Baroness Amos


Baroness Valerie Amos delivered an outstanding talk that encompassed some of the issues
that persistently came up in the Global Summit Talks. The issues of quality education for all,
quality enhancement at the level of Higher Education, respecting cultural diversity, working
towards greater global understanding through recognizing difference and accepting that there
was need to understand the other’s ‘difference’, and work towards a climate of greater and
greater tolerance. Her talk too veered in the direction of where Higher Education should go
and what the responsibilities of universities should be. She pointed out that the greatest
knowledge output as in the cases of recent scientific inventions and discoveries happened
through international collaborations.

She emphasized the difference, the uniqueness that SOAS has compared to other universities
within the U.K. and the global implications of a university that was strongly committed to the
idea of cultural difference, to the principle of nurturing cultural diversity and respect for the
many cultural and linguistic traditions in the world. The educational philosophy driving
SOAS was to give the many ‘minority’ cultures and languages of the world an international
forum and sanction. It was believed that this would build the way for greater global
understanding through ‘critical engagement’ with the cultural traditions, languages and
literatures of others. She said it was extremely important to know the languages and
literatures of other nations, their myths and cultural philosophies. She asserted that knowing
languages greatly aided international cooperation and understanding. She did not however,
minimize the challenges of the process, and pointed out that greater understanding of the
other could only come from understanding one’s location very well. She also posited that at
SOAS everyone was a ‘minority’.

She emphasized the role of languages in building international understanding and cooperation
and also collaboration. She spoke of the need of learning the culture, the myths and the
literature of nations and communities other than one’s own in order to develop a sense of how
other communities/races/selves/beings related to the world. She emphasized the need and
importance of Area Studies.

Charles Bailyn had also spoken of the need for training in languages as part of an integrated
Arts and Sciences undergraduate program.
She referred to an incident during her tenure as Under Secretary General of Humanitarian
Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (2010—2015) when there was a crisis in West
Africa, where the U.N. failed because it did not ‘take on board’ the cultural uniqueness of the
region and its principles of family and community.
She said that at SOAS there were students from ninety different communities, and the faculty
engaged actively with students who hailed from a highly diverse cultural range.
Baroness Amos said that Presidency University and SOAS could make very creative and productive use of their memorandum of understanding since both universities was based on the fact that both universities had very embedded traditions in the cultures of South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Regarding the goals of sustainable development that the U.N.O has outlined which includes among its main agenda the eradication of poverty, provision of adequate health care and viable opportunities for education, she said that any measures taken by the U.N.O could only become effective if the U.N. engaged with people at the local level through an understanding of community dynamics.
She emphasized Presidency University and SOAS partnerships in building quality Higher Education several times.
She mentioned that SOAS has many Indian students, although the university is losing students from England or rather, not getting enough students. She mentioned that some graduates from SOAS like Subramaniam (not sure), a Sanskrit scholar, had gone on to become leaders in Indian society. For instance Subramanium had been one of the first Vice Chancellors of Lucknow University.
She mentioned how the first Vice Chancellors of SOAS, Sir Roth and Sir Turner had been avid India scholars. Turner’s Dictionary of Comparative Aryan languages is still used today by scholars in the field. Mary Boyce’s work on Zoroastrianism was a highly acclaimed one and in the Centennial program of SOAS held at New Delhi last year, Zoroastrianism was the principal theme.
Baroness Amos emphasized how importantly India featured in current research at SOAS. She mentioned Francesca Osini from the South Asia Institute who had worked on multilingual locals in Northern India. She mentioned antoehr scholar who had worked on infrastructure development in South East Asia and had included a study on Indian roads. She mentioned the work of Bhavani Shankar on food, nutrition and agriculture in South East Asia. At the same time that this Summit was going on, she mentioned the book on the ‘Roots of Yoga’ jointly written by Mallison and Singleton and being launched at Jaipur.
Among three world famous Indians who were currently engaged with SOAS in London were Professor Amartya Sen, Professor Romila Thapar and Mr. Shiv Shankar Mukherjee.
After Baroness Amos concluded the Vice Chancellor of Presidency University, Professor Anuradha Lohia, warmly acclaimed her talk and spoke of how the Baroness’s lecture had touched upon some of her own key concerns. Professor Lohia, a molecular biologist by training, spoke of how her job as Vice Chancellor had opened her eyes to the importance and richness of the Humanities and Social Sciences, and how important it was to fund quality research in these areas.
During the question answer session, Agnibha, a student from Physics Major asked a highly relevant question. Agnibha asked whether SOAS was engaged in collaborations with African Universities, and what therefore was the quality of SOAS presence in Africa?
The Baroness’s reply provided a rich fund of information. She said that in 2000 C.E., the U.N. took a drive to improve primary education in Africa as the link between education and development became very apparent to U.N. policy makers. Hence, Higher Education took a back seat and good universities that had existed at Ghana, Uganda and Kenya declined because of lack of resources.
She said that SOAS had links with universities in North Africa, as in Egypt. She also stated that SOAS was going to increase its scholarships in Africa.
She said that in the modern world we have to look at the picture where in the field of Higher Education there is competition between countries, within the country and within the universities, road maps for Higher Education had to be laid carefully.
She emphasized that with the strong links that existed between Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia, care should be taken to preserve the good and worthwhile universities in these countries. She spoke on the need for understanding the ‘connectedness’ of Africa, South East Asia and the Middle East.
Sandipan Mitra, ex--student of Sociology, next asked whether it was possible for parity to be there between the general move for standardization and privatization in Higher Education in India, and the notion of excellence?
To this question the Baroness replied that SOAS was very proud of its ‘difference’ from other institutions of higher learning in England, and remained steadfast in it. When it spoke to the Government it emphasized the need for this ‘different’ curriculum for the overall development and well-being of the nation. When she spoke to the government she tried to make them understand the importance of interdisciplinary studies at SOAS.
Baroness Amos said that we give importance to Area Studies and Law, but also to Art and Languages.
Overall, the Baroness said that reflection on the histories of Presidency and SOAS would provide many texts on the complexity of the story of Higher Education, its challenges and how much capacity each institution has had for ‘change’. ‘Change’, she said, ‘is at the heart of who we are’.
Presidency and SOAS both need to ‘push the boundaries of knowledge’ so that there is ‘critical engagement with the other’ as a very important seam of higher educational philosophy. Both universities need to commit themselves to understanding what universities in the modern world are all about or what a ‘modern university’ is all about.