Bridges of Knowledge: The India-UK Partnership | Shashi Tharoor, Rohit Kumar and Vivienne Stern

Good afternoon everyone. It's a pretty Indian summer, so I hope we're all enjoying it here. My name is Sanam Arora. I'm founder and chairperson of an organization called the National Indian Students and Alumni Union in the UK. I'm also honored to be a commissioner for the UK's International Higher Education Commission, which will hopefully come up with some interesting strategies around the next wave of international strategies for the UK. Thank you for inviting me to moderate a topic that's really close to my heart. Thank you to JLF. Thank you to York University. And I know that education and intercultural exchange are a really important point for every one of us in this room, but also for policy makers, for the diaspora, and all the stakeholders that are involved in the India-UK relationship, and particularly of course students who at the end of the day are impacted and whose futures we're here to discuss. And so we could not have had a more perfect group than the one we're in the August company of today.

When I was one, yeah.

When you were one, but of course. Of his many connections to the UK are the fact that he was in fact born here in London, and is a patron since 2017, so it's been a while, of the NISAU UK as well. Thank you, Dr. Tharoor, for joining us today.

Good to be with you all. Thank you.

Welcome also to Vivienne Stern, MBE. Vivienne is the chief executive of Universities UK, which is the body that represents 140 British universities and helps them prosper in the UK and beyond. I've known Vivienne for many years now, first in her capacity as director for Universities UK International, where I was pretty awestruck with all the work you do, Vivienne, and just how passionate you are about international students and building bridges for the UK with the rest of the world, and particularly India. So thank you for all that you do. And of course, we're also joined here by Mr. Rohit Kumar, who's a director of international at the University of York, which is a presenting partner for this session. A bit like me, Rohit, ex-corporate finance, somehow found your way from Goldman Sachs all the way to the University of York, and prior to that you were at the University of Bristol as well. So thank you very much for joining us to all our panelists.

I'd like to start, Dr. Tharoor, with you. We are talking about the India-UK relationship, particularly in the context of education and intercultural exchange. But I'd like to understand from you as given your backgrounds as former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, as External Affairs Minister, I don't think anyone here would understand what's happening in the India-UK space better than you. So my question is overall, beyond education, just generally in this bilateral relationship, help us understand the context of where we stand. Especially when you think about the sort of so-called tilt to the Indo-Pacific and the shifting balance of power from the west to the east.

