Editor,
The recent report on Pasighat’s Arunachal Pradesh University’s (APU) enthusiastic participation in an international seminar, complete with talk of academic ‘matchmaking’, with European universities is certainly… illuminating.
One can only admire the ambition. After all, it takes a certain level of confidence to scout for global academic partnerships while simultaneously demonstrating such remarkable indifference to globally trained talent at home.
In its recent faculty recruitment exercise, the APU reportedly turned away APST candidates with not just PhDs, but even postdoctoral experience from some of Europe’s finest universities. Evidently, exposure to rigorous international research environments is not quite the kind of ‘global’ the APU has in mind.
This raises an obvious question: what exactly is the university hoping to achieve through this new-found enthusiasm for international matchmaking? If globally trained scholars from Arunachal Pradesh itself do not meet the institution’s standards, one wonders what kind of academic ‘match’ APU is really seeking.
Perhaps the issue is not a lack of global connection, but a selective appreciation of it.
Given recent patterns, it might be more appropriate for the APU to focus its matchmaking efforts closer to the sources it seems to value most – states like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Bihar – rather than embarking on symbolic international outreach. At least that would align more consistently with its demonstrated preferences.
For the youths of Arunachal, especially those who invest years in higher education abroad with the hope of returning home, the message is difficult to miss. Merit, it seems, is welcome, just not when it comes from one’s own backyard.
If the APU truly aspires to global standards, it might begin with a simpler exercise: recognising the value and merit of its own people before seeking validation elsewhere.
Until then, this ‘matchmaking’ risks looking less like academic vision and more like institutional irony.
An amused citizen