The Shorter Heights of Higher Education in India

India often projects itself as a great power and champions the cause of other developing countries across the world. However, ignoring higher education is equivalent to committing national suicide. Japan is a clear cut case, where in 1970s more students were completing university education than in the United States of America. This quality development of human resources was one of the chief strengths of Japan, which paved for its miraculous economic success.

India’s higher education system is the third largest in the world after the USA and China, then why is there is no reflection of it on the national development and growth? The problems are numerous. A major share of Indian investment on higher education is in the field of science and technology. The government spends around 500 crores on the six IITs on an annual basis. This forms 11.4% of the government expenditure on this sector. Almost 80% of undergraduate education in IITs is subsidised by the government. A B.Tech student pays two lakh rupees as tuition fee over four years while the expenditure on each student is almost eight lakh rupees. All of this goes from the taxpayers’ pocket. But does this serve India? The answer is a clear no. The colossal pay packages offered by foreign companies attract the best students like magnets. The brain drain to other countries can be best described by a single statistic – since 1953, nearly 25000 IIT engineers have settled in the USA. Apart from the USA the other primary suspects are Korea, Japan, Singapore, Canada, France and Germany.

This brain drain is just a modern version of the notorious wealth drain during the British rule in India. This needs to be stopped before India intellectually bleeds white. So the vital question is how can this be stopped? The answer does not lie in inculcating patriotism and nationalism motivating them to serve their country but lies in simple economics. Provide the Indians worth their brain’s value within India itself. This can be done by reducing the gigantic expenditure on import of arms which robs India of all of its precious foreign exchange reserve. India should become self sufficient in the defence sector. This will not only leave us with more money to invest in higher education, but also absorb our best brains and provide them with more tempting pay packages.

A similar kind of problem lies in the arena of social sciences. Social science as a discipline has always been given less importance in India. The only careers that matter are the ones in engineering or medicine. This apathy towards social sciences in the reason for the lack of a sophisticated understanding of the society, leading to continued menace of  caste, communalism, gender discrimination and other social evils which bogs down our society on a very tangible level. This is also one of the reason India produces poor bureaucrats and politicians who make faulty policies without a more holistic understanding of the society. For those who are already in the field the government needs to increase funding on research and infrastructure. The Junior Research Fellowship that the most meritorious scholars receive from the University Grants Commission in India is 16000 per month which is nowhere close to enough if the intention is to do some substantial and original research.

India needs to realize that knowledge is indeed power and needs to make a more thorough reassessment of higher education in India. This should be done free of petty and sectarian politics and with the sheer interest of the nation in mind.