Well, there's been amazing changes, no question about it. And so if we had to trace the story back to 1947, there'd be too many ups and downs that would confuse everyone. So if you just take the recent changes we're looking at a time in which the British government, and particularly we've had a succession of conservative prime ministers, have all consistently showed a tremendous amount of interest in strengthening the India-UK relationship. Each one of them has said so, even though the Cameron government had been somewhat more rosy-eyed about China than any of its successors, nonetheless, in recent years, there's been the so-called tilt to the Indo-Pacific that the US helped the UK tilt towards, and there's been, interestingly enough every UK prime minister, including Sunak after they come to office, an obligatory, seemingly, reference to strengthening relations with India. At the same time, there are complications from the Indian diaspora here, some of whom are well represented in this audience and some of whom have tended to import, shall we say, some of the political challenges back home into UK politics in a way that quite hasn't been seen before. There's also been this transformation of the Labour Party from a party that was seen as unfailingly pro-Indian to one that is increasingly seen as infallibly anti-Indian because of the dependence of I'm told 35 Labour MPs upon a significant Pakistani vote in their constituencies, who knows. Whereas the Tories, who started off being the other way around, have now become seen as more reliably inclined towards good relations with India. And of course, we now have a Tory prime minister of Indian descent whose background and his marriage seem to have cemented if you like, a personal interest in India as well. So all of these things have converged. We're in the middle of negotiating a free trade agreement. That too has had its ups and downs. There was a time when it was thought it might be concluded a couple of years ago. COVID slowed down the negotiation, but then other difficulties arose. And now the talks are going on. Every time you talk to somebody, you tend to get encouraging noises. No one says the whole thing's off or going down the tubes. Last summer, when I was here, I heard that there would be delays. But this summer, all I'm picking up is that the momentum is there. We might have even cheaper Scotch whisky in India to drink. But you know, the other side of it does tie into education, Sanam, and that is what's the quid pro quo. We know England has a lot of things we want they can sell us. What can we give them? And unfortunately, one of the things that we are good at giving people is human resources, is talent, is students, and is workers. And we went through I mean, I remember coming to the UK. I manage a visit every year, more or less. And I was lobbied intensely a few years ago about the fact that Indian students could only stay on for 2 weeks after they graduated, whereas Chinese could stay on for 2 years. And that this was the truer indication of British government priorities than their rhetoric. And indeed, there were a couple of MPs who approached me saying that I should make as much of a noise about it there and here as they were making. And I must say that I'm pleased to hear that that's been settled. And now Indians and Chinese both get the same 2 years, right? So that's all going well. But the problem is, of course, that immigration is becoming an even more inflammatory issue in British politics. And inevitably, there might be a backlash towards India if some of the situations here get out of hand. I've heard about some of the new decisions coming out of the Home Secretary dependent visas and of course, the question of transferring from a student visa to a work visa. All of these things. As an Indian, I want to see these bright Indian students come back. In fact, today I was speaking at the LSE, and at the end of the talk, I asked the students, 'How many of you are from India and intend to go back to India?' And I'm pleased to say about 90% of the hands went up. So I don't know if we have to worry that much about vast waves of emigration to the UK as some people in the UK government seem to worry about. But that has been a sticking point as well in the free trade negotiation. Overall, one final sort of data point, when I went to graduate school, I went to the States in the mid-'70s. And the Indian students in the States kept going up, and the Indian students in the UK kept coming down, partially because of more scholarship availability in the States, and partially tighter visas and costs here. That's now beginning to change around. And though the levels in the US remain high it was amazing that the last figure I read for ending June 2022 was 118,000 visas given to Indian students in the UK. That's an astonishing number, because just 5 years before it was down to 35, 36,000. So this is a huge improvement. And that must mean that any worries we might have had about the people-to-people relationship can be put aside, and people are happy to come.

Thank you. I don't think anyone can summarize that better than what you just did. And I will say thanks to you, and thanks to Vivienne and Rohit and a number of other stakeholders. We campaigned for this post-study work visa for about 7 years. And so all the students in the room will know that you can now get, as whether you're Chinese or international or Nigerian or Pakistani, a 2-year post-study work visa to be in the UK after you've worked. And you're right. Our own research has indicated that about 70% of Indian students just want temporary work experience. They'd like to gain the experience, put some pounds in the bank, and go back. And go back, exactly.

But Vivienne, looking at the figure that Dr. Tharoor just highlighted around 118, 120,000 odd visas being granted now to Indian students. And I think we've smashed this target we had of 600,000 international students about a decade early in the UK. And as I'm observing, and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like there's a sense of complacency in recruitment efforts from British universities, or the sense of picking and choosing because capacity constraints are starting to really show whether it's an accommodation or other support services. So, my question Vivian is how sustainable do you think the growth we've seen is? Have we reached a bit of a plateau? And or a bit of a cap, sorry. And what do you think is the future for transnational education and in fact both your views on this topic of TNE? Is enough happening there?

Vivian, I'm going to follow up with a question on that non-trivial task and on the point of stability that you mentioned. What will it take to get some stability though? Whether it's from the Conservatives or even from Labour because there hasn't been I for one have not seen a lot of backlash from Labour. I think it's a very risk-averse strategy that they seem to be adopting. But 23rd of May, I think it was when the Home Secretary announced, as you mentioned Dr. Tharoor, that dependents can no longer be brought by Indian students on postgraduate taught courses, majority of which are sort of full filled up by Indian students. So, what will it take for us to get a stable immigration environment so that consumers, students are consumers of higher education, third largest export in the UK, can actually have sort of that environment to be considered of?

