DESIGN EDUCATION Authors:

Prof. Uday Athavankar

Industrial Design Centre.

Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay,
Powai, Mumbai - 400 076, India.

NEW AGENDA FOR DESIGN SCHOOLS IN THE

DEVELOPING WORLD
Indo-US workshop on Design Engineering, eds. Chakrabarti A, Subbramaniam S., Allied publishers
Ltd. New Delhi, 2008, pp 31-45

uday.athavankar@gmail.com
 Abstract
The paper takes an overview of the development of industrial design
education in India from its inception and shows how its focus shifted
with the prevailing political thinking. Continuing this line of think-
ing, the paper shows how design schools in India have not taken the
initiatives to recast their priorities and programmes to meet the new
challenges posed by globalization and the opportunities offered by
the new connectivity to come up with new models of design educa-
tion. It pleads that the design of global products that respect cultural
practices need cross-cultural teams and design approaches; also new
schools should reposition themselves by integrating both locally and
globally.

Keywords: Design and Globalisation, Culture sensitive design, New

design opportunities.

This paper is an abridged as well as updated version of the paper

“Globalisation and the New Mantra of Design Education for India” pre-
sented at the conference, Design Education: Tradition and Modernity,
at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, in March, 2005.

Modern design education started in the later part of nineteenth cen-

tury with the opening of schools in architecture and what was known
then as commercial art. It brought in western design thinking, ideas
and aesthetic sensibilities. Industrial Design education started later, in
the post-independence period (in 1960s). With Charles and Ray Eame’s
‘India Report’, Industrial Design education and practice had a unique
start that not many schools abroad can boast of. It led to the first step
in initiating Industrial Design practice and education. In spite of the
focus on Eame’s report on Indian design tradition and sensibilities, the
design education programmes in India, like in many other countries,
actually borrowed its pedagogy and its thinking from Bauhaus as well
as the Ulm school tradition. Since then, design discipline has been
attempting to address the conflict between the need to rapidly mod-
ernize, to promote economic development for tackling poverty and the
need to minimize the effects of economic development on traditional
culture. Caught in this conflict, the design schools in India have been

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 trying a tightrope walk, between the international design approach
and the India-centric rooted ness in the local issues and tradition.
Globalization has provided yet another jolt to this conflict, forcing us
to question the validity of this tightrope walk.

I plan to build my arguments on following somewhat overlapping

statements,

1. O
 ne of the purposes of design education is to create professionals
who would effectively contribute to the economic activity across
sectors. I agree that this is not and should not be the only focus of
design education, but I believe that at least in developing coun-
tries in their early cycles of development, we should accept this
as an important goal. The profession can afford to choose its own
path only if it wishes to alienate itself from the national per-
spective. It is then logical that in developing economies, design
practice and education agenda be influenced by socio-economic
and political concerns. But have the design schools in India been
showing sensitivity to the changes in the political thinking?

2. S o far as design education remains project oriented, it is expected

that the project agenda reflects the prevailing political thinking.
Looking back, one can discern paradigm shifts in Indian political
thinking and development approach. Have the project agendas
of the design schools reflected these evolving shifts in political
thinking?

3. L
 imitations of design schools come from the fact that they
respond to new thinking through change of contents and accom-
modate them within existing structures. While the contents move
and align with new thinking – the structure of the schools is lot
more inert and does not easily change. Have schools accommo-
dated the changes in agenda that the globalized and the non-
globalized world demands?

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 4. I n this globalization wave, what has perhaps prompted Asian
countries to look back suddenly at the tradition now is the sheer
pace and intensity of cultural changes. Traditional cultures like
India are uncomfortable with this sweeping cultural invasion.
There is no question of rejecting these changes, as the local
cultures do not have that choice any more. It is better to look
for opportunities within the current pro-globalization political
thinking and study how the profession can address its concerns
regarding tradition and modernity.

5. I plan to delve on how design schools have and could have

responded to these shifts in political thinking. Much of the initial
developments in design practice and design education (1970s
and 80s) have been already documented in my earlier paper
(Athavankar 2002). I will briefly touch this area in part I. In
part II, I plan to delve extensively on the globalization scenario
(1990s), the post 2000 AD political thinking and the new chal-
lenges alongwith their implications to current design agenda.
In the end, I hope to show that the design schools should have
changed in their structure so as to meet the challenges offered
by globalization and the changing political thinking. But design
schools have always displayed a phase difference in catching up
and have lagged behind in their responses.

