How India can overtake China in the battle for higher education and economi

[ChinaToday]

There is a battle taking place between India and China — not for today's economic growth, but for economic growth a decade from now. The field of battle is higher education, and India is losing. Big time.

World Bank statistics show that higher education enrollment is a leading indicator of economic growth. When a country substantially increases the number of university students it educates, that country tends to enjoy a spike in economic growth in the decade that follows. It happened with Japan and Korea in the early and late 1980s respectively.

China will soon reap the rewards of its annual $250-billion investments in higher education. Since the turn of the millennium, China has doubled the number of institutes of higher education and increased enrollment five-fold. It has been the greatest expansion in university education in the history of mankind.

As a result, 26% of China's university-age population is enrolled in an institution of higher education, versus 18% in India. It was not always so. In 1990 and 2000, India bested China in university enrollment rates. Until China decided to make higher education a policy priority.

A New Medium

Do not let India's outliers — the IITs and IIMs — fool you. The key battlefield is in higher education for the masses. And on this China wins hands down, on both quality and quantity. Sure, India's IITs and IIMs offer top-notch education. But they reach a scandalously small proportion of Indian students.

The annual intake of the IITs currently amounts to about 10,000 students, a fraction of India's 12-crore-strong university-age population.

So what is India doing to catch up? Not much. The University Grants Commission's 12th Five Year Plan (covering 2012-2017) is short on ambition and long on vague laments ("considerable challenges remain" it says). While China has ambitious plans that it executes, India has un-ambitious plans that it fails to execute.

In 1995 the Indian government introduced in parliament a bill to allow foreign universities to operate in the country. The Foreign Education Providers Bill, a successor to the 1995 bill, is still languishing in parliament nearly two decades later.

With India incapable of rapidly building higher-education infrastructure, and stubbornly refusing to let foreign universities in to help, the situation would be hopeless but for one fact: technology is coming to India's rescue. American universities, led by Harvard and MIT, have decided to put their courses online for free.

Any Indian with access to a computer and an internet connection (whether in his home or in the next village) can take a class taught by a Nobel laureate in Boston. Or Princeton. Or Berkeley. Some 200 American universities are interested in joining the Harvard/MIT not-for-profit venture.

Education, a Click Away

The implications of free online content for Indian higher education — and for India's future economic growth — cannot be overstated. This revolution knocks down in a single blow the historical barriers to Indian higher education: uneven quality, overall lack of supply, and the high cost of sending a child overseas for study.

How India can overtake China in the battle for higher education and economic growth - The Economic Times

 

[KRAIT]

Our biggest concern is primary education. Illiteracy causes society which can be easily manipulated. And in country like India where there is so much diversity and social evils, its a biggest challenge.

People should always take these factors into account while making comparison.

Of course China is ahead, they have more money than us. As simple as that. Its just feedback mechanism.

 

[JanjaWeed]

Higher Education in India is more of a business than an opportunity to enhance your capabilities. There are too many Higher Education institutions.. but the quality of education sucks in most of them.

 

[eddieInUK]

Higher Education in India is more of a business than an opportunity to enhance your capabilities. There are too many Higher Education institutions.. but the quality of education sucks in most of them.

There are many ? How many undergraduates are in India each level ? Any reliable data ?

 

[IFB]

Ditto higher education book authored by stupid indian authors suck balls - its better to get books for the subject from companies like mcgraw hill - they are 1000 times better than the stupid books we get in india - not all the books are bad but 99% of them confuse students rather than explaining things clearly which in turn scares the student .

 

[Ayush]

true, the quality of education in india is bad though we have many institutes.

 

[Ayush]

Most Indians aren't even literate

it is 74% mate.
don't make false assumptions just to satisfy yourself.

Literacy Rate in India, Census 2011

 

[karan21]

By removing constraints to development. Development will only happen when there is no one to stop it

How about we go on a killing spree. Lets start with this woman first: Medha Patkar the day she was born she swore that she will never let any dam being built in India and no slums will be replaced with modern looking high cities. She is highly successfull in her activities.

I swear if she meets me I will kill her. ***** is using democracy wayy too much.

 

[abhishekgoel80]

Lets put some facts here. We have enough of higher education institutes for now. I mean enough(not as per the percaptica comparision) on the basis of the number of persons completing secondary education and persuing higher studies.