Rohit, talking about collaboration in the India-UK corridor and the fact that we've got, as Vivian said, a pretty serious concern on recruitment and hiring in the UK. About half nearly half the STEM-related vacancies in the UK go unfilled for months at a time. The hospitality sector is suffering, allied health care, NHS is on is pretty crippled in terms of being able to access talented workers. What can universities do to maybe perhaps create pathways into employment? And what are universities thinking on this front? Are there any best practice examples?

Good question there Sanam and good evening everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. Real pleasure to be here. Dr. Tharoor and Vivian and Sanam with you. And big shout-out to the JLF team and Sanjoy for hosting us here today. So, firstly, agreed with everything that Dr. Tharoor and Vivian have mentioned. So, in terms of answering your question, it's Let me answer that in two parts. So, when you look at the policy challenges that we're faced with, everything is clear. It's not there's no immediate answer to it. But there's also a bigger dynamic to it. But where is India going in the next 10, 15, 20, 30 years? We have the youngest population or we will have the youngest population. Almost 600 million between the age group of 25 and 34. And as Dr. Tharoor rightly put it, it's a massive, massive investment in terms of what India can, you know, invest outward. And that's where the nuance comes in. That there's an issue around capacity in India at the moment. Because if you look at upper secondary completion of people who are in the age group of 25 to 34, India lags behind. If you look at the OECD data, we are 19% which is way behind the average of 31, 32, something. And even further, if you look at the rest of developed countries, US, UK, Canada, Israel, which is at about 50%. So, there is that issue there. But you've got a huge number of people who need and want and that's where the marketplace is. And there's a capacity constraint. India cannot keep pace. And then you've got the other side of the policy question, which is the National Education Policy of course, which the Government of India has launched. And if they get it right, that'll be a seminal policy. That'll change the face of India across so many fronts. And that's where the second part of it comes in in terms of what can UK universities do. And we've also got capacity constraints of our own in terms of as Vivian put it rightly, we've got accommodation concerns, capacity within cities and all of that. And so, universities I think have a huge role to play. And this is something that we take very, very seriously around attracting the best. And I won't say best and the brightest because that catchphrase has been used and overused. But genuinely wanting high-quality talent coming in for the right reasons on the right courses so that they're becoming ambassadors not just of the institution, but also of the country. And whether they choose to go back to India or any other part of the world, the contribution that they make is immense. So, what can we do and what should we do? I think universities need to make sure that the courses they're putting out, they're adding a lot of value to it so that we're not one of many doing the same type of courses. Because the question about sustainable development comes in in terms of are we making those courses sustainable enough for people to study? And are those courses helping them to go on to do bigger things? And the other question also is looking at some of the policies that universities currently have at their end which makes it easier for those people who genuinely want to come here and study, have the grades, have the qualifications, but may have taken a break in between. So, the academic credit, recognition of prior credit, all of those things become extremely important. And that's something that a lot of universities are looking at, but change is slow. And so if there's a real shift, and I think there should be a shift, then that's where the impact can come in. If the policy at the institutional levels, cross UK universities, were to start looking at accepting and accommodating people who've not gone down the traditional route of studying, but had managed to get the grades that universities need, then that should be an avenue that we should look at. And then you've got the TNE spectrum. Now, that is extremely interesting because every country at the moment is looking at India with keen interest. But previously there were concerns around repatriation of funds, the regulatory landscape was not very accommodating. But because the government has now come out and said in such a big way that we want to make sure that foreign institutions and other countries can invest and should invest in India in education, then there's a huge opening there. But it's important that universities do their due diligence. And it's also important that universities take a look at their own capacity in terms of which end or what point of the TNE spectrum do they want to be on? Because TNE is a massive massive thing. You've got so many different touchpoints on that spectrum. So it's extremely important that universities pick and choose the ones they need to be in, invest wisely in that, not just in terms of money and monetary resources, but also in terms of policy and engagement and personnel that they appoint and deploy in those fields. And build that up from the ground because I think that then allows you for a very sustainable pipeline of cooperation both in terms of inward and outward mobility. And one final point, it's also often overlooked, the point of how many British students actually go over to India. And I think there's a huge opportunity there and people are missing out. But that's nobody's fault. I think that's again very pertinent to this discussion because of the cultural issues that abound. I think there was a survey recently that discovered about 74% of Indians would say that they are either very very well aware or fairly knowledgeable about culture in the UK and UK life. Whereas it was only 21% when UK students were surveyed. So that's a huge area of opportunity and I think that's really where you've got the transformative power because if you're looking at longer term sustainable soft power both from an Indian and UK perspective, that can only happen through education, culture, and understanding. And that has to be a two-way exchange. So to summarize everything, I think that's where universities come in because that educational link tying it up with access and opportunities along with the longer term planning is extremely critical.

