Page 46 - EducationWorld Oct 2021

Cover Story

Meiji Gakuin University sojourn: life-changing experience Raj Kumar & Pratibha Jain with Abhimanyu (left) & Avantika

married his beauteous and equally tures at its Tokyo campus and at Toin “It’s not well-known in India that
accomplished college sweetheart University, Yokohoma. The academic Hong Kong is one of the great epicen-
Pratibha Jain, whom he had met sojourn in Japan was this young aca- tres of higher education worldwide.
in Delhi University. Graduating from demic’s first exposure to higher edu- This small city has nine large univer-
DU a year after Raj, Jain was admit- cation in Asia and its mixture of the sities, all ranked among the Top 200
ted into the Harvard Law School, but Humboldtian (European evidence- in the QS and THE world rankings.
was persuaded to defer her admission based), American research and inno- Academic remuneration is the most
into HLS. Instead, she applied to — vation combined with ancient native generous worldwide and income tax
and was duly admitted — into Oxford traditions of “patient scholarship and rates are among the lowest. Research
and later accompanied her fiancé to magnanimity in Japan”, proved trans- and travel grants are very generous
Harvard. After graduation and quali- formative. and Hong Kong’s universities attract
fying for the New York Bar, she was the world’s finest scholars as faculty.
recruited into the practice of Sullivan IN JAPAN, I BECAME FULLY It was here that I wrote a detailed pa-
& Cromwell, one of New York’s pre- “ aware that India’s experi- per titled ‘Establishing India’s First
mier law firms. As such, she proved ment of divesting research Global University’ and fleshed out my
to be a valuable support to Raj Ku- from the university and es- ideas for the India project. During my
mar who after completion of the New tablishing separate institutes such as academically stimulating six years at
York Bar exam and practising law for CSIR (Council for Scientific and In- City U, I frequently travelled to China
a year, discovered that his true call- dustrial Research) was not a prudent and was amazed by the rapid mod-
ing was the academy rather than the decision. And my study of several truly ernisation of universities there. I also
courtroom. world-class Japanese universities often visited India and was very dis-
“Therefore, I quit the Bar and spent transformed my intent to establish a appointed by the multiplication and
a year as an unpaid research fellow at world-class university in India into mindless expansion of private higher
New York University, studying univer- an obsession,” reminisces Raj Kumar. education institutions and their poor
sities and higher education systems The Japan sojourn also proved life- research and publications record. This
around the world. For over a year, I changing because it was while in Ja- made me more determined to perfect
was an unpaid academic vagabond. pan, that in August 2002 Raj Kumar my plan to establish a world-class pri-
But I received full financial and emo- received an offer to serve as a full-time vate university in India,” recalls Raj
tional support from Pratibha, based in professor in the law school of the City Kumar.
New York, for which I will be eternally University of Hong Kong. This goal-focused young aca-
grateful,” says Raj Kumar. For this serious student of institu- demic’s inevitable big break came in
After working as a visiting research tional development, the Japan expe- 2004 at an international conference
fellow at NYU for six months, in 2001, rience was magnified in Hong Kong, convened in Delhi by Yale University
Raj Kumar was invited as a visiting where the governance and legal sys- (at the instance of Prof. Peter Schuck
scholar by the American missionaries- tems followed the canons of the Brit- quoted above), UNDP and the not-for-
promoted Meiji Gakuin University, ish-American (and Indian) Common profit Legal Education and Research
Tokyo (estb.1863) to continue his re- Law, and the medium of instruction Society (LEARS). The conference
search studies, and deliver some lec- was English. was inaugurated by the late Union

46 EDUCATIONWORLD OCTOBER 2021