Vineet Gupta Ashoka University

Gupta brothers feel that collective philanthropy is needed to transform Indian higher education Charity is ingrained in Indian spirituality from time immemorial. In order to support the community and balance the economic gap between various groups, philanthropic initiatives are essential that include generous donors and community members working collaboratively at the grassroots level. Philanthropy is also critical to the long-term viability and expansion of higher education. For both public and private institutions, philanthropy has assumed a significant role by facilitating the development of infrastructure, generating investment for research and providing financial support for underprivileged students. Gupta brothers, Vineet Gupta and Pranav Gupta are associated with philanthropic ventures for a long time. They have long been contributing to the community by being involved in different charitable endeavors. Vineet Gupta along with other entrepreneurs and philanthropists conceived the idea of Ashoka University in 2007. Ashoka enrolled its first batch of students in 2014. They also established Plaksha University, with other like-minded philanthropists, which began operations in 2021. Both institutions bring together a large number of donors as founders providing the ideal illustration of how collective philanthropy in higher education can help build outstanding institutions. “Some of the best universities in the US like Harvard, Yale and Princeton are built on a model of collective philanthropy of a large number of people. The spirit of collective fosters a mission to build something truly outstanding and an institution that serves society. Ashoka University is perhaps India’s first academic institution built on a collective philanthropy model and dedicated to fostering strong societal impact. We hope these institutions can inspire another 100 universities to come up in India in the next two to three decades.” asserts Vineet Gupta, Ashoka University and Plaksha University’s Co-Founder. There is a definite need for more such initiatives that can be aimed at building long-lasting institutions with a positive social impact. The lack of knowledge and information on India’s philanthropy hinders rational decision making and constructive discourse. The Center for Social Impact and Philanthropy at Ashoka advocates for strong philanthropic goals and acknowledges their role for the commitment towards economic, social, political and cultural development of India. Plaksha University was created with the combined charity of more than 60 donors and its community is steadily expanding. These philanthropic contributions to Plaksha support building of infrastructure and research. Plaksha advocates for building solutions to social problems and help students from underprivileged backgrounds. “We use information, discussion and collaboration to promote and empower strategic philanthropy across India. Every contribution, no matter how little, helps our institution fulfill its promise to promote the development of a new generation of strong leaders who will tackle the difficult problems confronting the world,” highlights Pranav Gupta, Co-Founder of Ashoka and Plaksha Universities. The idea of philanthropy to support education is deeply rooted in the Gupta family. The CL Gupta Family Trust was formed in 1977 by Shri Charanji Lal Gupta, grandfather of Vineet and Pranav Gupta. It started with a modest goal to support the college education of individuals coming from poor backgrounds. Over 45 years, it has assisted over 200 persons in the cities of Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali to fulfill their higher education goals. Other than this venture, Sh. J. D. Gupta, father of Pranav and Vineet, established Karuna Charitable Society in April, 2006. Karuna Charitable Society was initiated with the mission statement – ‘For those in despair, Karuna brings hope.’ Members of the Society spend their time to serve the community, particularly the less privileged groups in society. Along with Pranav Gupta and Vineet Gupta who are significant members of the Society, J.D. Gupta serves as the President and is the organization’s principal motivator and guiding spirit. Pranav Gupta, Vice President of Karuna Charitable Society states, “We look for possibilities to serve as many widows and talented children from underprivileged backgrounds. All people in need are approached and given financial support so they may maintain their lives and achieve financial independence. Over the past 16 years, we have worked to improve the lives of 600 motivated students from low-income families and 400+ widows.” By providing financial support to the disadvantaged groups, Gupta brothers hope to improve society by inspiring people to launch any small business that would enable them to become self-sufficient. Students who are academically talented and belong to poor families with monthly incomes of under INR 10,000 are provided with financial assistance by the Karuna Charitable Society. These scholarships enable the nation’s future generation to continue their education after completing their 10+2 in order to prepare them for productive employment. Along with that, the widows from low-income families get monthly monetary help from them, often for a period of 5-7 years. They receive emotional support from the society in addition to financial aid as they interact with