“What makes a nation, is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past," says noted historian Eric Hobsbawm. “Hence, when talking of a nation, it becomes very imperative that the past should also be talked about. And the past of India is as fascinating and interesting as it is momentous." Hobsbawm makes perfect sense, as the rewind button has been pushed and India’s glorious past replays itself, once again. Why would the world not look to India to educate it today, as it did in the past? Was not the World’s first university established at Takshila, India in 700 B.C., and where more than 10,500 students from the world over came to study more than 60-subjects? And, was not the University of Nalanda built in the 4th century, ancient India’s greatest achievement in the field of education?

Then again, in the 5th century, many hundreds of years before the astronomer, Smart, an Indian named Bhaskaracharya correctly calculated 365.258756484 days as the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun. And, Budhayana, an Indian mathematician was the first to calculate the value of ‘pi’ and explain the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. Only, he made his discovery in the 6th century, long before any European mathematicians could take the credit, even though they did later on. Did not Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus originate from India, with Sridharacharya using quadratic equations in the 11th century? This when, the largest number used by the Greeks and the Romans was just 106, whereas, the Hindus were using numbers as big as 10*53 (i.e. 10 to the power of 53), and with specific names, as early as 5000 B.C. (the Vedic period). Even today, the largest used number is Tera: 10*12 (10 to the power of 12). And, did not India devise the number system with Aryabhata inventing Zero.

And, it is rightly so that the new branch of outsourcing to catch the world’s attention i.e. Educational Services Outsourcing (ESO), is the latest trend to expect over 100,000 teachers in India to log on to www.tutorswithoutlimits.com to set themselves up in their Internet business of online tutoring.

The brainchild of IT entrepreneur, Glynn Willet, who found Tutors Without Limits (TWL) with his son, TWL incorporates the new Web 2.0 AJAX technology to create the Lesson Board, which is just the most advanced learning system for teaching on the Internet.

“This is just like teaching in my classroom!" one of the first teachers to use the Lesson Board is quoted as saying, in a press release on the subject.

The back to school, signalling the start of US’s academic session in September, will now provide parents and students in the country with cost effective, quality education related help any time of the day or night. Usually, US students pay $40 an hour for tutoring services in America. However, last year, call centres in India started offering these same services for as low as $14 to $20 an hour. With the launch of TWL, tutors will now be offering their services directly to students in the US at prices determined by them.

However, Raghavendra Rao, a mathematics online tutor teaching a number of children in California from Bangalore, told ITWire, an Australian IT news website: “This will no doubt be good for us, but there are going to be a number of teething problems that would have to be ironed out. The overseas clients have to be sure they are getting value for their money. At the same time, tutors in India should not just scramble for this and let down pupils. That would create a very bad impression and would not be good for the e-learning community."

According to the press release, the TWL marketplace will quickly sort services based on quality, content, qualifications and recommendations. Although initially limited to the US, India and Pakistan, TWL serviceswill be launched in Canada, Australia, Europe and Japan, within two months.

This, on top of the fact, that more and more American students are heading to India, than ever before. For decades, it was the dream of a significant section of Indian students to study and then work in the United States. Now, a ‘reverse trend’, albeit with a smaller number to begin with, may take shape as American students come to India to learn.

Led by Senator Michael B Enzi, an American delegation comprising of among others, Margaret Spellings - US Secretary of Education, is on a mission to India to study the sub-continent’s educational system, and how it is able to churn out a large number of highly-skilled professionals. To quote Spellings: “....As Secretary of Education, I am anxious to see how you all, and how others around the world develop human capital and talent. Certainly, you (India) have done that and you are doing that. That’s why so many industries and American companies are coming here to grow and expand," Spellings told the Press Trust of India.

After an earlier visit, along with Enzi and other Senators Lamar Alexander and Johnny Isakson, to Infosys, Texas Instruments, GE’s R&D centre in Bangalore, where they also met some Google officials, she stressed the team’s keenness to learn what India was doing on the two fronts of innovation and competitiveness.

Emphasising that US would encourage American students to come to India to learn, she held out a promise of accelerating numbers, exclaiming: “Yes, absolutely," to the expected rise in the number of American students to study in Indian educational institutions.

According to one estimate, there are around 70,000 Indian students studying in the US, while about 780-American students are enrolled in India. Spelling said: “That’s going to change overnight (more American students will come to India to learn). At Infosys, there are 300-permanent employees, who will come here for six months to two years from the US and then go back. These are growing programmes and will grow overtime."

As well, she informed, information technology was one of the areas, American students were keen to study in India. “But, also systems management...things you do collaborate, leveraging all of the various things that we saw at work today at the companies we saw," she added.

Observing that India produces a large number of highly skilled people, she said: “That’s one of the pages; we want to take from your book...the high quality technical base, strength of the skills...your talent pool. We have work to do on that across our country, as well."

Awed by India’s huge and strong technical capability, the world waits to see if the sub-continent can wrought the same miracle in the areas of creativity, problem-solving and innovation. Of course, it has and can after breaking free from the shackles of colonial thinking. Read that as the Brown Sahib Syndrome imposed by the British Raj that so many Indians suffer from. After, and only after, it has replaced the ingrained and delusional thinking propagated by the British, and later on fuelled by Hitler and his bunch of Nazi goons, whereby the world continues to believe in the myth of western superiority.

Once, the Indians develop the self-confident swagger of their celebrated past, the floodgates of their dormant creative and innovative genius, shackled for so long by Islamic domination and Eurocentricity will be released, only to take the world by storm. This then, is the coming of full circle in time, when scholars from all over the world braving dangerous elements, such as, highway robbers, inclement weather and much more, travelled to India to study at its renowned Takshila University, the world’s first educational institution.

It is to be hoped that the Americans will not accord their online tutors from India the same treatment they mete out to teachers in America’s classrooms. Perhaps, they will learn to appreciate India’s ancient Guru – Shishya (teacher – pupil) parampara (tradition), whereby scholarship and wisdom revolves around the guru, and he / she is held in high esteem, revered and accorded a higher status, over and above even one’s father and mother. Then, most certainly, the ESO trend will find many takers, both sides of the globe! Welcome, to Educational Services Outsourcing, a by-product of Business Process Outsourcing!

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