policies to attract private sector participation and foreign direct investment in the education sector. We need a national education policy.

Let us take a look at the education set-up in Europe and the opportunity on offer for Indian students.

EU: Education, Training and Youth

From my personal experience of living and working in the EU for almost two decades, I am convinced of the direct relationship between ingenious education policies, responsible citizenry and a progressive nation. The EU has educational objectives for 2010 designed to provide everyone with the basic essentials for a knowledge-based society. Europeans strongly believe that good education and training improves understanding of the values of solidarity, equal opportunities and social participation. This is clearly manifest from the good health, clean environment, an out-of-this-world quality of life and, above all, very low levels of crime that countries of Western Europe offer.

Vocational Education and Training

One of the largest EU-funded programmes is the Leonardo da Vinci programme for vocational training and lifelong learning, with an average of more than 150 million euros to spend annually. It promotes cross-border exchanges and projects that foster innovation and entrepreneurship.

Programmes for Students

The Erasmus programme devotes on average some 135 million euros annually to grants for students and teachers to spend time at more than 2,000 universities in 31 countries.

I see a number of Indian students availing the opportunities in the separate Erasmus Mundus programme of EU, open to students and academics from all over the world, which promotes Masters courses involving consortia of least three European universities.

Education System in Germany

I would rate Germany’s education system as one of the world’s best. Its structure is comprehensive. Over 330 higher education institutions in Germany have on offer abundant choice for Indian student-aspirants.

There are two different kinds of educational systems in Germany — General education, vocational education (or dual education).

The higher education of Germany comprises Universities, Technical Universities and Colleges of education and specialised colleges. In addition to general universities, there are lots of technical, art, music, pedagogical and specialised universities located in Germany.

Studies last from six to eight years and leaving certificates depend on the subject selection and level of study.

Areas of Study

Germany offers almost 3,000 internationally-recognised Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree programmes with a global orientation that have been specifically designed to meet the needs and interests of foreign students. These programmes are offered at more than 200 German universities.

German degrees are traditionally divided into the much sought after science ‘Diplom’, which is equivalent to an Indian Masters degree, and humanities ‘Magister’ degrees and Doctoral degrees.

English is largely or exclusively the language of instruction. This means that Indian students do not have to pass a German language test for admission to these programmes. German is taught parallel to academic studies. The Web site http://www.daad.de/deutschland/index.de. allows search through almost 400 courses, on offer.

Scholarship Funding

German scholarships are the most generous source of financial support — average €705. Graduate students are the leading group of students to receive German scholarships.

The fact that there are little or no tuition fees in Germany could obviously be a great advantage for students from India.

University Partnerships

During my years as CII Europe Director, the one assignment I enjoyed most was the several rounds of meetings and discussions we had with the Federal Ministry of Education & Research, in Bonn and, the numerous partnership agreements we signed with German universities on attracting Indian students. Today, 12 years hence, not only is the absolute number of foreign students at German universities on the rise but the percentage of Indian students has also more than doubled.

There are over 80 Indian Universities, Institutions of excellence and departments that have cooperation agreements with German Universities. The ‘Hochschulkompass’ (Higher-Education-Compass) provides a comprehensive list of international cooperation agreements along with various search options. The ‘Kompass’ can be accessed at: www.higher-education-compass.de .

Summer Universities

The International Summer Universities (Internationale Sommeruniversitaeten) offered by German universities frequently also represent a good way of starting to study in Germany. The German and/or English-instructed summer schools and summer courses have been specially designed for foreign students. They enable students to get to know Germany before starting a longer study stay here.

The multilingual portal http://www.campus-germany.de offers information on studies and research in Germany as well as on services for foreign students.

Knowledge transcends

Germany is the only country in the world that has a “Higher Education Act,” which expressly defines the task of attracting qualified foreign students to study at one of the country’s universities. The whole education system in Germany is controlled by the state which believes that knowledge is global and must transcend all frontiers. This isreflected in the national education policy of Germany.

(The author is former Europe Director, CII, and lives in Cologne, Germany. Feedback may be sent to mohan.murti@t-online.de)