Dr. Sr. Elizabeth CS, our respected Principal, set the tone of the conference with her opening speech on leadership role of Catholic institutions. She emphasised on the importance of community service that missionary educational institutions have been engaged in. In our march to becoming a global superpower, we must strive to make education inclusive and equitable. Sister further spoke on the role of education in empowering us to citizenship. In this rat race of global competition, several forces of corruption are at play, like commercialisation ,profit-oriented education ,privatization etc. There are other external challenges as business and industrial houses collude with divisive social forces and influence electoral politics. India’s spirit of secularism, pluralism are thus being threatened .Within this context, Christian higher educational institutions must address the issue of access to the underprivileged .She went on to talk about the significance of ethics and morality in knowledge-building which in turn can lead to inclusive policy making. Nationalism cannot be provincialism. She ended her speech by acknowledging the efforts of the organising committee.

Dr Kennedy Andrews presented the conference overview. He started by reflecting on the quality and relevance of contemporary higher education in India .It is a current challenge for Indian academic institutions to balance quality with quantity .He elucidated on the importance of such a conference in addressing current educational frameworks in the context of the new educational policy (NEP).Within this larger scheme ,catholic institutions are required to increase vocational skills and competencies and yet preserve the academic excellence. Principals therefore need to respond, through governance to these real life challenges. He also drew attention to the gap existing between the apex body of Christian clergy and academic institutes working at ground level. Only through united effort, Christian institutions, can strike a collective bargain with the government and move public opinion. Professor Rajeev Gowda,MP ,Rajya Sabha, delivered the key note address .He was effusive about the JNC team performances and praised the inclusive learning environment within the college .He acknowledged the Xavier Board’s role in bringing everyone together for the conference. He reflected on Karnataka’s place in history as one of the original seats of Higher education in India. He focused on a large range of issues confronting modern day education-accessibility, inclusivity, limitation in resources and failure to achieve quality in mass education. The mission statement of the National Educational Policy focuses on building character, constitutional values and intellectual spirit .Professor Gowda added to this list the necessary qualities of compassion and critical thinking .Echoing the Principal, he spoke of India’s pluralism and the need to protect it from sectarian values .He went on to talk about a research culture that must be consciously developed by academic institutions .Faculty members must be given enough free time to engage with real problems. They must be motivated and offered an ecosystem that might increase their productivity. Alumni too has a role to play in acting as a bridge of expertise with the current generation of students .Together with foreign collaborations and other networking channels ,institutions must gear up for the future. Dr.Fr Abraham cited personal examples from his role as a Vice Chancellor, Christ deemed- to- be University.He spoke on the shifting responsibilities of an administrator .Through various day to day examples. He spoke of the balance between moral counselling and taking punitive measures. Keeping an ethical outlook towards leadership is necessary and yet strategic re adjustments are always demanded upon the role. Academics can strengthen ethics through curriculum and day to day actions. Change must be accepted yet it has to be ethical, sustainable and strategic. The inaugural session came to an end with the vote of thanks proposed by Prof.Carol Stanley. This was followed by the national anthem. The first session after tea started with Prof SK Saidapur. He spoke on ‘Governance and leadership, Role of Principals’. He spoke about the difference between an administrator and a leader and how modern day principals must fit into this dual role. While the former governs, maintains and controls, the latter develops innovates and inspires. Thus principals in today’s day and age are faced with the following challenges –involving stake holders, providing user friendly administration, streamlining management, decentralising duties and preserving transparency and credibility. The next speaker was Shiva Subramaniam who spoke on ‘Governance in Higher education institutions’. He stressed on the need for academic freedom through transparent internal functioning and external regulatory bodies. Participatory governance is a modern mantra through which management must maintain a link with staff. Collective decision making, mobilisation of resources, open-mindedness enable several welfare policies and initiatives. He also spoke on digitization of the education system to make it accessible and cost effective. The post lunch session started with Mr Jacob Crasta speaking on “Catholic Higher education and challenges under the University system .Mr Crasta spoke about the problems of Modern evaluation and assessment system which too grade centric. He said that entrepreneurs are often born from the section perceived to be most backward in terms of academic merit and performance. These entrepreneurs contribute to the middle and small scale industry which in turn has made India the third largest economy in the world. There must be a sustained link between the academic institutions and industries in order to supplement theoretical knowledge with practical skills .the next era in education must thus be attuned to current affairs and civic responsibilities.

