1) For starters, we Indians place too much importance on education
that is imparted on classrooms - so much so that any knowledge acquired
outside the classroom is considered no knowledge at all. The Smriti
Irani episode is a case in point - What if she was substantially
articulate and well informed than a mass of the educated elite - that
she didnot have a degree was considered fit enough to disqualify her
from her political footing.
2) The duration of the course is hardly a point of debate - its the quality and the sync with its ultimate objective that matters. Harvard/MIT Sloan teaches management - comprising a multitude of business disciplines - to mostly engineers (without a base in management education) in 2 years straight - and many of them evolve to be eminent professionals in their own right
3) The education system in India suffers from a trait which I call the "absence of encirclement" - it doesn't encircle the end objectives even to the smallest degree. So we end up having professors who have no links to the industry , courses which has no exposure to the industry.....and the divergence between what the industry requires and what is taught produces ridiculously unemployable graduates.
4) There are two factors which the government has to work on at priority if we aspire to be a sustainable economy. Short term growth is of little consequence - we may do that tweaking around with FDI flows and relaxed tax regimes - but they are more like the medications for temporary relief than the actual cure of the core problem. FDI flows and tax regimes are just making us more vulnerable to policy dependence - which sooner or later will come to haunt us.
4.1 ) Firstly, we have to gradually change our mindset and make a paradigm shift from being a service intensive economy to manufacturing intensive economy.Currently Services sector contributes to around 55 % of India GDP and Manufacturing sector contributes to around 15 % . Service sector , in India particularly, is the resultant of the classic economical "Law of Comparative advantage". In ordinary language,comparative advantage refers to the ability of a country to produce a particular good or service at a lower marginal and opportunity cost over another. We had the blessings of more than a couple of competitive advantages - which blended perfectly - to deliver the boom in the services sector. We were a low wage country - so we cost a fraction of getting something done vis a vis a developed country, we had a huge English speaking crowd, we had destinations which were pretty cheap etc etc. But comparative advantage has a problem - it can never be permanent. What India needed a thrust during that growth stage - was focus on moving up the value chain - for eg, moving up from low level maintenance projects to high end product development in IT, develop our workforce to be multi lingual, develop world class tourist destinations - which would have evolved this into SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE advantage. We didnot do that. Now China & Philippines is emphasizing hard on the english speaking crowd, Germany and Poland focusing on Tech expertise - and the developing Economy gradually removing our benefit of low cost of economy - hence the comparative advantage of service will slowly wane. The advantage of the manufacturing sector is exactly the opposite - its huge prospect on falling back on India's huge population rather than being dependent on extrinsic global factors. When MNC's are reaching out to the absolute bottom of the pyramid that lies in Rural India, imagine the market if we were to harness our marketing potential. So many people, all at different income levels, with varied needs, all prospective customers of some product or the other.Manufacturing has another advantage - 70% of India depends on Agriculture, and more than half of it is actually disguised unemployment i.e.You dont need so many people in the field, but they work there as they have no other skills. This kind of leads to a state of diminishing returns. The advantage that manufacturing sector brings is the employ-ability of the unskilled workers - unlike the services sectors which is is more tilted towards the educated class
4.2) Secondly, start teaching English from Primary level even in public school's - I say make it the medium of instruction. Let this be an objective to transform English into our competitive advantage...this will go even further to reduce the omnipresent class divide between the English and non English speaking masses. If everybody is on one page, the lack of self confidence of the under privileged masses will slowly disappear....and this alone will bring an equitable development (rather than doling out vote bank incentives).
2) The duration of the course is hardly a point of debate - its the quality and the sync with its ultimate objective that matters. Harvard/MIT Sloan teaches management - comprising a multitude of business disciplines - to mostly engineers (without a base in management education) in 2 years straight - and many of them evolve to be eminent professionals in their own right
3) The education system in India suffers from a trait which I call the "absence of encirclement" - it doesn't encircle the end objectives even to the smallest degree. So we end up having professors who have no links to the industry , courses which has no exposure to the industry.....and the divergence between what the industry requires and what is taught produces ridiculously unemployable graduates.
4) There are two factors which the government has to work on at priority if we aspire to be a sustainable economy. Short term growth is of little consequence - we may do that tweaking around with FDI flows and relaxed tax regimes - but they are more like the medications for temporary relief than the actual cure of the core problem. FDI flows and tax regimes are just making us more vulnerable to policy dependence - which sooner or later will come to haunt us.
4.1 ) Firstly, we have to gradually change our mindset and make a paradigm shift from being a service intensive economy to manufacturing intensive economy.Currently Services sector contributes to around 55 % of India GDP and Manufacturing sector contributes to around 15 % . Service sector , in India particularly, is the resultant of the classic economical "Law of Comparative advantage". In ordinary language,comparative advantage refers to the ability of a country to produce a particular good or service at a lower marginal and opportunity cost over another. We had the blessings of more than a couple of competitive advantages - which blended perfectly - to deliver the boom in the services sector. We were a low wage country - so we cost a fraction of getting something done vis a vis a developed country, we had a huge English speaking crowd, we had destinations which were pretty cheap etc etc. But comparative advantage has a problem - it can never be permanent. What India needed a thrust during that growth stage - was focus on moving up the value chain - for eg, moving up from low level maintenance projects to high end product development in IT, develop our workforce to be multi lingual, develop world class tourist destinations - which would have evolved this into SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE advantage. We didnot do that. Now China & Philippines is emphasizing hard on the english speaking crowd, Germany and Poland focusing on Tech expertise - and the developing Economy gradually removing our benefit of low cost of economy - hence the comparative advantage of service will slowly wane. The advantage of the manufacturing sector is exactly the opposite - its huge prospect on falling back on India's huge population rather than being dependent on extrinsic global factors. When MNC's are reaching out to the absolute bottom of the pyramid that lies in Rural India, imagine the market if we were to harness our marketing potential. So many people, all at different income levels, with varied needs, all prospective customers of some product or the other.Manufacturing has another advantage - 70% of India depends on Agriculture, and more than half of it is actually disguised unemployment i.e.You dont need so many people in the field, but they work there as they have no other skills. This kind of leads to a state of diminishing returns. The advantage that manufacturing sector brings is the employ-ability of the unskilled workers - unlike the services sectors which is is more tilted towards the educated class
4.2) Secondly, start teaching English from Primary level even in public school's - I say make it the medium of instruction. Let this be an objective to transform English into our competitive advantage...this will go even further to reduce the omnipresent class divide between the English and non English speaking masses. If everybody is on one page, the lack of self confidence of the under privileged masses will slowly disappear....and this alone will bring an equitable development (rather than doling out vote bank incentives).
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment