Optimising India’s Intellectual Resources: From Capacity to Capability

Optimising India’s Intellectual Resources: From Capacity to Capability

India celebrates its intellectual capital—its young population, expanding universities, academic and research infrastructure, digital platforms, growth in scientific human resources, big research and innovation centres, central museums, start-up hubs,  and growing research output.  As per the policy and practices, those resources are consistently underutilised. Though access is not denied, access is restricted due to a lack of awareness or facilities to use. The challenge is not capacity, but capability—how knowledge, infrastructure, and people are organised to work together to drive the largest pool of youths of this nation and set a global model.

Optimisation, in this context, does not mean extracting more output from individuals. It means building systems that allow thinking to circulate, mature, and influence decisions across and motivate the young minds to think. 

We have seen in last two decades, the use of physical resources starting from houses, hotels, cars, use of logistics services are optimised, which has brought revolutionary changes in quality of life and brought the real democracy to the people to take their own decision on the basis of resources and opportunities with them, The era of VIPs and VVIPs are the past. 

Moving from Fragmented Systems to Integrated Ecosystem

New Education Policy 2020 has brought lots of opportunities to bring parity in the national education system across the states and align it to the international education systems, as such children will have the opportunities to make decisions to move across. Five years have gone. As Education is in concurrent act of both the State and Federal governments, it was too difficult to bring parity. Yet the nation is grateful to Kasturi Rangan Committee, the credibility of the document itself created buzz nationally and motivated the teachers and students both to volunteer to follow it. The sincere and continuous effort of Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal ji to bring the vision to the implementation level. Involvement of the Highest Authority of the Nation, Honourable Prime Minister of India, Sri Narendra Modi Ji has given this Policy a proper direction to reach in each and every corner of the country. 

While I read about the initiative of our present Honourable Minister of Education, Sri Dharmendra Pradhan Ji, inaugurating the Academic Cluster in Sambalpur and signing of MOUs among local colleges and Universities in the Central University of Odisha at Koraput are steps forward in that direction.

Though western countries have taken the pioneering role in optimising the use of physical infrastructure, assets and services, can this country take the lead to develop a model or platform for optimum use of the intellectual resources of the nation.  Can this State of Odisha have the pride to pioneer this

Digital media as connective tissue, not content storage

India’s digital expansion has transformed facilities to access to education, but facilities alone does not help in creating intellectual value. Too often, digital platforms function as repositories of lectures and materials, replicating passive learning at scale, but no system to use it neither in the curricular frame work nor in policy frame work.

Used strategically, digital media can act as connective tissue across educational clusters. Faculty can teach across institutions. Students can collaborate on shared problems. Research discussions, policy simulations, and interdisciplinary projects can cross physical boundaries.

The goal is not digitisation for its own sake, but the use of digital tools to extend intellectual exchange, not merely distribute information.

I remember the National Knowledge Network was a welcoming step in this direction to provide opportunities to all to learn from the best brains of the country and abroad. If such initiatives can be further strengthened to learn in a live environment rather than a passive repository or platform, it will be very beneficial for all.

Smart labs as shared national infrastructure

Laboratory facilities in India reveal a familiar imbalance. Some institutions possess advanced infrastructure, high-end machines,  which remain underutilised, because of a disproportionate number of students and scholars in the institute,  sometimes lack of experts in a particular area, at times due to the exit of some manpower and at times, because of the non-availability of particular skilled manpower. Others lack even basic facilities according to the curriculum or expected learning skills. This duplication and scarcity coexist inefficiently, which creates a serious imbalance in the whole educational ecosystem.

Smart laboratories—digitally enabled, modular, and networked—can address this gap. Now most of the good institutions have developed virtual labs, simulating facilities etc, which can be easily shared nationally. Though motive is not the main issue, creating aspirations at the nascent level to have access and learn is very much required. Only Teachers can be the catalyst in bringing such change, with certain policy changes.  When labs are designed as shared resources within educational clusters, they become collective assets rather than institutional privileges. 