Part I
Evolving Political Thought in India
As mentioned earlier, the pedagogy as well as the design education
programme were actually implanted into the Indian culture, initially
under the British influence, and later through voluntary acceptance
of the Bauhaus and Ulm models. Yet, modern design thinking in India
shows reflections of conflict between aligning with international
trends and the need to address the local issues and agendas. This was
perhaps because of the difficulty in neglecting the prevailing political
thought.

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 1970s Paradigm: Using Design as a Tool for Development
Political thinking in the 70s was dominated by ideas of industrial
development protected by licensing and production quotas. It was
unfortunate that the first formally trained designers with fresh ideas
and pioneering spirit had to struggle to get a foothold in the not-so-
receptive corporate world which was busy in manufacturing products
under licensing agreements with multi-national companies in a non-
competitive market environment. However, in reality this turned out
to be a blessing in disguise.

These nascent years of Industrial Design education in India also coin-

cided with the international debate on ideas of economic development
and its relationship with social justice at the grass-root level. The
debate prompted designers to find the relevance of design in the life
of a vast majority of Indians untouched by the development efforts.
This synergy caused by a feeling of participation in nation building,
prompted designers to explore the role of design as a means of income
generation. Could design offer solutions to the politically significant-
grass-root level issues like unemployment?

Design schools exposed the students to two diverse directions in

thinking. Corporate world issues dominated the education agenda
as much as the real world grass-root level issues. Schools subscribed
to the idea that the ‘third world’ needed unique design responses
and the inspiration for this had to come from within. The corporate
model of the designer sat right next to the new ‘barefoot designer’
model. Obviously the western orientation in education and prac-
tice of design came under the magnifying glass. First, it was rec-
ognized that design should be viewed as a tool for development.
Second, the role of craft and craft products as a legitimate modern
design activity came to be accepted. Third, it realized the need for
non-commercial interventions in the society. Interestingly much of
this was consistent with the then international thinking in design
and technology development (Papanek, 1971; Schumacher, 1973)
The schools had to cater to both the diverse ‘corporate’ and the ‘bare-
foot designer’ models at the same time. It was not easy to incorporate

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 this diversity in the urbanized structure of the design schools. They
had to work with industries on one hand and also develop partnership
with NGOs at the local level on the other. or create extension centers
in the nearby rural area. It was tightrope walking for the schools with
an urban bias. In retrospect, it appears logical that the socio-economic
diversity in the society had mirrored in the two very diverse designer
models. But in spite of this diversity, the essential form and the struc-
ture of the school did not very much change.

1980s Paradigm: Hi-tech route to development and international

benchmarking
Mid-eighties registered a major shift in the political thinking in India.
The new political leadership changed gears and committing itself to
the hi-tech route to development. There was ambition to enter the
new millennium on par technologically with the advanced countries.
Realizing the possibility of being denied access to modern technolo-
gies, the political leadership supported some extra ordinary tech-
nology development projects. Abandoning of the licensing system of
production in some areas also resulted in positive market environ-
ment and inducing some private industries to develop technologies
and products indigenously.

New orientation meant partnering with technology development

groups and engineering designers. However, the rather rigid structure
of the design schools did not encourage such partnerships. Design
schools continued to run their projects independently without adjust-
ing to the new agenda thus losing a good oppurtunity. A good oppor-
tunity was lost. In any case, the synergy was short lived. Globalization
in the 90s was to change all this. .

This energy also had a drawback: Western design norms, products

and standards of aesthetics tended to be treated as benchmarks by
the graduating students eager to take up professional challenges. The
design focus shifted from grass-root to the hi-tech; from the idealism
of the 70s to professionalism of the corporate sector in late 80s.

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 Internationally, everybody seemed to have gotten rid of the popular
70s guilt of squandering resources. Nor were the issues related to pov-
erty on the top of the agenda in design literature. Development issues
of the seventies and the focus on the village level technologies and craft
skills slipped much lower in the agenda. Obviously, the disparities in
income continued to widen. This has been discussed extensively ear-
lier. (See Athavankar, 2002) In this paper we will mainly focus on the
design opportunities that these two decades offered.

