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These days, you can pose almost any question or challenge to Goa’s government and its appointees, and the identical answer comes back every time: acquire huge tracts of land, and build, build, build. This is now true even of education where the state committee headed by Madhav Kamat’s roadmap for higher education seeks to establish three “educational estates” in Pernem, Canacona and Khandola, and also an “educational hub” where allegedly “the best brains from all over the world will intermingle in our land.” Equally fancifully, the committee’s report anticipates these real estate mega-projects mean “infrastructure upgradation will take a big leap forward, educational climate will become abundantly lively, teaching and learning will become more rigorous, and most importantly research will flourish extending the frontiers of knowledge.” The committee is dreaming about world-class institutions: “it is suggested to invite the Ivy League of educational institutions from India and abroad to set up campuses in these estates.” There are considerable ironies to this scheme. There is the fact that Goa has not yet been able acquire land for the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) or National Institute of Technology (NIT) already been awarded to the state.Equally true is the obvious fact high-quality university education is never the function of “infrastructure upgradation” – it is not the hardware, but the software that counts. This state committee is long on land acquisition, but considerably more shaky on who will teach, who will inspire, where the culture of excellence will derive from. Another fantasy is that the elite universities of the world will be attracted to Goa’s rural hinterlands by mere fact of cheap land. There is only one Ivy League of linked institutions on the East Coast of the USA, and there are no franchises. Even looking beyond, there is only one Stanford, one Oxford, only one London School of or National University of Singapore. While it is true that a tiny minority of respected higher education brands – the Sorbonne, New York University, Georgetown – have initiated satellite campuses in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, they were lured by immense, billion-dollar investment plans that no Indian state could ever afford. So what would happen is this committee’s recommendations were followed, and hundreds of acres of land were set aside in Goa for “education estates”? It’s clear the better universities and colleges of the world – or even of India – would not be interested. Instead, it is much more likely the subsidized infrastructure would draw in the dodgy, fly-by-night educational ventures that now proliferate worryingly across India. The University Grants Commission has constantly warned against this menace, and even posts a long list of fake universities on its website. Perhaps the biggest mystery in this roadmap for higher education in Goa is the lack of focus and attention back on the existing colleges and universities in the state, many of which have been endeavoring very good work despite poor resources. The hundreds of crores of public monies required to acquire land - and then build it up to uncertain purposes - would indisputably better spent rebuilding and revamping the existing institutions, several of which are housed in campuses that are the opposite of world-class. One leading example is Goa College of Architecture, where an enthusiastic student body gets a first-rate collegiate experience, though in (at best) second-rate surroundings. But that is the universal truth about education – the culture of the institution, the quality of the faculty, the dedication of the students, are all much more important than mere buildings and roads. The London School of Economics operates from extraordinarily cramped buildings – it famously “houses Nobel Prize winners in broom closets.” In the 1970’s, despite poor resources, a college like St. Stephens in New Delhi could have a remarkable heyday, producing an entire generation of leaders and globally prominent thinkers. Infrastructure conspicuously played no role in this amazing success story. Ironically, just this month, many people in Goa have been talking about another plan for something like an “educational hub”, but this one that actually makes sense. In his very last days, the late architect Charles Correa created a comprehensive redevelopment plan for Goa University that goes well beyond mere buildings to the DNA of the institution. Now this is a plan that could realistically result in a university the state could be proud of. If there is a roadmap for higher education for Goa that genuinely deserves attention and follow-up, it is Correa’s.