The next speaker was Professor A. James William, who presented a comprehensive analysis of the New Education Policy, calling the current scenario of the country a ‘critical phase’. He emphasized on the need to read the TSR Subramaniam committee report, the Kasthuri Rangan Committee report as well as the draft of the NPE together. There seems to be a serious compromise on the democratic ideals of the country through this new policy as it appears to have the agenda of bringing education under political control. The intentions seem to be not to develop intellectualism in the nation, but rather serve the vested interests of the present government, to build the nation solely on the basis of their ’vision’. Moreover, according to Prof. William, not only does the new policy have the slant of suiting the needs of the corporates, but also is clearly neither student-friendly nor teacher-friendly. He also compared the steps taken by the earlier UPA government, who withdrew several educational bills after giving heed to the protests made by the people. The paper also touched upon how the research culture in academia could be adversely affected with this new policy. Both the speaker and the active inputs from the audience strongly suggested a driving need to bring serious amendments to the new policy, keeping in mind the welfare of students as well as teachers of our country.

The highlight of the day’s proceedings was reserved for the evening when the panel discussion was conducted with Most Rev. Dr. Thomas D’Souza, Archbishop of Kolkata and Most Rev. Joshua Mar Ignathios, Bishop of Mavelikara. The session was moderated by Dr. Sr. Annamma Philip, FMM, Secretary General, Xavier Board of Higher Education in India. Dr. Fr. Joji Reddy, SJ, Vice President, Xavier Board, introduced the session by briefly talking about the historical origin of the Xavier Board of Education. It was under this board that for the first time in 1951 all Catholic higher education institutions were brought together. In five successive phases the board evolved bringing 355 colleges out of more than 900 Catholic colleges in the country. Catholic colleges of all academic and vocational streams function under the Xavier Board. It works towards the promotion of Gospel values and creating good leadership for future. Fr. Joji Reddy emphasized on the role of Catholic education in shaping mainstream Indian education. Over several years the Xavier Board has extended its support and advise to the government in educational policymaking.

Most Rev. Dr. Thomas D’Souza, Archbishop of Kolkata spoke on the mission and vision of the Church in India, its most significant service being through education. He enunciated the role of the Xavier Board which is committed to work under the aegis of the Catholic Church and promoting Gospel values, excellence and leadership. Most Rev. D’Souza felt the need for a dialogue in our current times to impart basic Christian values of compassion, justice, dignity and humanitarianism. Catholic colleges in India have upheld excellence in education by serving the common man and have thus created future leaders. He spoke about how critical leadership is in determining quality of life and influencing the mindsets of the youth. He went on to enumerate the responsibilities and the challenges of Christian higher education institutions viz. inclusivity, concern for the poor and need to work together towards research and learning methodologies. Most Rev. Joshua Mar Ignathios, Bishop of Mavelikara started his presentation by praising the organizational efforts of the host Jyoti Nivas College. He focused on the future of education to attain sustainable development goals. Through e-learning, home learning, social and emotional skill training education must become more relevant for life and living. He spoke on ground level challenges of making education inclusive and accessible for the socially deprived. Problems of child labour and school dropouts makes the task of Christian educations that much tougher. He also emphasized that more focus should be given to practicing value based education and building communities of solidarity. Knowledge, character and service ought to be interlinked within the scheme of Christian education. Only this ensures a holistic model for nation building.

The Q&A session threw up concerns about future strategies for the Church and the Board of Education to confront the challenges in the current times. The evening ended with a cultural extravaganza by the vibrant students of Jyoti Nivas college, who presented the visual treat of several dances from across the country as well as a medley of musical performances.

Day two of the conference Day two of the conference began with Dr. Sr. Elizabeth CS, our respected Principal, greeting Most Rev. Peter Machado, Archbishop of Bangalore and Dr Fr Joji Reddy introducing him to the audience. In his insightful speech, Most Rev. Peter Machado, Archbishop of Bangalore reflected on the significance of the chosen topic and cited the various challenges that faith- based education institutions encounter across the country. He identified four fallacies in our education system – whether education is a subject or an object, the disadvantages of mass production which overlooks individual training in leadership, the role of teachers and finally the impact of having success driven education systems. He further articulated certain suggestions to address the emerging problems and ended with a resounding statement that education should be a passion, not a fashion.

