Education in India

Parent Cafe
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<p>I was mystified by a posters comment a few days ago, re why Microsoft and other companies were having to go abroad for workers.</p>

<p>The poster argued that it wasn’t that students in US didn’t have the math and science background that was needed, but was because US students recognized that engineering was a dead end field :confused:</p>

<p>I hardly think math and science are no longer going to be needed by workers in the global economy- but I was intrigued by the way that Indians have increased educational opportunities for their children without waiting for the gvt to do so.</p>

<p>[Although</a> teacher salaries tend to be two-thirds lower on average, Prof. James Tooley of the University of Newcastle found that even unrecognized schools in Hyderabad’s slums delivered mean scores in mathematics that were 22 percentage points higher than public schools. A national study led by the education NGO Pratham confirmed that even in villages 16 percent of the kids are now enrolled in private primary schools, and their reading and math scores were 10 points higher.](<a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11571960/site/newsweek/]Although”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11571960/site/newsweek/)</p>

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I saw that post but refrained from commenting at the time. It’s a fact that the US isn’t turning out enough engineering students to fill the void which is the main reason we see so many people from other countries in the business now and why Bill Gates has spoken so loudly on the subject. </p>

<p>The engineering field is very from dead. There’s a reason why starting salaries from engineering grads is among the highest of any major and much higher than most and why job placement is so strong.</p>

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<p>emeraldkitty:</p>

<p>In the US, there is far more money to be made and, in most cases, more promotion opportunity in finance, management consulting, and the like than in engineering. Engineers start out with good pay, but tend to max out earlier than those who complete business school. That’s not always the case, of course, but it is the case on average.</p>

<p>The issue with unrecognized schools in India is probably tied in some way to parental involvement. Just a guess, but parental involvement tends to produce better results for students.</p>

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<p>Yes, but many of the strongest engineering graduates get lured away from engineering by even higher consulting salaries (or the promise of such). If engineering companies increased their top offers to this level – like Google and Amazon already do – then the flood of engineers into non-engineering fields could be stemmed.</p>

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<p>^^ If they’re consuling about engineering then it’s still engineering or are you referring to entering a different field altogether?</p>

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<p>Pratham is my favorite charity. They are in forefront of delivering basic reading, writing and math skills to kids in slums.</p>

<p>Pratham started in the slums of Mumbai in 1994, as a result of the vision of a couple of committed individuals! The two, after much deliberation, decided to tackle the problem of education headlong. They could see only one way of correcting this problem and that was to involve the people of Mumbai to help the government in its quest of universalizing primary education. UNICEF parented the birth of Pratham and continued fostering it for the next three years. A Public Charitable Trust was accordingly formed by the Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai together with the association of several prominent citizens of the city.</p>

<p>mini might have seen one of the Pratham class room in action.</p>

<p>You may be surprised to see some of the paces the teaching takes place.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.pratham.org/camera/ourcamera.php[/url]”>http://www.pratham.org/camera/ourcamera.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.pratham.org%5B/url%5D”>www.pratham.org</a></p>

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<p>Why should I pay a U.S. engineer $80k, when I can pay one who is at least as qualified, likely better qualified, who had to fight harder for his education, and will be delighted and dedicated to my company, and will enjoy an equal and better standard of living, for $11lk? </p>

<p>The only reason Bill Gates wants more engineering grads is the same reason employers who have jobs which require no college-level skills required applicants to have college degrees - it lowers the price. They don’t HAVE TO go abroad; they want to. Why bring IIT graduates to Bellevue when you have them live very happily in Bangalore? </p>

<p>Twenty-five years ago, there was as many as 70,000 Boeing engineers in Washington State; now there are fewer than 5,000. They get 'em cheaper, better trained, and more dedicated in China.</p>

<p>Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on where you sit.</p>

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<p>Not all American companies are saving a ton of money by outsourcing – Adobe India pays salaries very close to American rates (and in dollars too). That said, the rest of your post is spot on from what I’ve seen.</p>

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<p>

There are many reasons and plenty of companies are paying the $80K so they must value those reasons. There are actually reasons to have engineers both locally and in less expensive areas. I think your $11K figure is low.</p>

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<p>I was in India last August. Going rate is $11k in Bangalore (higher in Mumbai and Delhi, but Microsoft is based in Bangalore). And you can barely imagine the lavish lifestyle that the $11k can buy.</p>

