Guest lecture by Rafiq Dossani, Stanford University

Understanding the quality and expansion of higher education in India

Guest lecture by Rafiq Dossani, Stanford University

The presentation will cover the quality and expansion of higher education in India. It presents the findings from a survey of 6,000 Indian undergraduate engineering students. We find that India has found a low public-cost model of engineering education. This model is based on private provision and a tuition fee payment that covers costs. While there is considerable variation in quality, there is generally high satisfaction with the system. We discuss whether this model is sustainable as India seeks to achieve high standards of teaching and research in future years.

Rafiq Dossani is a senior research scholar at Shorenstein APARC and Director of of the Stanford Center for South Asia. His research interests include South Asian security, and financial, technology, energy and education sector reform in India. He is currently undertaking projects on regional integration, innovation in outsourcing, engineering education, access to capital and entrepreneurship in information technology in the South Asian subcontinent. His most recent books are India Arriving (2007) and a Chinese edition (2009). Prospects for Peace in South Asia (co-edited with Henry Rowen), published in 2005 by Stanford University Press, and Telecommunications Reform in India, published in 2002 by Greenwood Press. Dossani earlier worked for the Robert Fleming Investment Banking group, first as CEO of its India operations and later as head of its San Francisco operations. He has also been the deputy editor of Business India Weekly, and a professor of finance at Pennsylvania State University. He holds a BA in economics from St. Stephen's College, New Delhi; an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta; and a PhD in finance from Northwestern University, USA.

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