Dr John Joseph Kennedy, Dean Arts and Humanities, Christ (Deemed to be University) and the moderator for the live session from Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, introduced Dr William T Crawford and established the context of the presentation by recapitulating Bishops speech and paving way for the next session. Dr Crawford began his presentation ‘Inside the Closure of a University : A Discussion of the Internal and External Factors That Led to the Demise of a storied Faith-Based Institution’ by highlighting the issues faced by smaller faith-based institutions in the form of a case study of St Gregory institution. He encapsulated the distinct challenges that had adversely impacted the institution ranging from deficit financing to market competition. He emphasized the importance of strategic planning and strong leadership which need to foresee potential causes of collapse and henceforth avert it. He focused on the dynamics of hiring a diverse group and elucidated the importance of creating key alliances. Acknowledging the fact that certain ideals cannot be compromised by faith-based institutions, Dr Crawford reinforced the need to have leaders who function with courage and conviction and who realize the need to correct and not overcorrect. His engaging presentation depicted the various pitfalls that a faith-based institutions journey might witness and recommended certain ways to understand, foresee, and resolve them. After the tea break, the second session began with the intriguing topic ‘Effective Ways of Relating to Media’. Father Saji Mathew, Dean – Academic Studies (Centre for Media Studies) introduced the topic and the speaker Mr Sujit John, Assistant Resident Editor, The Times of India, Bangalore. Mr Sujit John accentuated the indispensable role of media in the current times and the need to interact with them. Commenting on the aggressive trend to obtain maximum media space, Mr Sujit John observed that most Christian institutions tend to be old school, not aggressive. He also mentioned the benefits of knowing the educational journalists and important editors in the area. The changing times have witnessed a shift from print to online media and hence it is imperative for institutions to have a strong online presence. He suggested that every institution should have a media cell or at least one media coordinator to collaborate and connect with the media regarding various events and issues. He concluded by urging the teachers and the heads to understand the emotional power they have over people and to be more proactive and engage with the media.

ECONOMIC POLICIES AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS –THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE Dr Venkatesh Athriya spoke on Three elements of Economic policies. He spoke on neo liberal policies and privatization, liberalization and globalization. He threw light on political economy of neo liberalism focusing on fiscal deficit reduction and fear of flight of capital. He gave examples for neo liberalism from 1991 to 2014 about the different phases of political economy during that period.
Mr. Anil albert DSouza, advocate High court of Karnataka spoke on Critical sessions in Law, education and Governance issues. He discussed the role of Indian constitution in the field of education. He spoke on the importance of secular education, minority rights, aided and unaided posts and stressed on constitution as being the Bible of India. He also spoke about the 2020 budget and how the foreign universities are luring the students to go abroad. Mr. Francis Colasco, IPS and Former DG and IGP spoke about the Police governance and its problems. He discussed the need to implement good relationship in the community. A few suggestions were given by him like appointing a well-trained PRO, installing CCTVs in the campus and arranging good talks. It is important for the citizens to be aware of the laws. He stressed on the need for improving quality education in universities in India. Day three of the conference The third day of the conference also witnessed several eminent speakers. Dr. Kennedy Andrew moderated a video conference which featured Dr. Michael Matthews from Oral Roberts University, Oklahoma. He spoke at length on the importance of digital transformation, and the various means through which it has benefitted the current global scenario and gave comprehensive statistical evidence as well. Technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality etc has enabled universities to reach out to students in effective ways. He suggested that Indian institutions will also be profited greatly if technology is incorporated in the right manner.

The next speaker was Dr.B.S. Ponmudiraj, Deputy Advisor of NAAC, who spoke vehemently about the emerging quality challenges which was truly an eye-opener for institutions who aim for real- quality education. He emphasized on the importance of developing institutions, which included a sound faculty development programme as well as the correct usage of technology.

Dr.J.W Lobo spoke about internationalization of Indian Catholic institutions, citing the policies of Christ University as an example. The University has seen a steady growth since the last two decades and now has international professional collaborations. Stressing on how higher education system still has several milestones to achieve and also in the light of the new education policy of the government, he spoke about how Catholic institutions should strive to become full-fledged universities.

Mr.M.P Venugopal from ICCR threw light upon the Government of India scholarships, the schemes for foreign students, showing the efforts and the subsequent success of the ICCR and MHRD in this regard. Professor DP Agarwal, ex-chairman of UPSC and our valedictorian spoke comprehensively on policy and governance challenges, highlighting the major issues of our education system like admission criteria, pay-scale of teachers, curriculum fees, autonomy and university roles. He underlined the importance of discourse in the country, calling it of paramount importance because the absence of it seems to be the root cause of most problems. Overall, the conference has indeed shed some light on the myriad issues concerning the pressing challenges faced by the heads of institutions in India. It has aided us in learning to recognize issues and formulate possible solutions concerning higher education. Hide