1. Design Opportunities till the 80s

Design schools did make serious and planned efforts to be in sync
with the political thinking and educated students to take advantage
of the design opportunities. Schools mainly focused on the first two
opportunities, because of its consistency with the India-centric ver-
sion that they were attempting to evolve. Opportunity three was short
lived, but four was also a focus for a short time.

2. Design for the corporate sector and mainly for the urban
market
Indian industry was mainly a manufacturing platform with very low
technology or design development capabilities. Except for the few who
updated their design capabilities to meet the challenge of new product
development, most of the companies initially went in for partnership
with multi-nationals to bring in new products. The depressing effects
of lack of free competition with global products on the industry and
on design practice have been dealt with in detail and are not repeated
here. (Athavankar 2002)

3. Design for rural market

Everybody recognized the need to add value to the objects that the
masses use in their day-do-day life. There is a vast potential in this
area that had been tapped only marginally. Design contributions in
this area demanded the understanding and upkeeping of product tra-
ditions. Design schools did promote these ideas, particularly in 70s.
The approach was a difficult option, not because of design challenges,
but because the manufacturing of such products was too local and
decentralized for any direct intervention.

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 4. Technology route to development
Based more on the idea, of self-reliance this opportunity seemed
appropriate in some specific sectors like defense technologies and
other sensitive areas, where the technology was guarded and not eas-
ily accessible. Designers were involved in some of the national proj-
ects then.

5. Designing for global export

With shortage of foreign exchange, it was identified as a key area. It
was also an area that the government was keen to support through
incentives. However, with much modern product development closely
linked to technology development, the developing world was handi-
capped. This approach was valid in product areas where technology
was not a key determinant. Even now it is valid and is separately
dealt with later.

Part II  
Responding to the Globalization Wave  
1990s Paradigm: Design challenges of open markets and free
trade
Fierce economic compulsions and pressure of continuous market
growth had begun forcing technologically advanced countries to
seek new markets outside their geo-political borders. Globalization
process brought several rapid changes in the international design
scene. Modern business and industrial environment changed rapidly.
Extremely competitive international markets created intense pres-
sure to be first in the global market and forced pace on new product
development, prompting designers to adopt new technologies and
techniques in curtailing concept-to-consumer time. Designers from
the developing world could not have been immune to this pressure
and had to quickly adapt to the changing scene. Though the designers
were getting ready, the local industries, threatened by global competi-
tion, found survival difficult. It was a bittersweet experience for Indian
industry. (Jha, 2000) For detailed discussion on the way the industry
and designers responded, see Athavankar 2002.

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 Globalization process induced several changes with the potential to
influence design approach. From the point of view of this paper, some
of the important points were as follows,

Global companies realizing that future markets lay in the developing

world, pushed their products globally, but were unprepared with new
product responses to local needs of communities across the world.
Most companies, with minor modifications, labeled their existing port-
folio of products as ‘culture free Global products’ and marketed these
products to the small, rich and already westernized urban segments
in the developing world. This segment was anyway aspiring to be part
of the global village and participate in the global economic activities
and was only too willing to accept them. With newly acquired pur-
chasing power, it was a bonanza for the urbanites. They benefited by
the qualitatively superior and abundantly available foreign brands in
the Indian market.

The global market itself went through some radical changes. With the
easing of immigrations and international travel becoming coupled
with easy communication, two opposite trends were visible. The plu-
rality, a common feature in some of the Asian cultures, began display-
ing its face in countries that had kept their doors open to immigrants.
These countries also started showing distinct plurality and cultural
diversities. The familiar correlations between objects, places and cul-
tures began rapidly vanishing and prompting people to become more
conscious of their regional roots. As a result, to express their regional
roots, they had started surrounding themselves with objects from the
country of their origin . The issue of expression of regional identities
not only has potential of becoming an important in traditional cul-
tures, but also holds the promise of becoming a new selling strategy at
least for some products.