Thank you. That there's a lot to unpack in there and one of the things I'm going to pick up and ask Dr. Tharoor yourself your thoughts on is the new education policy which Rohit mentioned. You said, 'If they get it right.' What's happening on the new education policy front and are we getting it right?

Well, I think the decision to welcome foreign universities to set up campuses in India is the right one. I might add that when I was in the ministry 10 years ago or whatever it was, we advocated the same thing, but it didn't actually get discussed in Parliament for various reasons including the fact that a number of influential politicians on all sides have vested interests in education. Many people are either overtly or covertly owners of private institutions which would be probably the first to lose out on business if York University came and set up a campus in Ghaziabad or something instead of the local private university there. But it's not going to be easy. First of all, there is the fact that if you set up a campus, you need to have land, faculty, local staff, and enough of your serious international big name or brand name professors willing to go and spend at least a semester in India to make it worthwhile. There is a halfway house that no one seems to be exploring, which is for a university in the UK to tie up with a university in India that already exists, have an exchange of professors, and create a joint degree program where it's not impossible, certainly with private universities in India which are much more visionary and flexible, they would probably be interested in this. Where you wouldn't actually have to set up a whole new campus, but you could work with an existing one. And that's something worth looking at. The government has been very open about their willingness to grant permission. To the best of my knowledge, there haven't been any applications yet. And you know, you can see the win-win for India. We are spending billions of pounds every year Indian parents in sending their children abroad, then we may as well spend some of that money in India or less of that money in India educating them in India, and keep the Indian economy afloat rather than contributing to the British economy. From Britain's point of view, as Vivian was saying, the Obama argument, attract the students and actually hold on to them if they have something worth contributing to your economy, which is not what we'd like to hear, but I can see completely the logic from your side. And perhaps from the point of view of the individual student who might see a greater opportunity in improving their prospects of life by staying on here than in going back. I would like to see them come back, I hasten to add. All of this remains to be sorted out. One thing, Rohit, that I thought you were hinting at, but I didn't think made enough of was this whole question of skilling sort of below the level of a formal higher education degree. You have a good culture here of vocational training, apprenticeships, and so on. And maybe you could help partner with Indian firms as well as perhaps some campuses to replicate some of those programs in India. We have a ridiculously large population, and yet for example, we have a complete shortage of qualified masons, people with a formal degree in masonry or in plumbing or whatever, even at a time when the construction industry is booming. Why is that? We don't have enough trainers, we don't have enough of a culture of vocational training. That's another space that you could step into. When we think of building knowledge bridges, we always think high-tech and so on, and that's great. That's happening. I believe a number of the unicorns have got a presence in the UK, and that there are Indian entrepreneurs in the UK who are setting up companies, in turn relying on Indian talent, and so on. So there's a lot of that kind of bridge building. But at the lower end of the scale, I'm not sure anything is happening, and I don't see why not. I think it could very usefully. We don't only have to think about high-tech and higher education. We could certainly connect people who could impart skills that you take for granted here and that we could all benefit from in India.

