Outcry for reforms in Indian Education system

As and when I discuss about the education sector in the country I am heaped over by examples of CEOs and managers of top-notch global companies who are of Indian origin or even actually Indian. Yes, that is, of course, a matter of pride to see marvels of Indian diaspora but that never satisfies me because when I look at their profile I find that most of them have completed their higher education at some foreign institutes or have been working for some MNC for a long time. And hence I do not agree to consider it a success of the Indian education system which is not able to control the brain drain due to its ailing state. There are some points which I want to highlight through my article.

• Incresing public spending on education

Yes I know that's pretty simple and everybody can think of it but here I am gonna put it a bit differently. Focusing more to build a robust education system at par with global standards is a must. Government is trying hard to push in manufacturing reforms and compete with China. That is good, but China had a well guided educational framework since the beginning of its economic modernization plan in 1978. It created robust infrastructure in skilled workers to cater the demands of industries that came and set up there. As a result of which it's present education budget stands at a staggering USD 600 billion compared to a minimal of USD 16 billion dollars of India. It also boasts to be the most preferred destination for international students second only to the US.

• Skilling up our youth

Better late than never. Government of India realised its importance when it launched its flagship Skilling India program. Present scenario of skill development among youth is in a pathetic state. Country's own agency of industries, CII, reported some 10 years back that out of 100 students coming out of our institutions barely 15 are employable and out of remaining 85 left only thirty are  trainable. Rest are not even trainable. That's the quality of education that we are imparting in our students. Are we dreaming that some aliens are going to work in the industries that we are going to set up. It's not. We think that we have a good number of students graduating from other colleges but have you ever focused on the skills that the companies are looking for. Probably not. They have been quite a few successful startups by youngsters like PayTM, Byju's, Ola etc. This is a result of thinking, strategizing and utilising the resources. There can be many  such replicants but only when we teach our students to think rather than focusing on rote learning.

• Easing Foreign Direct Investments and making it profitable: 

With a multiplicity of bottlenecks around land acquisition, labour, capital and so on bogging down this sector, its potential remains under-utilised. The matter of the fact is that the development of human capital requires monetary capital. Going by the records, public spending on education in India has remained stagnant at around 3%. Yes it is indeed difficult for the country battling with poverty to put in so much in education but then we can ease Foreign Direct Investment route for increasing the spending on education. Yes, easing because 100% FDI in education under automatic route is already allowed! To my utter surprise, it could gain only USD 2.47 billion from April 2000 to March 2019 in a market estimated at around 100 billion dollars. Foreign investors are not interested in spite of this massive scale of India's education sector. There are various norms by the government that hinder the growth of education sector as an industry. Why are we not allowing rather inviting top foreign universities to open branch campuses in India? It will compel foreign students to study in India and will improve the research and development happening in the country. Out of total 45000 patents received in 2016-17 only 400 were from 23 IITs. It was surely shocking to read this! Our country saw spending of less than 1% of GDP on research. Allowing Indian firms to raise research capital from foreign entities is required. In this regard, allowing firms to use CSR amount on R&D is a welcome move. 

This approach above can be very effective if executed well but this is not the end and not enough too. Bridging gender gap, education for all and greater enrollment for higher education are still distant dreams for the country. While National Education Policy 2019 is a great step in modernizing Indian education it will not yield the desired results until structural reforms are carried out simultaneously. India educated CEOs leading some of the largest innovation let companies including Google, Microsoft, IBM, Adobe is a huge testimonial to our human capital. We will be more proud if idea of the company will also be Indian. This is our forte and a concerted focus can help India become the global factory of talent.