widows who are in a similar situation and share their own sorrow. “Our experience has shown that providing financial assistance and compassionate care may significantly lessen the grief of the poor widows and aid in their recovery. Again, the students we assist in completing their professional education have a significant number of success stories. They have respectable jobs that allow them to provide for their family and siblings. These youngsters have an impact on the development of our nation,” shares Vineet Gupta. “We believe that Philanthropy has great potential not only to help educate millions of Indian but also help build high quality institutions. We feel encouraged that the appetite for philanthropy has grown significantly in the last two decades in India. The CSR act of the government has also brought in corporate philanthropy. Traditionally Indian Philanthropy was targeted at building temples and places of worship. Philanthropy, today, can perhaps build great universities which are temples of modern India”. Source: India CSR

Ashoka University founder Vineet Gupta says, “We need an expansion in both capacity and quality of our higher education” Brain drain has been a problem in India and not enough has been done to address this issue. “With NEP 2020 being implemented and several reforms underway, we hope this will help expand both capacity and quality of Indian higher education. This should help students have enough options at home, instead of going abroad for their higher education”, opined Vineet Gupta Ashoka University Founder. The former Union Minister of Human Resource Development, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank had held a meeting with various bodies to discuss the “Study in India and Stay in India” initiative. During this meeting, a lot of options were discussed on how to retain students in India and how to integrate those students who left their studies abroad midway and are now stuck with no options. As an outcome of the meeting, a new committee headed by the UGC Chairman was formed which was tasked with drafting rules and regulations on how to make sure more students are retained whilst also finding ways to integrate students who are midway through their programmes in a foreign nation. Why is it important to provide our students options? “Having helped thousands of students go abroad by training them for entrance exams, I realized that most of these youngsters move abroad because of lack of options in India. And this is true in most disciplines whether engineering or social sciences. Medical students are tired of competing for a minimal number of seats in medical colleges in India and a lot of them opt to pursue medicine abroad. In-fact, countries like Ukraine, China, Russia etc. are providing medical courses at far cheaper rates than Indian Institutes further incentivizing young Indians to make the move abroad”, explains Vineet Gupta Ashoka University Founder. As per a report, over 7,00,000 students moved abroad for their studies in 2019. Not only is that a worrying sign but also, that is a significant amount of foreign exchange drain on India. It is estimated that Indians spend close to USD 25-30 Billion on foreign education every year. The same money spent in India could not only re-vitalize our higher education sector but also give a boost to the economy. Options India needs to explore to ensure that “Stay in India, Study in India” is a success Through the NEP reforms, India can look at multiple avenues to revolutionize its education system and many changes are already underway as we speak. Some options that need to be explored and implemented: 1. Incentivising private institutions to create more capacity – For far too long, the narrative of public institutions being the primary option for millions of youngsters has existed in India and it has hampered many private institutes from attracting talented students into their programs. Private higher education should not be looked at as an “industry”. All higher education institutions are not for profit and to get quality higher education, government should incentivize by providing land at affordable costs and also provide capital at reduced rates of interest. 2. Multidisciplinary approach and credit transfers will give flexibility – “I have spoken many times about what we have done at Ashoka in terms of multi-disciplinary education and credit transfers. With the NEP also emphasizing on it, all Indian institutions should adopt this. This will help many youngsters who want to pursue multiple options during their higher studies and often look abroad. With credit transfers, many students who come back mid-way can study in Indian universities. It is also encouraging to note, that the Government has shown keen interest in setting up multidisciplinary universities across the nation and implementation of this will help many students get better options in India”, opines Vineet Gupta Ashoka University Founder. 3. Making education more cost effective and providing more scholarships – Rising costs has become a major factor in access to higher education. Private institutions can lower their costs, if the government can subsidize fee by providing more scholarships. Conclusion “Education in India currently is undergoing a massive transition and our aspiration should be to establish one of the top education systems in the world. With our outstanding human talent, we have a unique opportunity to not only have all our students study at home but also we could educate large numbers of students from all parts of the world at a fraction of the cost of western universities. This will not only ensure inflow of more foreign exchange into our economy but also, improve competition and collaboration in our education ecosystem.”, concludes Vineet Gupta, Ashoka University Founder. Source: FreePressJournal

