Prospects for Anglophone Studies: Comparing Indian and British Programmes and Methodologies

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This two-year networking project will examine the content, curriculum and pedagogic practices of what we call 'Anglophone Studies' or AS (including English language and linguistics, literatures in English, and Anglophone culture studies) as they support students in the current globalising social and economic context. In the first phase we will explore the issues in contemporary Indian Higher Education (HE) programmes; in the second stage, the situation in this regard in India will be considered comparatively with that in Britain. We expect the investigation to model and foster change amongst the AS academic community. Funding is sought to develop our network, drawing staff from centres in three universities in Delhi - English Department, Delhi University (DU); Modern Languages School, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) [both listed as 'centres of excellence' in the Arts and Humanities Research Mapping, India report, June 2010, Research Councils UK]; English Department, Jamia Milia University (JMU) -- and the English Department, The Open University (OU). This network will clarify the terms/remit of discussion, consider ways of expanding its membership to national scales, and identify areas for further investigation through a series of meetings and three workshops in India and Britain. In a broad way, we expect this project and the consequent future programme to: (1) lead to reconsideration of and, where necessary, reform of the AS curriculum and pedagogic practices in Indian and British HE; (2) clarify the relationship of HE AS to employment in India, and intervene in policy and practices pertinent to this; (3) similarly throw comparative light on this relationship in the UK; (4) understand the success of Indian graduates in the national and global (with the UK case in focus) employment marketplace; (5) provide information to employers in sectors anywhere who wish to be appraised of developments in this area; (6) and foster collaboration and research between Indian and British academics, policy-makers and industry. Thereby we expect to fill significant lacunae in the current research context while engaging with important social and academic trends. The workshops will involve Indian and British AS academics/researchers and education policy-makers, and representative employers outside academia, i.e. media and arts industries, firms providing/using Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services, publishing and education/training enterprises. Bodies and organizations representing different AS disciplines, government and education policy, and employers have been approached by the applicants and collaborators of this project already, and have been given assurances of participation. The first two workshops will take place in Delhi, focusing on 'Employer Expectations and Indian AS Graduates' first, and then on 'AS Curriculum, Pedagogy and the Market'; the third will be in London, on 'AS Programmes and Graduate Destinations in Britain and India: Comparative Perspectives'. The core group of organisers will also meet thrice as a planning committee before, between and after the workshops, to plan them and realise reports and published outcomes, to arrange publicity and dissemination, and to plan a follow-on research programme. Within the project period three reports will be prepared and circulated and a co-edited scholarly volume prepared for publication. A text-based, public-access project website will be used to profile events, place reports and provide a common forum for the network. By this project's end the applicants will have planned and started lobbying/applying for support for a large-scale (extending to the national level in India and Britain) programme involving original data-collection, research publications, and ongoing production of reports/analyses for HE policy/academic bodies and employer bodies.