US, China leading India in education: Yale professor

The crisis in higher education in India goes so much deeper than generally acknowledged that it can only be tackled by adopting a really radical approach, argues a Yale professor in a research paper to be published shortly. The doctorate output

The crisis in higher education in India goes so much deeper than generally acknowledged that it can only be tackled by adopting a really radical approach, argues a Yale professor in a research paper to be published shortly.

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“There is a serious lack of talent to pursue research and teaching — the bedrock of higher education — and money to fund high quality education,” says Shyam Sunder, a professor of economics, finance and accounting at Yale University.

In a paper titled “Higher Education Reforms in India”, accessed exclusively by HT, Sunder argues that India’s economic growth could be imperiled by this crisis. In the paper Sunder says while India’s government spending on education as a proportion of the GDP is comparable to the US, much of it is wasted because of misplaced priorities and interest group pressures.

“The low quality PhD output of Indian varsities is only about 55 per cent of China’s, and 40 per cent of US’s,” he said. He cites figures that show that most doctorates in India were awarded in arts and not in science subjects as in US and China.

And this decline, he argues, will imperil India’s economic growth if the country doesn’t invest heavily into education and research soon.