GPODS Inaugural Lecture & Fireside Chat with Mr. Pramath Raj Sinha held on 7th June 2021

“The vision of education should be to allow people to be the best of themselves.” - Pramath Sinha

Mr. Pramath Raj Sinha is the Founder & Chairman of Harappa Education India and the Founder & Trustee at Ashoka University. He is also the Founding Dean and a member of the Executive Board of the Indian School of Business, which rapidly became one of the Top 20 B-Schools in the world. He is a pioneering force in Indian Higher Education and he is known as one of the most successful institution builders in the education sector in the 21st century. Mr. Sinha has been the CEO of Ananda Bazar Patrika and a Partner at McKinsey & Company. He received a Ph.D. and an M.Sc. from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.Tech. from IIT Kanpur, where he was honoured with the distinguished alumnus award in 2018.

The fellows witnessed a chat with Mr. Pramath Sinha and the Co-director of the GPODS Fellowship, Mr. Arpit Chaturvedi where they put forth their thoughts on distinct topics.

• On the vision of Education

Mr. Sinha talked about his vision of setting up Ashoka University, a liberal arts university in India, where a lot of focus in the past decades has been on technical skill-based training. He laid emphasis on the subversion of the idea of higher education into professional skills and training. He talked about how higher education today has become a conduit — a direct link to a career in a particular discipline. Citing his own examples, Mr. Sinha mentioned that it is imperative that students have a choice — a variety of subjects to study and learn from. Along with this choice, comes flexibility where he quoted that choice, multidisciplinary and flexibility are at the heart of the liberal education pedagogical method, and that is what Ashoka is about.

• On Governance

Mr. Sinha mentioned that the root causes behind the decline of Indian institutions lie in the nature of their governance. For him, governance is really about how the institution is run, and who makes the decisions. Mr. Sinha also shed some light on the ownership of successful institutions that aim to deliver quality education. He advocates for a model that encompasses collective ownership and laid emphasis on how following a certain chain of command has straight-jacketed and subverted our institutions. He concluded by mentioning that it is vital that institutions have the right governance system, and have a leader that can lead that system, not through means of regulation but by having the ability to let the institution be.

• On Fundamental skills

Mr. Sinha talked about how today, our universities are so focused on academics that they often miss out on the notion of experiential learning. He enunciated that in order to survive and thrive in any institution, having fundamental skills such as problem-solving, effective communication, the ability to think and to be able to collaborate with others are of paramount importance.

• On funding higher education in India

Mr. Sinha emphasized on various different traditional funding models of funding higher education which have been practiced like philanthropic funding and government subsidies. But he wanted to point out that investment in education is always outweighed by the returns, just that the timing of the cash flow differs. To combat this issue of timing he suggested that we needed a model which allows us to borrow against our future earnings, which is how MBA education is funded.

• On Indian Education:

In one word Mr. Sinha summarized that the system needs autonomy. In such a model there will be independent multidisciplinary institutions which should be accredited by independent accreditation bodies, on whose evaluation if the institution has not performed it will be liable to be shut down. Currently, there exists only one accreditation body which is under the control of Universities Grant Commission, which grants the licenses. Mr. Sinha stood optimistic of the tremendous potential to change the system with opportunities to innovate and reinvent using models from other countries as well.

• Q&A session:

In a dynamic Q&A session with the fellows, Mr. Sinha answered a question on lack of social and emotional learning in Indian curriculum, and attributed it to rigidity of the people in control who are products of the traditional model of learning, which stops the drive of change and evolution. On the question of the role of student unions, he answered that their main focus should be forwarding the cause of the best, most fulfilling learning experience on campus. To wrap up the chat on the point of ambiguity, Mr. Sinha emphasised on the importance of training students in the skills of critical thinking and problem solving at universities. The concept of giving the students a choice with their major was again reiterated in response to a question, which was a key focus of the entire talk.

About the GPODS fellowship:

The Global Policy, Diplomacy and Sustainability (GPODS) is a program for public policy practitioners, business professionals, energy and climate change experts, entrepreneurs, academicians, scholars and strategic analysts to act as a launchpad for their careers.