<p>“There are many reasons and plenty of companies are paying the $80K so they must value those reasons.”</p>

<p>They need engineering managers in the U.S. to make far-flung operations work, at least for now. Once they are able to eliminate the U.S. operations, won’t need 'em anymore. Many engineers will tell you quite bluntly how their responsibility was to train the folks abroad, only to be pink-slipped themselves. </p>

<p>But the reason to have more engineering grads is so you can pay 'em less. Law of supply and demand.</p>

<p>What the country really needs, and where there is a real shortage, is Wal-Mart clerks, for which we are the world leader.</p>

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<p>Mini:</p>

<p>So you believe that the primary positions open for engineers in the US are engineering management positions to manage the far-flung ops filled with cheap labor? As a software engineering manager, I disagree.</p>

<p>I agree with some of your anecdotal statements about some people being let go after training their replacements abroad. I’ve also seen a lot of other anecdotal eveidence of great employment opportunities for graduates and a lot of importing engineers into this country from abroad in order to fill some of the open positions here.</p>

<p>Anyway, this subject has been debated many times here so there’s probably not much point in repeating it.</p>

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<p>I don’t know if this directly relates to this topic, but it is definitely somewhat related.
I thought some people here might be interested in this video clip:
<a href=“ABC News Videos - ABC News”>http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1674437&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Mini, $11k in india is quite a lot but is by no means enough to guaruntee a “lavish” lifestyle. </p>

<p>And the reason behind how well Indians do in school is twofold- firstly, schoolwork is a lot lot more intense then in the American system (especially in quantative subjects). I go to a British school now (which itself is harder then the US system) but when I first joined coming from an Indian school I was light years ahead of my peers in Maths and Science. Secondly, the parental pressure to succeed in India is intense. In the US you will find a few dedicated people willing to study 4+ hours a day before major exams, in India the majority study that much throughout the year (and much much more before exams). In addition, socially, nerds in the US are ostracised and mocked, while in India they are pretty much placed on a podium.</p>

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<p>Oh I’d echo the intensity point. I was quite amused by reports of students being ‘drained’ after a 3 hour 45 minute SAT. Our exams (In Indian Systems) are 3 hours long and generally require 3 hours of flat out writing. (I’ve written 80 pages once for an exam). The SAT was nothing after that. </p>

<p>All students tend to follow a unified curriculum, (either the CBSE or the ICSE/ISC curricula) which is generally at AP level, in some subjects a bit tougher. The biggest difference is the lack of marks/points for homework and other ‘busy work’. Our school leaving examinations (in 12th Grade) are entirely on the basis of one terminal examination that is on an All-India level. Practicals account for about 20 percent of this if you are in the Sciences.</p>

<p>The most important difference would be in terms of actual study time and the emphasis placed on succeeding in these examinations. Students generally are given 1 month as ‘study leave’ to prepare for the Boards (12th Grade exams), and you’d be hard pressed to find a single student who didn’t spend a majority of that period preparing. </p>

<p>Grade Inflation’s also something that thankfully hasn’t visited our shores yet. In general, school examinations tend to be at least 20-30% tougher than our unified examinations, and even then, in some subjects (an example would be English), scoring above 90% is almost unheard of. (I was myself quite surprised to discover that a 100% average is in fact possible, yet alone probably for an exceptional student)</p>

<p>As regards Math and Science in particular, it’s a completely different ballgame. If you’re studying for the IIT’s (India’s top Engineering schools, which have some of the hardest entrance examinations in the world), you’re easily going to be studying College level courses, and in fact preparing for about 3 years in advance for the entrance examination. Even if you’re not preparing for the IIT’s, you will study Science at a pretty high level. </p>

<p>However, more than the syllabi, the primary difference I’ve noted has been the type of questions asked. Our school examinations have virtually no Multiple choice questions, and the AP style Free Response Question is the norm, not the exception. That’s one of the principal reasons that so many students moving from Indian to other curricula have an easy transition. We’ve been drilled in writing exceptional amounts for our exams, so that when we’re faced with a SAT II situation, it’s extremely easy for the good students.</p>

