06-02-2004, 10:10 PM
India's headache: How to stem brain drain
By Pranay Gupte
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/commentar...,254102,00.html
NEW DELHI - Shortly after he assumed office as India's new Minister for Human Resources Development, Mr Arjun Singh of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance summoned leading educators from around the country for an emergency meeting.
He had a problem on his hands: His predecessor, Mr Murli Manohar Joshi of the National Democratic Alliance - <b>a man noted for his rabid Hindu-centric views </b> [Can they write anything without bringing some hindu angle?]- had slashed by 80 per cent the annual US$1,500 (S$2,564) tuition and room-and-board fee that each student pays at the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).
Moreover, Mr Joshi wanted to change the curricula of these institutions to reflect India's Hindu heritage, as well as dilute their strenuous entrance requirements so more students from 'backward' communities could gain entry.
His actions had stirred a huge controversy, not least because the IITs and IIMs have nourished not only Indian industry, manufacturing and business but also technological communities overseas - such as Silicon Valley in the United States. In fact, Indians in Silicon Valley are estimated to have a net worth of more than US$50 billion.
Mr Singh needed to calm the waters. His solution was to leave it up to the administrators of the seven IITs and six IIMs whether to reduce fees.
Institutes like IIM Kozhikode had already implemented Mr Joshi's 80 per cent fee cut order. On Monday, the government asked the IIMs to come out with a common fee structure.
The question of fee reduction, while aimed at winning applause from the masses, is actually an irrelevance. The IITs accept only 2,000 of the 200,000 applicants they receive each year; the IIMs accept a similar number. Banks and financial institutions line up to offer successful applicants cheap loans because they know that every IIT and IIM Graduate is guaranteed a job that often fetches a starting salary of US$20,000 a year - extraordinarily high by Indian standards.
Higher technical education has been an article of faith in India, ever since a 22-member official committee headed by Mr N.R. Sarkar submitted a report on the subject in 1946.
The Sarkar Committee recommended the creation of four higher technical institutions of international standard, one each in the north, south, east and west, modelled possibly on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In May 1950, the first in the series was established in Kharagpur at the site of the Hijli Detention Camp, where the British had incarcerated political prisoners, and named the 'Indian Institute of Technology'.
Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, was determined that science and technology should play a prominent role in modernising India. He envisioned that the IIT system would, over time, 'provide scientists and technologists of the highest calibre who would engage in research, design and development to help build the nation'.
(Each Indian Five-Year Plan has typically allocated more money to higher technical education than to primary or secondary education, which may explain why the country's literacy rate is still below 50 per cent.)
In addition to the IITs and IIMs, the Nehruvian vision of a technologically competent society has resulted in a network today of more than 1,000 engineering colleges, another 1,000 colleges offering master's degrees in computer applications, 291 universities and 12,000 undergraduate colleges. Together, they turn out two million Graduates each year, 125,000 of them in engineering.
But apart from the elite IIT and IIM Graduates, there are not enough jobs for all Graduates. This has resulted in an exodus of highly skilled Indians to foreign countries.
In the United States alone, there are more than 30,000 IIT Graduates, and their per capita income has been put at US$2 million. The combined net worth of IIT Graduates in the US alone is estimated at US$35 billion. Several studies suggest that Indian professionals abroad have a cumulative net worth of US$200 billion. Each year, they remit around US$20 billion back home.
According to the New York-based International Council on Education, 50 per cent of Graduates of the IITs and IIMs, the top 20 per cent of medical school Graduates, and the top 15 per cent of Graduates of humanities colleges leave India each year. Some 75 per cent of computer professionals also emigrate to the West each year.
This means that India itself is facing a shortage of high-level professionals. The National Association of Software and Service Companies says that each year India needs 140,000 expert workers in technology, but only 100,000 are available because 45,000 go abroad.
According to a United Nations Development Programme study, the net loss to India each year through such emigration is US$2 billion.
Emigration is a price that free societies must pay, especially with globalisation. Mr Arjun Singh indeed has a problem on his hands, notwithstanding his resolution of the more immediate fee situation: How do you persuade skilled Graduates to stay behind and help out in enlarging the Indian economy?
What does one offer them? Better pay? More perks? More health-care and leisure benefits?
India's quest to become an economic superpower may well be defined by how - and how quickly - it comes up with answers to such questions.
