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The Ministry of HRD and its children, University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have a stranglehold. A college cannot decide what courses to teach, what fees to charge and what salaries to pay its professors. How could
creativity emerge from this servitude? Creating new universities, as the PM proposes, is not the answer unless you give them autonomy.

Forget creativity, Indian companies are frightened by the shortage of basic skills which is currently driving up salaries unhealthily. Of the 400,000 new engineers that graduate each year, roughly 100,000 have the skills to enter the job market. It is tragic that over 400,000 students strive for 6,000 IITs and IIMs seats annually.

The answer, of course, is to increase the supply of good colleges. As it is, we lose 160,000 students to foreign universities and parents pay $ 3 billion in fees and costs. Indian 'edupreneurs' and foreign universities have repeatedly tried to start high quality campuses but the HRD Ministry's 'Licence Raj' drives them away. AICTE even wants to close down the prestigious private Indian School of Business (ISB) which offers a better education than even an IIM. The draft foreign universities bill doesn't provide autonomy either and ensures that no decent foreign university will enter India.

Our education system is our Achilles Heel, and we will not spawn Mark Bents until we do a 1991 on HRD and unbind India's education. Meanwhile, I console myself in knowing that there are individuals like my friend, N. S. Raghavan, who is using part of his Infosys fortune to incubate entrepreneurs at the IIM Bangalore.

He will make a difference, and modest breakthroughs like Mark Bent's will contribute more to human happiness than either the massive aid programs of governments or the soul-killing mediocrity of our universities.

Concluded.

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Gurcharan Das is an author, consultant and public intellectual. He is a columnist for The Times of India, and other newspapers & magazines; also the author of the international bestseller, 'India Unbound', published in many countries and languages, and filmed by BBC. He graduated with honors from Harvard University in Philosophy & Politics. He was Chairman & MD of Richardson Hindustan Ltd. from 1981-1985. Then, CEO of P&G India & Vice President of P&G Far East, between 1985-1992, and later VP & MD of P&G Worldwide (Strategic Planning). In 1995, he took early retirement to become a full-time writer. He currently consults with a number of companies on global corporate strategy, and is associated with a private equity fund.