Developing countries like India, because of the internal income dis-

parities, faced peculiar problems. The divide between the rich and
the poor was increasing at a faster rate. Besides the economic and
social dimensions, the disparate disparities now had newer variables
like technology ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ (often also referred in 90s as a

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 digital divide). The urban rich were comfortable with global products
and even aspired for them. They quickly adjusted to modern market-
ing, the ‘mall’ culture and the retailing revolution that thinned the
boundary between product and brand. While these privileged urban-
ites were ‘online’ all the time, there were large segments of population
in the developing world, who were yet to get electricity connections.
This vast majority could not afford the new technologies, nor could
they relate to it. They remained beyond the radar range of the global
companies, at least till these companies realized later in the new mil-
lennium that this market segment would drive future growth. For
Indian designers, the country reflected challenging but desperately
different contexts.

2000+ Paradigm: Globalization - The India-centric Version

1. Feel-good and the Aftershock
The globalization and the open market economy showed some ‘visible’
signs of progress in India, with the resurgence of industry and boom
in IT related businesses. The then government was quick to take the
credit and attributed this to their policies of open market. The result
of the visible prosperity was more fondly called ‘Feel-good’ factor. It
redefined the idea of progress at least for the urbanites.

The ‘feel-good’ campaigners missed the point that much of the real
India had no access to these new technologies, nor did part of the ben-
efits trickled down to them. Large parts of the population were left out
of the globalization wave and its consequent benefits. The ‘feel-good’
slogan, used as an election plank, the failed to convince the masses of
the government’s idea of progress and development. The immediate
political fallout of the unfettered globalization and the open market
brought a democratic change in the government and the outright
rejection of the ‘feel-good’ globalization. New political thinking did not
support the idea of progress that focused on a small section of edu-
cated urbanites, neglecting the larger cross section of people, who not
only did not benefit from it but also suffered.

Income disparities have not vanished nor will they in the near future.
In fact, with globalization they have actually increased further. It is

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 natural that the income disparities should reflect in the design agenda
in India. The poor have little or no access to the benefits of new tech-
nologies and the online advantages. They have yet to see drinking
water, continuous electricity at home or a blackboard in their schools.

2. New Slogan: Globalization with a Human Face

The new political compulsions demanded that the policies, dealing
with globalization or otherwise, should give the masses benefits in
someway. It coined the phrase ‘Globalization with a human face’, an act
of balancing the benefits. On one hand, the government did not want
to miss the economic opportunities provided by participation in the
globalization process. On the other, it also wanted part of the benefits
and prosperity to be passed on to the masses. This duality suggested
embracing and exploiting the opportunities of the open markets and
yet ensuring that the new technologies benefited the masses. It was
clear that India could not escape ‘Globalization’, nor the ‘human face’
issues.

The new government’s ambition was well spelt out in the recent speech
at the Design Summit by the Minister of Industries (Kamalnath, 2004).
He made it clear that “First, the government wants the Indian prod-
ucts to come out quickly into the global market as powerful brands.
Second, Taking a cue from the role played by IT companies on the
global scene, government is now looking forward to develop India into
a ‘global design hub’, offering quality design services to global com-
panies …” Even when spelling out these ambitions, the human face of
the globalization is not forgotten. For instance, in the same breath, the
Minister states that the “government wants to explore the potentials
and power of design to uplift the rural crafts to new hi-end products
……..” To ensure that the benefits of new technologies as well as the
new markets are passed on to the rural areas, the government is
willing to create the necessary policy framework. What are the new
opportunities that emerge from this political dispensation?

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 3. New Design Opportunities
Note that the first four opportunities were listed earlier in figure 2
and were available before globalization. They are shown in the figure
4, but are not discussed here again. Opportunity four is included as
there is a substantial change in how this opportunity is viewed now.
(See figure 4)

4. Designing for global export

This pre 90s phrase referred to identified markets in specific coun-
tries outside the country of origin. This idea needs to be redefined in
the new context. As mentioned earlier, much of the new product devel-
opment continues to be closely linked with technology development.
However, the handicap of the developing world in not having home
grown hi-tech is no longer valid as they are free to source technol-
ogy from outside the country. It should now be seen as developing
yet another global product with almost no reference to the country
of origin. In other sectors, where technology is not a key determinant,
there is a distinct opportunity. This is separately dealt with under
point seven.

