Click here to register for this event. 

2:45-3:00pm       Welcome and Introduction

3:00- 4:00pm      Understanding the Indian Educational Landscape

India’s educational system is failing its children, and the implications for economic development are significant.  In the past ten years Government of India’s spending on education has grown and the results are discouraging; while enrollment levels have improved, students’ learning outcomes are dismal.  What are the structural changes that might improve learning in both the public sponsored schools and the private sector ones?  How do we frame and sequence the social investment to accomplish this?

Speaker – Karthik Muralidharan, Assistant Professor of Economics at University of California, San Diego

Moderator – Tarun Khanna, Director of SAI; Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School

4:00-5:15pm       What do We Know? What Do We Need to Know?

What evidence do we have, and what evidence do we need to generate to inform the design and content of this social investment strategy. Educators in India have worked on many levels and across many frontiers to promote improved learning outcomes. Non – profit service providers and philanthropic groups have developed a myriad of interventions; what works and what doesn’t? Looking ahead, where do we need to place our investments to generate the insights and findings that will influence policy makers? Are there important lessons from outside of India that can be applied?

Panel: Abhijit Banerjee, MIT, Abdul Latif Jamal Poverty Action Lab;

Felipe Barrera-Osorio, Assistant Professor of Education and Economics, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Fernando Reimers, Ford Foundation Professor of International Education and Director of Global Education and of International Education Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Moderator: Ashish Dhawan, CEO and Founder, Central Square Foundation

5:30-6:45pm       Critical Questions Unanswered: Funding, Research, and Advocacy in Education Reform        

The education reform movements outside of India have taken different directions and each offers some insight to efforts in India. The US offers many such important lessons for the emerging education reform movement in India. As we consider the past 20 years here in the US, can we apply “lessons learned” to the Indian context?  What are the critical questions that we should pursue —“excellence” or “scale” in program?  What is the best application of philanthropic capital: research, pilot stage intervention or scaling programs with promise? How do you support advocacy efforts?

Panel:  Tom Haslett, Senior Advisor, Central Square foundation

Stig Leschly, CEO, Match Education

Jacqueline Bhabha, FXB Director of Research; Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health; Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Lecturer in Law, Harvard Law School; Adjunct Lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School

Moderator: Tarun Khanna, Director of SAI; Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School

6:45-7:15pm       Reception

Co-sponsored by the Central Square Foundation

• 

Sugata Bose, Homi Bhabha, P. Chidambaram, and Tarun Khanna

On Tuesday April 16, the Finance Minister of India, P. Chidambaram visited the Harvard campus for a set of events sponsored by the South Asia Institute and the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard.

Finance Minister Chidambaram first attended a luncheon with members of the Harvard community and then spoke to a packed room about the opportunities and challenges facing India as the center of economic power shifts to the East. Much of his comments and questions from the audience focused on the need for India to foster more inclusive growth. The Finance Minister discussed how much of India’s potential  among women, Dalits, and other minorities went untapped due to a lack of support and inclusion of those individuals in India’s growth. In fact, the Finance Minister went so far as to say that non-inclusive growth was a significant factor holding down India’s growth rate.

The Finance Minister also drew a geopolitical distinction between India’s rise and that of other countries in the region stating that India had no desire to become an imperial or a regional power. Instead, India’s focus was on helping other countries catch up to the rest of the world. Citing Afghanistan as an example, Minister Chidambaram pointed out that none of the $1 billion in aid being given to Afghanistan was military related. The Finance Minister’s visit was part of a week-long visit to Canada and the U.S.A. that will culminate at the IMF/World Bank spring meetings and the G-20 Finance Ministers’ meetings that will take place on the sidelines of the IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington DC.

•