You mentioned there are billions of dollars Indian students are bringing or pounds, I should say, into the British economy, but I'm going to ask the audience, actually, how many Indian students do we think are going abroad annually? Just outside India, anywhere to study. 6 to 700,000, yeah? Any others? Pretty bang on. 750,000 Indian students. So I guess that's a country the size of the Bahamas that leaves India every year to go abroad and study, and that's absolutely billions of dollars, Dr. Tharoor, that we are spending into where we're sending outside the country year on year. My question is, despite that, when I look around, and this is where things do get tricky and the picture is not as rosy. Over the last decade we've had and most recently we had COVID, and universities and diaspora organizations and organizations like mine had to provide people food, right? We've had that trouble with food poverty in the UK. As we speak, some 700 Indian students are being deported from Canada again for no fault of their own, or I think the deportation has now been put on hold. There were 2,000 odd students who were protesting in Canada last year for similar sort of let's say unscrupulous behavior by educational agents, Indian educational agents, that led to sort of falsification of evidence, apparently. But anyway, Ukraine, albeit an outlier given it's a situation of war, we had 20,000 Indian students stuck in the war in Ukraine, and our organization, NISAU, helped about 5,000 of those find safe passage home. The reason I'm bringing this up is to ask you,

With the amount of money we send annually abroad into all these various economies, particularly Australia, Canada, UK, and the United States, why isn't the Indian government asking or proactively advocating for a welfare net for its students abroad? And is that something you can help us take to them?

Why not? It certainly hasn't occurred to us, and certainly hadn't occurred to me when I was in government. What kind of welfare net and how would it be constructed? Students will not be deported without fair trial. Students will have recourse to public funds should a catastrophe hit. We don't have that in the UK, for example. Students are eligible for the NHS if they're ill because they've paid extra for it.

Okay. Which is fine. You know, that's the cost of pursuing education in the UK. But that's sort of a broader question and it links to a slightly broader question as well, which is if you were to advise the Indian government on what it should seek from the FTA as well, particularly with regards to education or indeed any other area, what would that be?

Yeah, I mean, we were obviously focused on economics, you know, UK goods and Indian services is the usual trade-off. A lot of discussions going on some of those things, but I would agree with you that we could certainly, you know, think in terms of pushing some of the provisions for students. I mean, there's always a danger in keeping on expanding the ambit of the free trade agreement into matters that properly speaking go beyond trade. But if the UK is inclined to do that, I certainly this sounds like a worthwhile thing. Do give me something that I can inject into the process back in India.

And I'll ask all the panelists now to share what your view of a utopian UK India partnership looks like, Vivian.

It's an excellent idea, actually. Yeah. I mean, if students are getting funded to go to India to be, I mean, that sounds like a pretty utopian future already. But my question is, why are we 10th then? Why aren't we five or four or above? What needs to change to get us to the top five?

I think there are a few factors that I can think of off the top of my head. First thing I think would be awareness. I think there's a general sense of 'I've heard of India. I know friends who are in India.' And I'm talking as a student now. So, if you talk to a student who's in the UK in the first year of the university and we've got Erasmus exchange or university exchanges with institutions in India. And you'll always find that the top destinations seem to be Hong Kong or somewhere in Europe or Australia. Not even America? To a certain extent US, yeah, but it's not very high up. At least for my institution. But when you talk to some of the students and ask them, 'Why is that? Why haven't you thought about other destinations?' The fact about being in a country like India is fascinating, but there's also a sense of a fear of the unknown. And I think institutions can do a little bit more to raise the awareness of India as a country and what's out there. But at the same time, one thing that the Indian government could do and perhaps Indian institutions that we partner with could do is promote India as a destination from a student's perspective. And there are some practical things which are hugely important to students. So, things that we as Indians would take for granted, you know, road travel, for example. That seems to be a big concern for a lot of people. Now, then you can't change the traffic situation overnight, but awareness about the fact that that's a huge part of the experience. When you get out there and you've experienced that as a young student, you understand diversity in the truest sense. You understand so many things that you might have read in a book, but to see it actually in practice, it is fascinating. So, to be able to promote it from that angle, I think is extremely important. I also think the funding element as Vivian very rightly put it, extremely attractive, but from a policy perspective, I think there's more that students need to understand that there are certain things that they need to also think about before they apply to these places. And in the current funding climate, of course, not all of it can be paid for or whether it goes that way in the next couple of years, I'm not sure, but awareness on both sides, I think, is extremely important. Partnering with the right kind of institutions is also extremely important because certain states, certain places in India might, rightly or wrongly, have they might come up in the news. There'll be understandable concerns. So, those things also need to be squared. So, it's an extremely interesting question. It's one that's very hard to answer because there are so many variables to it. But I do believe that it's an extremely important topic and once that starts to increase, then the benefits are quite transformative.