It can drastically reduce costs, encourage collaboration, and support interdisciplinary research—essential for solving complex social, technological, and environmental challenges. 

India has lots of diversity, starting from education, culture, language, economy, industries and life itself. It can leverage the potential of pioneering living labs concept in the world, where it can showcase its sovereignty in diversity.

Libraries as living intellectual commons

Libraries were often treated as secondary infrastructure, yet they remain central to intellectual depth. In many institutions, they were underfunded, underused, or poorly integrated into academic life. But exploration of digital platforms starting from SCPUS, Web of Science, J Gate, PBMED etc. has tried to bring intellectual resources to the readers in an integrated platform, as such access and learning can be effective. But due to the high cost of those resources, not matching to the budget of individual institutions, the access is limited to the premier institutions. 

Modern libraries must function as living intellectual commons—combining physical collections with digital archives, data repositories, and collaborative spaces. They should host reading groups, research clinics, public lectures, and policy dialogues that connect students, scholars, and practitioners. With this those intellectual commons should take little more interest to create hunger in the ground level, as such students and scholars will be interested to access. Their role should be both creating awareness and bringing new knowledge to the learning platform, where learners will be automatically motivated to learn this. It can be a highly technical infrastructure, displayed by demonstrating an innovation-driven learning mechanism. 

Restructuring and revisiting the skill set of present time information and library science experts is very much required.   Empowering the existing resources with sufficient required knowledge and skill both. .

Human resources: the most under-utilised asset

The most important and decisive factor for optimum utilisation of intellectual resources is intellectual manpowers, designated as teachers, instructors, faculties, professors, etc. 

Across education and public institutions, highly qualified individuals are working with a very high level of research output, some where recognised and in some places not recognised, if not published in an appropriate database. But very few youth get access to their knowledge or direct deliberations. If we consciously calculate, if a teacher teaches a maximum 240 - 300 students every year, they teach a maximum of 9000 students on average over 30 years of their service. The Number may change a little bit here and there. But in this country, at any point of time, 30 cr children and youth are there in the education system of this country, approximately 26 cr in school and 4 cr in higher education. If those highly acclaimed academicians can be approached by more youth, they may get a different direction in life. 

Another one side, we constantly ignore in our country, the institutions those are directly connected to agriculture, the economy, villages, people and indigenous industries of India. Platforms should be built up to bring those knowledges to the city-based institutions as such children of cities can have knowledge of this. Unless there is a clear divide among the youth. Some where knowledge is there without skill and expertise, another group where expertise and skill are there without knowledge.

It is observed that teachers are engaged into routine administration, low performance metrics, or rigid hierarchies that leave little room for original thoughts or actions. Independent thinking is frequently mistaken for disruption.

Teachers must be recognised as knowledge producers rather than mere instructors and adequate facilities and ecosystem should be created in and around for creation of knowledge jointly by the teachers and learners. Researchers must engage with society and policy, not confined to publication counts. Administrators must be trained to facilitate ideas, not suppress them.

Women and younger professionals, in particular, are often under-recognised as intellectual assets, when they occupy a major share in whole academic system of this country. In Indian institutions conformity in prioritised over contribution, so intellectual energy becomes defensive rather than creative.

From accumulation to optimisation

India does not lack institutions, infrastructure, platforms, or talents. It lacks alignment of those resources for best use of stake holders. Educational clusters without digital integration, digital tools without smart labs, labs without libraries, and libraries without empowered people cannot produce sustained intellectual value, can create only inadequacy creating confusions and low confidence educationally certified youth. Is this country prepared to optimise it, either in an entrepreneurial echo system or a national ecosystem.

Optimising intellectual resources means designing systems where educational repository, digital media, smart laboratories, library resources, and human capital are reinforced and available to facilitate learning in any form and type. It requires institutional cultures that protect thinking, reward integrity, and allow intelligence to influence decisions. Mere instructions and confinement to the curricula can not do this.

This shift from accumulation to optimisation is not simply an education reform, it is a measure of national maturity. The question is no longer whether India has intellectual resources, but whether it is prepared to use them wisely to benefit all.