Challenges
1) We need to make this education cheaper and affordable.
2) Quality

Where we lack currently in
1)Medical education and ( percapita number of doctors are less than western countries. In abosolute number we are in top ranks)
2)quality in most technical education. In lot of the university the previous few years question paper is repeated, and marks are sometimes given on the lenth of answers rather than content.

Largest technical university of Asia is in UP >=637 colledges. Recently my home town univeristy (Meerut University) has been divided into 3.

I am hopeful if AAP comes to the power and able to implement the model of making the elected members and bureaucrats and answerable to public. Our expenditure will come down by several orders and development will be faster. otherwise it depends how much pressure the ordinary citizens are able to put on their leaders. The change is set to come but will take longer.

 

[GR!FF!N]

as usual,some fat headed(Indian Specialist) chinese guy come and post some retarded video,and whole thread is derailed.
@eddieInUK

DrEducation: International Higher Education Blog by Rahul Choudaha, PhD: Latest Statistics on Indian Higher Education

some info that might help you..but you can search about higher education in google,a lots of site will provide you that kind of info.

 

[śūnya_0_Zero]

It is hardly strange that who is the OP of this thread: ChinaToday.

He's on a full time job to scan Times of India and Economic Times daily ... and more english language online newspapers in India.

Please let us know .... is it just your obsession about India, or you just do it for the money. (I mean those lowly 25 cents ..huh).

 

[Wombat]

you want it, you got it , it really crack me up, how dare Indians insult their formal colonial master and put their grand grand children in shame.

[

OMG !!!

@ Indian's here you go to cheer you up !!!


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India: The next university superpower?
By Yojana Sharma Asia Editor, University World News

India has ambitious plans to increase graduate numbers in a way which would give it the size and status of an education superpower.

The figures are staggering. India's government speaks of increasing the proportion of young people going to university from 12% at present to 30% by 2025 - approaching the levels of many Western countries.

It wants to expand its university system to meet the aspirations of a growing middle class, to widen access, and become a "knowledge powerhouse".

It will mean increasing the country's student population from 12 million to over 30 million, and will put it on course to becoming one of the world's largest education systems.

"We will very likely be number two if not number one in terms of numbers," says Pawan Agarwal, a former civil servant and author of Indian Higher Education: Envisioning the Future.

With US enrolment stagnating and the UK cutting back on university places, "Indian graduates will become more visible globally, particularly in technical and engineering fields", Mr Agarwal predicts.
'Great leap forward'

KN Panikkar, vice chairman of the Kerala State Higher Education Council, describes India's higher education spending as undergoing a "great leap forward".

The amount of money in the central budget for higher education in the current five year plan (2010-2015) is nine times the amount of the previous five years.

But there is a steep hill to climb. India's National Knowledge Commission estimated the country needs 1,500 universities compared to around 370 now.

Hundreds of new institutions are being set up, including large new public universities in each state. The number of prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Management (IIMs) are being expanded from seven to 15.

India's private university sector is also growing rapidly, particularly in professional education in information technology, engineering, medicine and management where there is huge demand from the burgeoning middle classes.

But that will not be enough. To bridge the gap the government last year tabled legislation to invite foreign universities to set up branch campuses. The Foreign Providers Bill is currently making its way through parliament.
'Fever pitch'

Last year there were reports of up to 50 foreign universities being interested in setting up in India. The hype reached fever pitch in November during the visit of US President Barack Obama and a large group of US university presidents.

UK Higher Education minister David Willetts and the largest-ever Canadian delegation were also in the country, enthusiastically talking of university partnerships.

Some foreign universities are already in place. The UK's Leeds Metropolitan University provides management degrees on a 36-acre campus in Bhopal in central India.

Lancaster University runs courses at the GD Goenka World Institute - a 69-acre site near Delhi. Both institutions opened in 2009 as joint ventures with Indian non-profit partners under existing laws.

Some bring faculty and staff from their home institutions, but even the most prestigious public institutions, including the IITs, are struggling to fill top faculty positions and teacher student ratios are deteriorating.

Foreign institutions able to lure staff with higher salaries will make the situation worse, detractors of the Foreign Providers Bill point out.

Mr Panikkar says foreign and private institutions are not the answer. "If only 1% of the population can afford the fees, then it will be very serious for the country in terms of equity."
Fair access

Access is an important issue for the government which came to power because the benefits of India's rapid economic growth were seen to have bypassed the country's poor.

While more than 95% of children now attend primary school, just 40% attend secondary school, according to the World Bank. That in itself will limit growth in university enrolment.