5. Localization of global products for urban markets

Urban market is under the current onslaught of global products. While
a small cross-section amongst the urbanites aspire to buy global prod-
ucts, others have to adjust their lifestyle to match the capabilities of
these products. Should not the global products respect local cultures?

Can a small design team in one country decide what the other cul-
tures need? Some companies do send small teams to study market or
commission market surveys. Others find an easy route of asking local
immigrants to comment on the appropriateness of their solutions.
The process is often referred to as localization. These strategies are
employed more to get rid of the guilt and are not as substitutes to the
serious efforts required to understand the product needs of the new
cultures.

Subsequent aggressive marketing of these products ensured that the

cultural resistance is at least temporarily neutralized. However, it is

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 not a good long-term strategy, nor is it likely to work when they tap
the markets outside the urban areas. As I hope to argue later, global
companies will have to create new product responses that meet the
functional and cultural aspirations of the locals, often in partnership
with the local designers.

6. Transforming global technologies and products for mass

market
The real design challenge would come from this opportunity. Faced
with fierce competition and low potentials of growth in their own coun-
tries, most of the global companies have started realizing that their
future growth in the developing world will come from addressing the
urban and rural middle classes. Encouraged by Prahalad’s ‘Fortune at
the bottom of the pyramid: Eradicating poverty through profits’ global
companies saw commercial opportunities in developing radically dif-
ferent ideas and technologies for this market segment. (Prahalad C.
K. 2005). They are aware of the fact that it is a price sensitive market.
To address this untapped market, integrated innovation is required
in design, technology development and managerial strategy. However,
these companies do not know how culture sensitive this market is and
dont have the slightest idea of how to go about addressing cultural
issues. This is where the design opportunities lie.

To make sure that the benefits of technology are accessible to masses

and rural folks, one may have to re-look the technologies to make
them available in an affordable form, either as a product or a service.
Precedence for such efforts are available in development works like C
DOT’s RAX telephone exchanges in 1980s as well as in current products
like electronic voting machine, Simputer and other affordable comput-
ing solutions. These are not just technology development opportuni-
ties, but also opportunities to develop new spin-off products that are
specific to the cultures and skills.

Design schools could join hands with technology developers to develop

products based on new technologies that this segment can afford. They
could ensure that these products meet the needs and capabilities of
local cultures. Else, design schools can also team up with management

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 institutions to conceive systems that make benefits of new technology
applications accessible to the masses as a service, thus making them
affordable. Ideas like STD Booths and Internet kiosks for villages have
shown that unaffordable technology solutions can be offered as an
affordable service than a self-owned product, thus generating a range
of new product spin-offs.

In this sector, the new product opportunities will come as a spin-off of

new technologies or business models. This can only happen by work-
ing in close partnership with engineering and management. There is a
need to bring these partners into design activity.

7. Globalizing local craft products

Another initiative is to use craft skills and materials, but the products
are developed specifically for urban and global market, thus making a
huge new market available to the craftsmen. Designers would have a
major role because of their exposure to global market and their under-
standing of changing global needs and trends. Besides, designers will
be able to update the craft techniques to bring in some of the values of
industrial products. Craft sector is a very large employment genera-
tor and will benefit enormously by design intervention and low cost
technology infusion. Their design needs are also part of the agenda in
India that the design practice and education cannot miss.

Employment problems are not going to vanish in the near future and
are as relevant to the development of the country as globalization is.
Focus on global product through crafts will prompt the trickledown
effect of globalization and show direct benefits to the craftsmen. It is
important that such an activity is recognized as a legitimate ‘Industrial
Design’ activity. Design schools, and to a limited extent design prac-
tice, did address some of these questions from their inception. They
have successfully networked with NGOs to develop grass-root level
contacts. None of this work is irrelevant in the globalization era. In
fact, it needs to be repositioned to meet the modern marketing chal-
lenges. Obviously, this area also needs new managerial innovations to

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 organise production in such an informal sector. To achieve this, the
partnership with management schools and NGOs is inevitable.

