Engineers in U.S. vs. India

[Jim Dixon]

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-407043,curpg-3.cms

"Today, Bangalore stands ahead of Bay Area, San Francisco and California,
with a lead of 20,000 techies, while employing a total number of 1.5 lakh
engineers."

ek lakh = 100,000

I am sure that there are a lot of good engineers in India.

However, the educational system has to be seen to be fully appreciated.

When my wife and I last travelled in north India, admittedly quite some
time ago, what began as a riot at the University of Lucknow -- students
protesting over invigilation of exams, I believe -- escalated into a
conflict that eventually involved the armed police on the one hand and the
military on the other.  The university campus was destroyed, burned down.

I spent several months in Calcutta over a couple of years.  During at
least one visit there were riots at the university; the papers reported
bodies hanging from trees.  Many had been shot.  Same story: students
protested because they were stopped from openly exchanging papers,
consulting books, or just chatting with friends during examinations.
Many were also angry because invigilators were actually checking the
identities of those writing the exam papers.

The going rate for a degree at the time was several hundred dollars.
Knowledge of the subject was not much relevant.

Such education as occurred largely involved rote learning, often based
on texts many years out of date.

> Moreover, it is found out that the Americans are shying away from the
> challenges of math and science. A recent National Science Foundation Study
> reveals a 5 per cent decline in the overall doctoral candidates in the US
> over the last five years.

No telling what this actually means, given that a large percentage of
doctoral candidates are foreign.  It is becoming much harder for foreign
students to get into the US, so many are going to universities in Europe.
This change has occurred in the last five years -- more precisely, since
9/11.

> The India side story: India produces 3.1 million college graduates a year,
> which is expected to be doubled by 2010. The number of engineering colleges
> is slated to grow 50 per cent, to nearly 1,600, over the next four years.

My impression is that India has a few excellent institutions and a vast
number of unbelievably bad schools.  It seems likely that the flow of
money into Bangalore and a few other centers will gradually improve this
situation, but it is likely to take decades, and per-capita convergence
with the US and Europe seems unlikely within the century.

While 1.5 lakh (150,000) engineers may sound like a lot, you have to bear
in mind that there are about 100 crore (1 billion) people in India.

--
Jim Dixon  jdd at dixons.org   tel +44 117 982 0786  mobile +44 797 373 7881
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