Yeah, absolutely. And I guess it's a bit of a disservice if I put my British hat on to our British students if they don't understand the way the people in one of the largest economies in the world think. And actually the very complicated way in which they approach the United Kingdom, which is both love and hate in some measure or certainly that colonial baggage does weigh heavily on us still. But Dr. Tharoor, if I take a step back now and look at the overarching India-UK partnership, we've spoken about challenges and opportunities for education, but what do you think are the big challenges and the big opportunities overall for us together?

Oof. Well, I think Britain post-Brexit has to make some decisions about where it wants to go. Do you remember Boris Johnson talking about Singapore on the Thames? Is that Britain as this sort of globally open entrepot and financial hub and spokes radiating through the Commonwealth? I mean, if Britain takes significant steps in that direction, obviously India would be a very key partner and a key target for that sort of approach on Britain's part. If Britain takes a different approach, then that would again have implications for the rest of us. I think there are some decisions that have to be made here which are still playing themselves out in your political space. I get the sense of it. I don't live here that there's been a little more political stability in the wake of Rishi Sunak's ascension and economic stability as well and that from there perhaps things will go. But of course, the Labour Party is very confident of coming to power before too long and perhaps reversing many of the policy decisions and frameworks that these people have taken. So, I think politically, if anything, the relative uncertainty is more here than in India. India, I think, is pretty clear in what it wants to do. It certainly sees the UK as a very useful partner in the knowledge area, in the education area. Very open to free trade. There are a lot of discussions going on, as I mentioned earlier. And on top of all of this, I think India's overwhelming desire is to put the Indian economy on the right track. We've got the tech stack, which has got a lot of attention globally now. The digitization of daily Indian life is something worth seeing. I don't know how many of you live here normally and come to India only occasionally, but now you'll find chaiwalas and istriwalas with Paytm QR codes on their carts. So, you don't have to fish out your European notes. You just scan your phone and give them a digital payment. This sort of thing is happening and it's quite remarkable. But conversely, we do have an unemployment problem. We have the highest recorded unemployment in our history for some years and we're making advances in areas where we're not absorbing that many people. Infrastructure construction is going well, but Britain is not involved in that as far as I know in pretty much any area of it. Where can Britain be helpful? I think certainly in coordinating India's access to broader networks, Commonwealth at one point Europe. Indian companies love to come to Britain to access Europe from here. That's gone now with Brexit. So, they have to find other ways. But perhaps if Britain were to be much more assertive about developing a significant set of economic partnerships across the Commonwealth that India would be an obvious partner there, too. A lot of this needs to be seen. India is already the second largest investor in the UK economy after the US. And that's something which surprises many people, but it's been there and it's growing over the last few years. So, there's a lot that can be done. But I would say that there's nothing inevitable about all this. The colonial baggage complexes and so on, I think are now well and truly behind us. As an intellectual exercise and that's something in terms of people's consciousness and awareness, it's very important that we continue. There's no one who read my books, but in terms of it affecting our current relations, I don't think so, not on either side. Because certainly Indian policy makers and government officials are sufficiently mature not to be burdened by that. And I think British politicians are sufficiently sensitized not to be careless about that. And then we can focus on today and tomorrow. We can leave yesterday where it belongs in the history books and in the living room discussions where it still has a place.

But I would like to bring in our audience. Any questions, please do raise your hands and introduce yourself. Lots of questions. Let's and do introduce yourself and where you're from. The mic's coming, yeah.