By Pranay Gupte
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/commentar...,254102,00.html
NEW DELHI - Shortly after he assumed office as India's new Minister for Human Resources Development, Mr Arjun Singh of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance summoned leading educators from around the country for an emergency meeting.
He had a problem on his hands: His predecessor, Mr Murli Manohar Joshi of the National Democratic Alliance - <b>a man noted for his rabid Hindu-centric views </b> [Can they write anything without bringing some hindu angle?]- had slashed by 80 per cent the annual US$1,500 (S$2,564) tuition and room-and-board fee that each student pays at the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).
Moreover, Mr Joshi wanted to change the curricula of these institutions to reflect India's Hindu heritage, as well as dilute their strenuous entrance requirements so more students from 'backward' communities could gain entry.
His actions had stirred a huge controversy, not least because the IITs and IIMs have nourished not only Indian industry, manufacturing and business but also technological communities overseas - such as Silicon Valley in the United States. In fact, Indians in Silicon Valley are estimated to have a net worth of more than US$50 billion.
Mr Singh needed to calm the waters. His solution was to leave it up to the administrators of the seven IITs and six IIMs whether to reduce fees.
Institutes like IIM Kozhikode had already implemented Mr Joshi's 80 per cent fee cut order. On Monday, the government asked the IIMs to come out with a common fee structure.
The question of fee reduction, while aimed at winning applause from the masses, is actually an irrelevance. The IITs accept only 2,000 of the 200,000 applicants they receive each year; the IIMs accept a similar number. Banks and financial institutions line up to offer successful applicants cheap loans because they know that every IIT and IIM Graduate is guaranteed a job that often fetches a starting salary of US$20,000 a year - extraordinarily high by Indian standards.
Higher technical education has been an article of faith in India, ever since a 22-member official committee headed by Mr N.R. Sarkar submitted a report on the subject in 1946.
The Sarkar Committee recommended the creation of four higher technical institutions of international standard, one each in the north, south, east and west, modelled possibly on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In May 1950, the first in the series was established in Kharagpur at the site of the Hijli Detention Camp, where the British had incarcerated political prisoners, and named the 'Indian Institute of Technology'.
Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, was determined that science and technology should play a prominent role in modernising India. He envisioned that the IIT system would, over time, 'provide scientists and technologists of the highest calibre who would engage in research, design and development to help build the nation'.
(Each Indian Five-Year Plan has typically allocated more money to higher technical education than to primary or secondary education, which may explain why the country's literacy rate is still below 50 per cent.)
In addition to the IITs and IIMs, the Nehruvian vision of a technologically competent society has resulted in a network today of more than 1,000 engineering colleges, another 1,000 colleges offering master's degrees in computer applications, 291 universities and 12,000 undergraduate colleges. Together, they turn out two million Graduates each year, 125,000 of them in engineering.
But apart from the elite IIT and IIM Graduates, there are not enough jobs for all Graduates. This has resulted in an exodus of highly skilled Indians to foreign countries.
In the United States alone, there are more than 30,000 IIT Graduates, and their per capita income has been put at US$2 million. The combined net worth of IIT Graduates in the US alone is estimated at US$35 billion. Several studies suggest that Indian professionals abroad have a cumulative net worth of US$200 billion. Each year, they remit around US$20 billion back home.
According to the New York-based International Council on Education, 50 per cent of Graduates of the IITs and IIMs, the top 20 per cent of medical school Graduates, and the top 15 per cent of Graduates of humanities colleges leave India each year. Some 75 per cent of computer professionals also emigrate to the West each year.
This means that India itself is facing a shortage of high-level professionals. The National Association of Software and Service Companies says that each year India needs 140,000 expert workers in technology, but only 100,000 are available because 45,000 go abroad.
According to a United Nations Development Programme study, the net loss to India each year through such emigration is US$2 billion.
Emigration is a price that free societies must pay, especially with globalisation. Mr Arjun Singh indeed has a problem on his hands, notwithstanding his resolution of the more immediate fee situation: How do you persuade skilled Graduates to stay behind and help out in enlarging the Indian economy?
What does one offer them? Better pay? More perks? More health-care and leisure benefits?
India's quest to become an economic superpower may well be defined by how - and how quickly - it comes up with answers to such questions.