Boosting Innovation: Murthy’s Idea Of Funding Indian PhDs In US Is A Non-Starter

Murthy’s idea will cost Indian Government in the tune of $25 bn over five years, an investment that can be better used to set up several top-notch universities and research institutions where Indians currently working abroad can be lured back.

NR Narayana Murthy suggested that India should spend an annual $5 billion to create 10,000 PhDs in American universities with the explicit proviso that none of them will be employed in the US. They have to return home to work on innovative projects and products right here.

While prima facie this seems like a bold idea to unleash thousands of innovators in India, giving a quantum jump the creation of intellectual property, a closer examination shows that this is actually a defeatist solution. Among other things, it concludes that India cannot produce world class PhDs, that the ones produced in the US will become innovative in India merely because they did their stuff under western masters, and that all this expense is worth it for ensuring high quality PhDs.

This is a typical Indian non-solution that essentially says India can’t be reformed, and that we need ideas that bypass our institutional limitations rather than improve them. This is the kind of thinking that got us a Right to Education Act, which essentially forces the 10 percent of reasonably competent privately-run schools to provide education to the underprivileged, instead of focusing on the real issue: how to make state schools deliver by making them accountable.

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The right university-industry nexus

If industrial houses can be allowed to run banks — the Reserve Bank of India is currently working towards issuing licences – they could a fortiori be permitted to run colleges as well.

The All India Council for Technical Education should be complimented for deciding to allow companies with net worth of more than Rs 100 crore to set up universities. But this should be subject to suitable safeguards. A company should, thus, not be allowed to spread itself thin. Rather, it should be made to impart education only in areas that are its core strength.

Larsen & Toubro, for example, could offer relevant courses in civil, structural and electrical engineering and its offshoots. It would, after all, be a mere me-too, if it sets itself on imparting education on biotechnology as well.

In other words, just as companies concentrate on their niche areas in the market, they should impart education as well only on those very same niche areas. If they are willing, they may be allowed to have campuses across the country to cater to various regions, so that children are not wrenched away from their parents besides ensuring that the latter do not have to fork out huge amounts on hostel expenditure as far as possible.

It should also be kosher if two or more companies — otherwise competitors in the market place — pool their resources and jointly set up a university.

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