South Asian University as a catalyst for development

It was at the last SAARC Summit held in New Delhi that the Indian government proposed to establish a regional university for South Asia with its base near the Indian capital.

The Indian government offered to provide adequate space and initial investment capital needed to set it up. Since then, some divergent views have been expressed regarding its possible location stated S. T. Hettige, Professor of Sociology.

University of Colombo in an interview with Sunday Observer.

There cannot be any doubt about the need for a regional center of excellence in higher education that does not belong to any particular country.

In spite of the formation of regional grouping like the EU, ASIAN and SAARC, individual countries have demonstrated in no uncertain terms that they are not going to give up their national identity or national interest.

Citizens also still look up to “their” governments when it comes to social and economic rights, justice and security. Business firms and R & D institutions continue to compete with each other across national boundaries.

On the other hand, collective regional endeavors in diverse fields are critical to make regional cooperation meaningful and useful. Such endeavors may include sharing of information, cultural and scholarly exchange, facilitation of movement of people and collective efforts to face common challengers. The proposed SA University can thus become an important catalyst to facilitate development and regional integration in South Asia.

South Asia as a region has many intra-regional differences. These are well known and need no elaboration here. It is these differences that have militated against greater cooperation among countries.

As is well known, intra -regional trade in South Asia is still minimal, in comparison to trade between South Asian Countries on one hand and the rest of the world on the other. Transportation and communication between some of the SA countries are also under- developed, to say the least.

As regards higher education and R & D, the differences between SA countries are enormous. Even with greater economic cooperation, such differences are unlikely to disappear in the near future.

In some countries, brain-drain is a major issue. Exodus of well trained and highly talented individuals is a major factor adversely affecting R & D and higher education institutions in some SA countries.

Moreover, some countries do not have adequate infrastructure to support advanced education and training. Under such conditions, countries can hardly promote knowledge- based development that many people talk about today.

It is against the above background that the proposed SA University becomes highly relevant for the region. It can in fact benefit less resource endowed and smaller countries in the region much more than larger and more resource endowed countries.

On the other hand, the actual impact of the proposed university would depend on a number of factors. The latter include the nature and the purpose of the institution, its outreach, accessibility, ownership and control.

Those who mooted the initial idea talk about a centre of excellence. A university can be a centre of excellence either in terms of teaching or research or both. Excellence does not usually come cheap.

The best universities in the world have no shortage of resources needed to hire the best faculty, provide good facilities for teaching and research and offer generous grants to talented and deserving students. Today, tuition fees represent a major part of the revenue of highly refuted universities.

On the other hand, what kind of graduates do we want the new university to produce? Do we want a whole spectrum of well trained graduates encompassing a range of disciplines?

Or do we want them to be from a smaller number of subject areas? Should it be an Undergraduate university or a post- graduate one or both? Do we want the university to engage in cutting- edge research in a few selected areas?

These and many other questions need to be asked and answered. Do we want one or two experts to guide the decision- making process or do we want a more broad- based consultative process across the region? Who should be consulted? Should the potential beneficiaries such as prospective students have a say? Should the decision-making process be democratic or be guided by intellectual elites in the region alone.

There can certainly be many diverse views across the region regarding various questions raised above. As a regional initiative, the proposed university should not alienate too many people. For its future prospects would depend on, among other things, how-broad- based its stake- holders are.

Space does not permit me to address all the issues mentioned above. Yet, a few of them deserve urgent attention, in view of the up-coming SAARC summit in Sri Lanka. The first issue is whether the SAU should have both undergraduate as well as post-graduates studies.

Given the declining quality of undergraduate education in some countries, a regional university perhaps could offer a good quality undergraduate education to a across section of students coming from all SAARC countries.

Bringing together students from these countries can also address the issue of rising nationalism in the region, besides helping to create much needed high quality human resources in diverse fields such as public administration, education, R & D, science and technology and human services.

On the other hand, post-graduate training is equally important. Most universities in the region do not have the facilities for high quality graduate level training.

A well endowed regional university could fill this void to a considerable extent, if the countries pool their resources together.It has also been proposed that, in addition to the main campus in one of countries, regional campuses should also be established in other countries.

Though this is a good idea, timing can be a decisive factor. It seems unwise to go for regional campuses, until the main institution is well established and fully functioning. On the other hand, different campuses need to be complementary to each other with their particular orientations and specializations so that they can facilitate cooperation, mobility and exchange of students across countries. Regional campuses should duplication as much as possible.

Being a regional centre, SAU has no choice but adopt English as the medium of instruction. On the other hand, extreme nationalist policies followed by some countries have already deprived several generations of youth the ability to communicate across narrow ethno-linguistic groups.

English medium instruction can shut out the vast majority of youths in the region unless arrangements are made to provide language training to promising students.

A regional university can be truly regional only if there is ease of mobility of both faculty and students. The selection of the site for the main campus should be done keeping this very critical issue in mind. If people in some countries feel that they cannot get their travel papers processed speedily, the whole idea of s common meeting ground is lost.

Another issue is ease of travel. Not all the countries in the region are well connected to the outside, outside world.

It is obvious that there is not a single country that fulfills all the requirements mentioned in this article. Yet, some countries are certainly better suited than the others. Sri Lanka is certainly one of them.

The question is whether our leaders have given sufficient thoughts to such a prospect. It is only hoped that the up-coming SAARC summit will take the process forward so that the dream of a South Asian university can become reality in the next few years.