Higher Education: Remaining Relevant for the Future

What does it take for colleges and universities to be placed high in international rankings? In the pursuit for excellence, many universities all over the world strive hard to be placed in the international rankings. Well known universities are ranked for their research productivity and reputation.  The National University of Singapore stands as a beacon among the top universities in Asia. It is ranked 21st according to the Times Higher Education Rankings of 2014.

The colleges in Nagaland seem to be too satisfied with mediocrity.  More needs to be done if our students are to be creative, innovative and competent as well as competitive in this changing world. In order to learn from some of the best universities in the world, members of the Nagaland College Principals’ Forum,led by Fr. Abraham Lotha, visited National University of Singapore (NUS) in the first week of April.    

The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a global, research-intensive university with 16 faculties and schools across 3 campuses, 8 NUS Overseas Colleges, 23 Research Institutes and Centres, and 3 research Centres of Excellence and partnership with Nanyang Technological University. Their focus is on Asia with a vision to influence the future. 
The Nagaland principals’ first interaction was with Prof. Prasenjit Duara, Raffles Professor of Humanities and the Director of Asia Research Institute (ARI) of NUS. Prof. Duara is an authority on Chinese history; he has taught in many well-known universities in the US including more than ten years at the University of Chicago. Originally from Assam, his understanding of the situation of higher education in India and the Northeast in particular helped in our interaction with him. According to Prof. Duara, recent trends in research at the Asian Research Institute are focused on regions such as India-China and other current issues such as the environment, migration, family and ageing.

At the main campus of National University of Singapore (NUS), the principals from Nagaland were first given a guided tour of the University Town followed by a meeting with Prof. Anne Pakir, theDirector of International Office at NUS. Prof. Pakir presented an overview of the university which was very informative and beneficial. “NUS is a global, research-intensive university focused on Asia with a vision of influencing the future” Prof. Pakir said. Keeping this focus in mind, NUS tries to be a leader in global education by bringing the world to NUS and taking NUS students to the world. Prof. Pakir gave us examples of how NUS partners and collaborates with other world-known universities in other countriessuch as Yale and Duke in the United States. The strength of NUS, according to Prof. Pakir, is “building peaks of research excellence, cutting-edge research of global impact while supporting national research objectives, and building a seamless transition from research discovery to implementation.”

Keeping the Asian focus of NUS in perspective, the team from Nagaland also shared with Prof. Duara and Prof. Pakir the strength of Northeast India as a fertile and promising research site. The team of principals invited NUS to partner and collaborate with the institutions of higher education in Nagaland.

The acronym CREATE perhaps embodies best the spirit of National University of Singapore. Launched by Singapore’s National Research Foundation, the acronym stands for the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise. On this campus, slogans on buildings such as “Research,”“Innovation,” and “Enterprise”explain how NUS got to where it is today among the top universities in the world and how it is poised to make a global impact for the future.

How does the National University of Singapore stay ahead of others as a leader in global education?  “By constantly asking ourselves, ‘How do you remain relevant for the future?’” said Prof. Anne Pakir.