Part III
Implications of Globalization on Design Education
To sum up the discussion so far, four decades ago, when Industrial
design education started in India, the design schools took inspirations
from the Bauhaus and Ulm school models and thus were somewhat
international in content and structure. Since then, design education
had been trying to find its roots within the country and its culture.
Responding to the evolving political thinking and local issues, the
schools gradually moved to become more India-centric. Design prac-
tice and education have been catering to the urban markets; to a lim-
ited extent it has helped the rural market by supporting voluntary
efforts of the NGOs in craft/product development and supporting
export by participating in the corporate efforts to export products.
In the first two decades, consistent with the then prevailing political
thinking, the design schools continued to evolve by focusing on the
first four design opportunities.

Since inception, the design schools have tried to be autonomous. They

have tended to interact with other disciplines on their own terms. This
did make sense in the nascent stage of the profession as it ensured its
identity and also gave the visibility to the new discipline. Unfortunately
design schools have been continuing this isolation.

The current discussion on globalization suggests diverse design chal-

lenges and a very different agenda for design practice and education.
What would be the ideal way of meeting these challenges? Can design
education come up with programmes that creates designers, to take
on the new challenges? Should not the design schools respond to the
new context and the pro-globalization political thinking? Can the new
approach integrate the communication and connectivity revolution in
its conceptualization?

Globalization has offered new opportunities that were earlier listed

under opportunities 5, 6 and 7. We may also have to re-look at the way

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 the opportunity 4 is being handled in the new context. Though all of
them deal with evolving a global product in someway, it is important
to recognize the difference in the challenges. They do share something
common, but they also have their unique and distinct characteristics.
Are design schools really prepared to handle the new agenda?

Agenda of the Design Schools in the Developing World

If we continue to believe in the profession’s commitment in respond-
ing to the users, their needs and aspirations as a foundation for design,
then this idea should be extended to designing of global products.
Conventional design process will never be able to handle such a com-
plex task. This effort should be an integrated approach with teams in
different countries working together.

Designers World over are beginning to realize that designing a global

product is an altogether different experience. Humans needs and user
interactions have always been a focus of design decisions. Suddenly
designers were confronted with a situation in which they were
required to offer design responses to the needs of people and cultures
that they have never seen, experienced or interacted. More often,
there would not be a single individual in the design team who would
know and understand the cultures in which the product was likely to
be marketed. How does one account for the differences in the require-
ments of the local cultures? Would a short visit to these cultures allow
the design teams the depth of understanding of the local needs for an
effective design response?

Simplest way to visualize the idea of such teams is where experts

from design, engineering, manufacturing, marketing and manage-
ment get-together internationally (and nationally) to form integrated
design teams that undertake design projects for global markets. What
is visualized is a graded membership; primary groups being mostly
from other design backgrounds in different cultures and secondary
groups involving experts from backgrounds like engineering, human
factors, manufacturing and marketing. Tertiary groups will include
experts from related fields like sociology, ethnography, anthropology,
psychology and of course managements. Understanding cultures and

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 their product needs, offering design responses, technologies and mar-
keting strategies will be the priorities of design team in that order. The
management teams will see these priorities changing and so would
engineering teams. To remain globally relevant, besides being multi-
disciplinary, the design team would have to be necessarily multi-cul-
tural. For global competitiveness, the teams will have to source talent,
technologies and materials from across the globe.

New Challenges: Working with Culturally and Geographically

diverse Teams
The new digital connectivity does offer great opportunities and new
challenges. To name a few, how would such a team work together, par-
ticularly when large number of them had no opportunity to either see
each other or predict each other’s responses? How would they under-
stand the cultural differences within the team or in the market seg-
ments? The real challenge would be more conceptual than practical.
The design challenges would be to tackle the complexities of contexts
in different countries and have the ability to recreate and present
their own team’s thinking to others working at distant locations, so
that they can participate effectively. (Athavankar, 2004). That brings
us to the new role that the design education must play.

Design education thus must prepare the students to work on simulated

real world design problems. The focus will be on teamwork, particu-
larly where several geographically distributed designers are working
together as a team; a situation design students will find difficult to
handle. Special strategies and efforts are necessary to get the students
familiar with this idea. There will be other problems that the teams
will have to face. First, decision taking needs to be streamed-lined so
as to avoid misunderstandings. It is never easy to get others to accept
decisions through emails. Besides, the process of wide consultations
between the teams may delay the design process.

