‘Brexit and Trump will weaken UK, US varsities’

Donald Trump’s ascendancy to the US Presidency and Brexit were the two most disruptive events in recent times that would adversely affect the higher education sector in the US and Britain, said John T Delaney, Dean and Professor of Management, Kogod School of Business of the American University, Washington.

Delivering the keynote address at the International Business Schools Meeting on Education at the Xavier Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship (XIME), Bengaluru, Delaney said, “Whether these votes were a rejection of globalism or a narrower expression of discontent, the results will substantially change higher education.

The situation will weaken British and American universities and provide opportunity to those in the rest of the world,” he said.

Speaking on the theme ‘Management Education: Coping with the Emerging Trends in a Globalised World’, Delaney said the change results from three interrelated forces: an integrated global economy is a fact of life and efforts to create barriers to trade will fail. Universities will be hurt by government decisions to limit the hiring of scholars because of their birth or citizenship.

Secondly, he said, the most critical problems faced by mankind are global in scope.

Even if temporary barriers are constructed to interrupt global markets, they will not resolve problems. Efforts by the Trump administration to soften environmental regulations will worsen global climate change.

Thirdly, he said, the rejection of facts and truth in favour of alternate facts and a focus only on what the US administration tweets as correct will undermine a core value of higher education in the US. “In combination with massive proposed Trump administration budget cuts to higher education and related areas, the situation is grim for American colleges,” Delaney said.

Delivering the second keynote address, Rajiv Lochan, MD & CEO of The Hindu , said the centre of gravity in the world has shifted eastwards, to China and India. In the next 15-20 years, India will generate more wealth than in the past many decades, he said.

The compelling driver of prosperity is a young population, more affluent and willing to take more risks. “Unlike the earlier generations, this generation has seen only prosperity so the mindset is different. Add technology to the mix of affluence and risk-taking and this will give rise to unbridled prosperity. This augurs well for India,” he said. However, the disturbing trends are that India ranks low on many indices: health, gender and hunger.

Lochan said, in the future, practitioners of management education have to operate as ‘triathletes’. No longer will there be a fine line between the public, private and social sectors and one will have to learn to straddle all three and interact with people across sectors.

“Management education should equip students also on how to give voice to values and help in value-based decisions,” he said.

Delivering the welcome address, J Philip, President, XIME, said globalisation as a dominant movement cannot be stopped. The attributes of the global manager will be the same: a global mindset, the ability to work with diverse workforces, a long-range perspective, the ability to manage change and transition and accomplished negotiating skills.

The two-day meet is attended by academics from the US, Singapore, China, Malaysia, and India.

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