Hi, it's a question for Dr. Tharoor. I'm Aditya. I work in London now. I had a question on the new economic policy and how there's the vocational training element of that. Is there a part of the new economic policy that's going to try policy, I think. A new education policy, sorry. Is there a formalized vocational training element of that because the vocational labor market in India is still largely informal and that could also then become a potential avenue of export to the UK, right? And how does that factor in?

Um Amina Sayyid from Pakistan. Actually, there's another model that's being followed in Pakistan and that is a lot of private universities have made arrangements with British universities to teach classes online rather than set up physical classrooms or get people to move to Pakistan. Teaching is done online. And if students want, they can spend one semester in the UK if they want. Otherwise, they can do all the three years in Pakistan. And they get a British degree. And that is proving to be enormously popular. More and more private universities are offering that. The other very quick remark is that you mentioned that 750,000 Indian students are studying outside India and a lot of money is being spent on that. Why don't you open or expand the network of IITs and IIMs? I think that was something so brilliant. I believe that Mrs. Rishi Sunak's brother went to Cornell or maybe Yale. Went to Harvard. because he couldn't get admission at IIM. IIT. IIT. So, he went to Harvard because he couldn't get admission to IIT. That's why. So, why don't you have more IITs? And very quickly I want to say that in the '50s when the IITs were set up, Pakistan got the same opportunity, but unfortunately, our myopic government then refused. I wish they hadn't.

Amina's so right about that, but let me just say that on the IITs, we have expanded the number quite significantly. And the problem is that there's a significant challenge because we don't necessarily attract the same quality of faculty and the same quality we can't create overnight the same quality of campus facilities. So, there's an enormous gap between the best IIT and the worst. I mean, such an enormous gap that students sort of despair if they get allotted one of the newer campuses. So, just if the expansion takes place in a systematic way where you can attract the faculty and have the resources including the facilities, that makes sense. But the brand alone will not remain untarnished unless you supply the quality along with it. On online education, I must say that that's an interesting thing you've said, Amina, but to be very honest, the overall experience of online campus education during the COVID pandemic has been disastrous. It's turned a lot of people off the earlier gung-ho spirit about online education. Many have realized that at best online education can be a complement to classroom teaching but not a substitute for it. In the subcontinent certainly there's been concern about comprehension. You know, it's wonderful to have a professor at Harvard teaching you the same thing that he's teaching his class there but his frame of reference, his assumptions, the vocabulary, the accent might actually require interpretation back in Pakistan or back in India which frankly doesn't happen very often. And the other problem is that you know how long can people stay riveted to a screen? I know that we all think everyone is looking at their mobile phones all the time but again the experience certainly in schools it's already the studies that have been done that establish the children could not stay attentive and that the quality of what they learned and what they've learned altogether has gone down thanks to online classes during the pandemic. So, I'm afraid you know we're finding some of the old-fashioned teaching methods have their own value. And there's no substitute for the physical experience of a campus. The number of university freshmen entrance in America who took a gap year rather than take their classes online was at record levels in the 2020 to 2021 academic year precisely because university education isn't just about the classrooms. It's also about campus life, the experiences, the growing up, the informal interactions all of which of course are not there online. So, I am not going to endorse that first point you made but it's an interesting thought and some it will certainly occur to some people let's see in India too.

I'm afraid I have a panel that they're going to summon me for any minute now but go ahead. One more question perhaps before I

Uh thank you. It was an amazing session. So I am an academic scientist who's from India but I'm training here at present. So I had a question about like you were talking about people coming temporarily and then moving back to India. So but what steps can be taken from the Indian side to actually help reverse the brain drain? Like how can you make like people do want to go back but like what can you like provide? I mean that there needs to be something more in place to encourage the reversing of the brain drain? I just want to hear your thoughts on that.

Come back and try it for yourself.

And I think we that is it for questions but I think I will summarize by saying not that anyone can summarize this panel. Certainly not me but I would say that we've got to move away from brain drain to brain circulation and I think as policy makers if we can enable brain circulation without the barriers of considering students as immigrants and I think we will have a much better bridge of knowledge and the living bridge will prosper even more. I thank you all and thank you to our panelists very much for wonderful conversation. Thank you. Thank you so much.