The World Bank has said India's economic success cannot be sustained without major investment in education, including higher education, with public spending on the sector still lagging behind countries like China and Brazil.

But the gold-rush mentality has dissipated. The Foreign Providers Bill is stuck in a parliament that has done little business since a telecommunications corruption scandal erupted last year.

"There has been some toning down of expectations of foreign universities," said Rahul Choudaha, associate director, World Education Services in New York and a close observer of the sector.

"The public university system in many countries is in crisis, facing serious budget cuts. They are not ready to invest money in partnerships."

Some "gold diggers" were dissuaded as the government made it clear for-profit companies would not be allowed to exploit India's thirst for higher education.

Unlike Singapore and China, the Indian government does not want to appear to favour foreign institutions by providing public money or large land grants.

Duke University, based in North Carolina in the US, has been interested in India for some time.

"We want to develop Duke as a globally-networked university. The best researchers are those connected globally," says Gregory Jones, Duke's vice president and vice provost for global strategy.
'Eastward shift'

But its Shanghai campus will be in operation first. "They [Shanghai] were willing to donate and build the first phase at their expense so it was a financially-viable proposition for us," said Mr Jones.

"It is not yet clear how we will develop our presence in India. It is a complicated reform bill."

An eastward shift in the geography of science and technology is a major draw as international companies set up research and development sites in India and China.

"We are tapping into the research potential of these Asian countries," says Professor Pradeep Khosla, dean of Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering.

The prestigious US institution has teamed up with India's Shiv Nadar Foundation to open an engineering college in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

But these joint ventures are not fully-fledged overseas campuses. "Only a handful of overseas universities are thinking about that seriously," said Mr Agarwal. "But even if they go ahead it will not be enough. They will only increase capacity for hundreds of Indian students, not millions."

That means huge public spending on colleges outside the cities, says Mr Panikkar who has written extensively on social justice in higher education. He believes the enrolment targets are too ambitious given limited public resources and bottlenecks in staffing and infrastructure.

"What is achievable is adding perhaps 10 million students to existing capacity in the next five to seven years," he says.

That would still be a major achievement, but some way from making India an education superpower.

 

[Jade]

Just because economic times is self critical about Indian education system and Chinese media state controlled doesn't mean China is far ahead of India in this field. India sucks, but so does China. I had an opportunity to go one of the 'top university' in China recently for a conference. Their class rooms/infrastructure are marginally better than India's, students not any better than Indian's, and faculty as bad as India's

If India has to look up and emulate, it has to be western education system. See the number of Nobel prizes Western University have produced. A mediocre university such as Manchester in UK has produced 10 Nobel prize winners. How many did Chinese produce?

 

[applesauce]

Just because economic times is self critical about Indian education system and Chinese media state controlled doesn't mean China is far ahead of India in this field. India sucks, but so does China. I had an opportunity to go one of the 'top university' in China recently for a conference. Their class rooms/infrastructure are marginally better than India's, students not any better than Indian's, and faculty as bad as India's

If India has to look up and emulate, it has to be western education system. See the number of Nobel prizes Western University have produced. A mediocre university such as Manchester in UK has produced 10 Nobel prize winners. How many did Chinese produce?

first of all, the best chinese universities are not yet as great as the best in the west, we and they themselves know and admit this, but they are working on it. however u say u went to a "top" university in china and you also state that its faculty is bad and rooms/infustructure is marginally better? in that case u clearly did not go to a top university. while dorms and living space may be cramped, the class rooms and infrastructures of the top universities themselves, like perking uni or tsinghua will compared with and many times are better than what you find in the west. and its not just about what the media says, in every number u can find in comparison of chinese and indian educational systems the chinese come out ahead, usually by a mile so even though china's high education is not yet at the lvls of western nations its far better than what india has. for a very simple comparison, go ahead and look up any ranking of top schools world wide check out how many of the top 200 is chinese and how many is indian, i suspect you'll find a ratio like 30:1

 

[timetravel]

most of the times the News is always like this,

how come India overtake China

India lagging behind China

India lost the race

India will overtake China

and most (90%) of the times it is not by Indians and all of the times it is the Chinese going out and using the news to bash India and trying to prove (or reassure to themselves as if) that how ahead they are ..

Seems like Indians are not even concerned by any race but it is the Chinese who keep inventing this imaginary race and then like to reassure themselves that oh no one can leave us behind... The Chinese seem to want to race with India 24*7 while the Indians are just not concerned... someone seems concerned !!