Manic Mumbai
Our day in Mumbai continued apace with a full delegation meeting with Indian business leaders at our hotel. The Prime Minister made a now familiar speech emphasising the special relationship with India, repeating his unambiguous message about Britain being “open for business”, welcoming businesses and students alike, and underlining his enthusiasm to bring British invention and expertise to India as it develops as a nation.
This was followed by several short speeches from leading UK and Indian business representatives, including Director General of the CBI John Cridland. The meeting concluded with an engaging speech from Ratan Tata, now “Emeritus” Chairman of the Tata Group.
The afternoon took us to St Xavier’s College in Mumbai for a symposium with colleagues from leading educational institutions in Mumbai on the theme of employment and education. As often happens on these trips, the programme was still being finalised on the day and I received notice of my role as lead speaker for the first session with about an hour’s notice! Fortunately I had received some great briefing from colleagues in Southampton and was well prepared.
Although able to speak generically about the ways in which UK universities prepare students for employment, I did take the opportunity to showcase Southampton research on graduate employment, our Curriculum Innovation project, and our success with student enterprise along the way!
The symposium also offered an opportunity to meet leaders of some of India’s premier institutions, including the Principal of an existing partner, the Tata Institute for Social Sciences. Among other things, we discussed an exciting joint initiative that will see 30 students from Southampton travel to India to join 30 Indian students at a social enterprise workshop in April 2014.
I was very interested in presentations about the delivery of low cost further and higher education through mobile phone technology. These highlighted the challenges facing countries like India in providing opportunities to a large, relatively poor population with a great appetite for education, but also provided a further reminder that the model for campus-only mass higher education that has been established in many developed countries, including the UK, simply won’t work in countries like India. We have as much to learn as we do to contribute to innovation in higher education.
Back to the hotel and I find that our media office have been in contact – would I like to be interviewed by
(Southampton alumnus) Jon Sopel for a live BBC World News broadcast from India, would I like to make a comment to THES on the visit, and rather more obscurely, would I be able to speak to a journalist from the Voice of Russia? I try to do all this and had some fun engaging with Jon on a live outside broadcast – a new experience for me.
The basic message about international students, including and especially Indian students being welcome to the UK, with no limits on the numbers of eligible students, and opportunities for post study work has been consistently and unambiguously delivered by the PM, and yet…. has been received a little cynically in some parts of the media here and back in the UK. I certainly experienced this in my interviews, and observe that the message has been more coolly received here than we all might have hoped. The reality for many Indians is that the practical experience of obtaining a visa for business or study is not as simple or welcoming as we all would wish it to be. This will need to change if the PM’s message is to become a practical reality for thousands of prospective students who want to come to the UK.
The media work was fitted around an early evening reception for delegates and the Mumbai business community at the beautiful Museum of Mumbai. The PM turns up for another speech – he is nothing if not consistent! The evening finished with a wonderful multi-course Indian meal with my colleague VC’s and Minister David Willetts, a chance to wind down and discuss the state of UK Higher Education in a rather more informal environment than is typically the case in meetings with Ministers.
Read about Don’s journey to India in Don’s blog – part one.