It is fortunate that the globalization wave was also coupled with com-
munication revolution making networking relative easy and extremely
fast. It is possible to visualize the idea of the school as groups con-
nected on the net and share teaching as well as other facilities with

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 each other, not as a measure of economy, but as a conceptual tool to
understand other cultures. The focus would be on interactions and
assimilating influences.

I believe that the current structure of design schools in India have not
been able to respond to the network situation and in fact work as a
hindrance than a facilitator towards becoming a global design hub.
Nor have the schools outside attempted networking with schools in
the developing countries. Some design schools in the developed coun-
tries had their students spend a semester in other countries. But it is
only a small step that permits sensitivity to cultural issues. It does not
necessarily prepare the students to work on global projects later as
a professional. Design schools have yet to respond to this paradigm
shift.

Local Networking of Schools

There is a danger that the over-enthusiasm may shift the focus on
fmore financially lucrative global issues at the cost of local issues and
problems. Would the globally networked design programme conflict
with the India-centric developments that the schools consciously pur-
sued so far? Would they be able to handle the non-global agenda of
designing for local industry, craftsmen and working on local issues?
Or should the schools leave their pursuit of India-centric approach?

To imagine that all products will become global in due course will be
grossly incorrect. Even in the global village, substantial part of design
assignments will continue to be local in nature. Corporate work from
local industries and for local markets (opportunity 1) will continue to
be the mainstay of the assignments of the Indian designers in the near
future.

If we agree to the idea of developing a ‘Human face’ for globalization,

the real villages not only would remain on the agenda but also gener-
ate new challenges. It must receive priority and needs the ideological
underpinning of the seventies. So, schools must also educate students
to work with local village industries and craft technologies and cater
to local urban and rural needs. Besides, culture sensitive craft/

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 product development directed towards the local urban market would
remain on the agenda. These real village design projects will have sub-
stantial difference in the knowledge base, skill sets and technologies
used. Similarly, the design schools will need local partnerships with
engineering and management schools to learn to develop affordable
technology solutions to ensure that benefits of progress are accessible
to the masses. (Prahalad C. K. 2005) Like in the global assignment,
partnership and integrated approach will continue to be the two
inseparable pillars of such locally networked schools.

Though the design schools in India are already involved in this kind of
tightrope walking, it does not mean that the current structures of the
schools would remain valid in the new context. To ensure the much
needed integrated approach, it would be consistent to develop part-
nerships with design schools elsewhere.

Exercising Choice
The design schools in India have two alternatives in front of them. First,
they could flex their scope and structure to include the networked
school idea. The urban centered design schools, already shaped more
or less in the European tradition, could easily realign to submerge in
the globalization wave and develop networks; they should of course
not miss the point that they have to partner with anthropology, engi-
neering R & D and management, which would play an active role in
global products. The schools would have a dual face. They would use
the international networks when working on global projects. On local
issues, they would work with local partners in technology, manage-
ment and NGOs.

The current programmes in India expect students to offer services to

such diverse requirements. How does one train a student to design
for global village as well as real villages in India? Demands of both
are very different from each other. It has been a balancing act that is
becoming more and more difficult as the two, the global and the real
villages, depart further. It is difficult to envisage how a single educa-
tional model could support these extremes of demands.

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 I believe that the current structure of design schools in India does not
permit them to respond to this situation and in fact works as a hin-
drance than facilitator. Though this is consistent with the tightrope
walking that the Indian design schools are familiar with, none are
prepared for this degree of change. I believe that with such diverse
contexts and opportunities, the existing design schools are unlikely to
do justice to them.

Second alternative is to develop specializations in the schools, where

some schools would work only on global issues, others would concen-
trate in local urban and corporate projects, while still others will work
on affordable technology products and some with craftsmen. Each
will have the independence to develop partnerships with other disci-
plines based on the projects handled. Perhaps the extreme disparities
demand different kinds of schools with unique and distinct design
approaches and skill sets. The second alternative is easier to conceive
but difficult to implement, particularly for the existing schools.

We have already lost a substantial time. If we are to provide globalization

with a human face, then design schools will have to make the choice
quickly!

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 References
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Athavankar U A, (1997b), Objects and Cultural Notions, in Proceeding

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Athavankar U A, (2002), Design in Search of Roots, An Indian Experi-

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in the developing world