WASHINGTON: Suresh Kumar's passage to the United States and its citizenship was different from the standard route. A former Doordarshan newscaster - a contemporary of Salma Sultan and Kabir Bedi - Kumar, an alumnus of Delhi's Hindu College, studied management in Mumbai and worked his way through Greece, Indonesia, Singapore and Canada before coming to the US in the 1980s to teach at Thunderbird School of Management and Rutgers University. "So my model is a little different," he muses, "most people come to US to study and then go to India to teach."
Early next week though, Kumar will travel to India to hawk the virtues of an American education system of which he was not a beneficiary but is now certifiably an expert. As the US Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Director General of the US and Foreign Commercial Service, he is one of the Obama administration's highest ranked Indian-Americans, a spectacular rise in government. Tasked now with leading a Department of Commerce Education Industry Trade Mission to India, he is also pointman for an education export initiative that will take 21 US colleges and universities to New Delhi, Chennai, and Mumbai to connect US educational institutions to potential Indian students and universities.
Not that US education system needs much salesmanship in India. For nearly a decade, India among all countries has been sending to the US the highest number of students, whose population is now upwards of 105,000. But the inflow has tailed off during the last year, and China has retaken the lead. It's a statistic that has furrowed some brows in both academia and government, considering that Indian students plow in more than $ 2 billion annually into the US economy.
Why the Indian admissions are falling off is not quite clear. Indian students are certainly exploring other options such as Canada, Australia, UK and Europe, but anecdotal accounts suggest they could also be staying home for further studies, unsure whether forking out $ 100,000 for a US degree is worth it given the economic downturn and visa and immigration issues that have made headlines. If that is the case, then the US is quite happy to bring its education wares to India.
In any case, the developments coincide with President Obama's National Export Strategy in which India is considered a ''priority market,'' and selling education and technology to India is a key component. Kumar's mandate is not just to attract more Indian students to study in America, but also lubricate the passage of US universities and schools to India, either directly, through collaboration, or even through distance education. A bill before the Indian parliament that enjoins US universities to reinvest their profits in India (and therefore bans repatriation) is not something that has thrilled Washington, but the US is looking at working around this issue, Kumar indicated in an interview on Wednesday.
While Kumar will be in India, India's human resources minister Kapil Sibal will be in Washington DC parlaying with Hillary Clinton in what's termed as the US-India higher education summit. Washington makes no secret of the fact that it considers education an industry and a commodity worthy of export initiatives (measuring ''India's higher education market potential, estimated in the billions of dollars'') it also feels education is an integral part of the strategic partnership between the two countries ''because of its impact on fostering collaboration on critical issues that we face today.''
A Commerce Department brief ahead of Kumar's visit notes that India aims to increase gross enrollment of high school graduates in higher education to 30 percent by 2020, which means almost tripling the enrollment from the present 14 million to 40 million. Presently, the Indian population in the relevant age group enrolled in a higher education course is more than that of Europe, USA, and Australia combined. The United States, whose leadership in education is still unquestioned, is well-positioned to help India reach its higher education enrollment goals, the report notes. As a small benefit, it will also bump up US trade figures with India, which are sharply lower than its figures vis-a-vs China.
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