World class varsities must for knowledge economy: Vineet Gupta, founder Ashoka University The demand for quality education continues to increase in India as the growing economy requires talented individuals to cater to the demands of the knowledge economy. “There has been a need to reform higher education in India for a long time. The lack of reforms has not only led to a large percentage of our graduates being unemployable but also led to a huge outflow of youngsters seeking higher education abroad. The New Education Policy, 2020 seeks to bring in much needed reforms and the stage is set for institutions to be set up in India which can cater to the huge demand for higher education in our country”, says Vineet Gupta, Ashoka University founder. However, modern day educational institutions will need to adapt themselves to the changing times in order to best serve the interests of their students and stay relevant in a world where students have ever increasing options. Building a university for present day India Institution building is a noble task and educators are taking the responsibility of educating young minds of the country. However, universities are much more than just centres of learning. The modern university not only helps students complete their higher education, but also helps in their holistic development and provides them exposure to sport, music, art and a host of other extra and co-curricular activities.  Universities of today should look to incorporate the following institution building model to drive excellence and relevance: Collective philanthropy: “At Ashoka University, we have over 150 eminent founders who have contributed to build the institution. In addition, they have contributed with their time and expertise to the brand of the university. There is and can be only one mission that binds all these people together – to build an excellent institution. Hence excellence is built into the DNA of the institution. Excellence in turn draws in more like-minded founders. It is a virtuous cycle and the founder base of Ashoka will continue to grow”, says Gupta. Selecting the right faculty and leadership: Faculty are at the heart of institution building. Selecting and recruiting the right faculty helps in building a great institution. Good students in turn are attracted by high quality faculty. The second key stakeholder category is the selection of leaders who run the university. University leaders need to be not only just great scholars but also open-minded, empathetic and have a deep commitment to institution building. Experiential learning and real-world exposure: Curriculum that is supplemented by project work, has open-ended problems and research assignments helps build problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Students in professional courses need to go on industry visits, have special lectures with industry evangelists and prepare case studies on real world problems. Engineering education should encourage learning by building and making than learning just theoretical concepts. Apprenticeship and Internships: “Apprenticeship and Internships should be a part of every university program in today’s age. Often students are confused on what professional organisation they would like to join. Multiple internships help students not only in discovering their strengths but also figuring out which job functions they like or don’t like. It also brings in the whole element of learning by doing.” adds Gupta. Investing in modern infrastructure: Universities of today need to be well equipped to give students the platform to get the best out of their education experience. Investment in digitisation, research labs, makers labs and adoption of the latest learning technologies etc. go a long way in curating a modern university experience. “The idea of a campus as a living lab is being tried by many new institutions,” adds Gupta.  “The reason why Ashoka University has become a brand is because of its focus on governance, faculty and curriculum. Today, Ashoka University has gone from strength to strength and established itself as one of the top private universities in India. As per the most recent QS University rankings in 2021, Ashoka University was ranked among India’s top 5 private universities, among the top 250 universities in Asia and amongst the top 30 universities in India. In terms of international faculty, Ashoka University ranked no.1 among all 118 universities,” says Gupta. For India to fulfil its mission of building a $5 trillion economy, we will need many high-quality educational institutions that not only provide trained people, but also focus on research and innovation. We need to break free of age-old practices that hamper our higher education ecosystem and strive towards building a new one which builds on our strengths. Universities which can find the right balance between modernisation, and our core values will emerge frontrunners in the post NEP era of Indian higher education.  Source: The New Indian Express