An insight into the BRIC economies
Rafiq Dossani, an academic from Stanford University with long-standing research interest in education, provided an analysis of the education landscape in BRIC countries in comparison to developed countries.
Noting the points of divergence between the education strategies of developing and developed nations, he pointed out that across BRIC countries the focus uniformly has been on technical education keeping in mind rates of return on education, as opposed to a focus on liberal education in countries in advanced stages of development. Similarly, in the BRIC countries families bear an increasing share of the cost of education.
In what he called a regressive model, he highlighted that unlike the ‘massification’ strategy of developed countries, India has adopted an ‘elitist’ strategy where it poured in a disproportionate amount of funds into building a few high quality institutes. The widening gap between elite and mass universities further compounds the inequity, he argued. In what is definitely an astonishing statistic, he highlighted that in many cases graduates from Tier-II and Tier-III US technology universities working in Silicon Valley perform on par or even better than graduates from India’s top notch IITs. He attributed this to the lack of a rigorous broad-based curriculum that hones team skills and all round development even in what are touted as the best colleges in India. An engineering student takes 36 per cent humanities courses in the US, while in IITs in India it is only 9 per cent.
As a policy recommendation, Dr Dossani suggested that India should focus on massive expansion of PhD supply. This, he said, would be possible only though public money. “No amount of private money can do it,” he asserted.
Educate, Empower, Elevate
Prof. Bholanath Dutta
Founder, Convener & President
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