<p>Of course, there are problems, rote learning, and discouragement of lateral thinking being some of them (but that’s a story for another thread), but at least in the Math and Science areas, the type of education offered at the High School level would be one major reason why Engineering is much more popular in India than in the US. </p>

<p>Note: I’m referring to High School Education here, not tertiary education which is another ballgame entirely.</p>

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<p>Does anyone read Dilbert? It is not just coincidental that the pointy-haired boss has no technical knowledge, that the engineers are low-level employees restricted to cubicles and much of the work is outsourced to Ebonia. We have plenty of smart, hardworking and nerdy kids. It is best we encourage them to find careers outside of engineering or the sciences.</p>

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<p>If anyone wants a draining experience they should take the architecture exam. Design and draw a building in 12 hours.</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t laud the Indian education system all that much. In my opinion (and I’m comparatively qualified to say this. By ‘qualified’, I mean that I suffer through this system!), the Indian education system (at least, the centralised boards in the sciences, can’t speak for the rest) is designed specifically with the intent of creating excellently-educated technical drones. Our Physics exams, for example, seem geared almost solely towards the sort of kid who might do electrical engineering in college (and a lot of the material tested on those papers is seen in first-year or second-year EE undergrad), our Bio exams are basic med-school groundwork, and Chemistry’s heavily tilted towards the sort of things required for a tech-y education. </p>

<p>There isn’t a lot of the underlying idea taught, really, and what is present isn’t really emphasised; many, many kids will come out of school with no clue as to why something works, but an excellent grasp of how it does so, and with all the rest of it taken on faith. As an example: in one physics chapter, there’s a derivation for the frequency in an LC-oscillating circuit; I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that said derivation includes solving a complex second-order differential equation, not something your average twelfth-grader can do. Because of this, I’ve met kids who memorised the solutions to said differential equation, on the basis that it ‘works’ like that and therefore that’s what they have to do. No real grasp of the fundamentals, but a beautiful (if mechanical) ability to manipulate the required theorems and formulae in order to arrive at whatever it is they need. </p>

<p>Why is this system tough, why is it considered great training? Because it involves the memorisation of facts, facts, science and facts. After a while, all this is internalised, so that you have a student who can recite (with lovingly accurate detail) how a cyclotron is constructed and works, but can’t tell you why it does it. Great in the short term, but really, it’s not ‘helping’ anyone, and it sure as hell isn’t educating them very much either. </p>

<p>(And yes, there are wonderfully intelligent Indians. Plenty. But a lot of said wonderfully bright Indians are not, in fact, products of our secondary system, and the ones that are? Well, they’re bright and motivated. They’d do well almost anywhere. It’s completely fallacious to judge a system by its most successful products, and I don’t think anyone here understands that – they cite the geniuses and the billionaires as proof that the system works, without realising this: the system’s fatally flawed. Their minds work. We produce (a few) wonderful, creative, brilliant people, but that’s innate intelligence and nothing learned.)</p>

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<p>I have a tendency to agree with you Noldo, on that, but only just about. While our system might reduce the importance of individual thought, and certainly does stifle the creative mind, what it also does is prepare one for even the most intense sort of curricula. That is an advantage in my book.</p>

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<p>“Mini, $11k in india is quite a lot but is by no means enough to guaruntee a “lavish” lifestyle.”</p>

<p>If you want to come with me to Bangalore, I’ll take you on a tour. I guarantee you will be shocked. </p>

<p>The system IS fatally flawed, and those they have working in Bangalore, etc. had to fight their way to the top of the heap.</p>

<p>“I agree with some of your anecdotal statements about some people being let go after training their replacements abroad. I’ve also seen a lot of other anecdotal eveidence of great employment opportunities for graduates and a lot of importing engineers into this country from abroad in order to fill some of the open positions here.”</p>

<p>What I think we can ALL agree upon is that the country needs Wal-Mart clerks.</p>

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<p>I think we should be perhaps a little more comprehensive in our definition of lavish. For example, you cannot include the luxury of living in a city that is not choked with pollution in the definition of lavish. There are costs associated with being able to walk down the street without your eyes watering. </p>

<p>Overall, I don’t think anyone would suggest that overall quality of life is as high in Bangalore as it is in Seattle. Western Europe and the United States and Japan are “high-end” places to live with all the amenties that come with high-end living. Western Europe, the US, and Japan are priced accordingly.</p>