India's loss, West's gain

UNESCO Courier, Sept, 1998 by Ethirajan Anbarasan

For many in India, a diploma from the North represents a passport to financial and social success

It is a familiar sight to the residents of Madras and other big Indian cities. Oblivious of the scorching sun, scores of young people stand in long queues outside the United States consulate waiting for their turn to be interviewed. Many of them are students wishing to go to their dreamland for higher studies, if possible for a bright future too. While some of them manage to get visas, others fail to convince the consulate officials.

Three decades ago it was regarded as an exceptional achievement for an Indian to study abroad. Today, the phenomenon is much more widespread and hundreds of students leave India looking for higher qualifications and greener pastures in North America and in Europe. "Every year the US consulates in India give visas to nearly 1,500 students to pursue higher studies in American universities," says an official at the United States Embassy in New Delhi.

Though India has more than 260 universities, comprising nearly 8,200 colleges, it has often been claimed that the standard of higher education has not kept pace with change. "There is no point in doing research in India. The lack of up-to-date facilities and funding forces students to come to the United States," says Virul Acharya, a researcher at New York University. Academics point out that the educational system in India was set up during the British era and only minor changes have been made to it since then. Moreover, in the post-independence period, emphasis was laid on the humanities at the expense of other disciplines. Educational institutions, most of them state-aided, suffered heavily from federal budget cutbacks over the years, and according to Acharya there has been complete stagnation in higher research since the 1970s. "Most Indian colleges do not even have the Internet," he says.

Helped by their predecessors, Indian students carefully select which institution to apply to, for a place in a reputed college or university assures them of a lucrative job after their course. Many of them are recruited at campus interviews conducted by multinational companies. For those who decide to return home, a well-paid job could be hard to find, as few companies in India offer high salaries. "I came here to do my studies in computers and I got a job the day after the course was over," says Raj Lokaiyan, a computer-professional turned businessman living in New York. "I am sure in India I would have had to wait for months, maybe years, to find a suitable job."

A golden highway to Silicon Valley

Whereas in the early 1970s large numbers of Indian students went to the United States to study medicine, the most popular subject today is information technology, followed by business administration. According to India Abroad, an ethnic Indian weekly published in the United States, there are nearly 35,000 Indian computer professionals in California's Silicon Valley alone. "Some of them have started their own companies and are doing very well," says Niraj Trivedi, a journalist working with the magazine.

Indian students who go to the US and Europe are not necessarily rich. Most hail from middle-class families, which seek higher social status by sending their children abroad. It is impossible for a middle-income group family with a yearly income of $3,600 to send their children abroad for studies which cost at least $5,000 a year. Here, the low-interest educational loans (up to $15,000) offered by Indian banks come in handy. Studies in India cost very little, since most of the institutions are government-funded, causing some to denounce the brain drain caused when students use the nation's resources for their initial studies and then migrate to other countries later.

In the past, British universities attracted many Indian students because of historical links between the two countries. American universities took over in the early 1970s following a drastic cut in the number of scholarships in Britain. They were the obvious alternative because of the language and the higher level of education. All the same, a 1997 UNESCO study noted that India only ranked seventh among the countries sending students abroad, well behind such smaller countries as the Republic of Korea and Malaysia.

Indian students wishing to study abroad face many hurdles since visa restrictions have been tightened by the US and Europe since the early 1990s. Some of them opt for less expensive universities in Australia or Russia. "The number of students coming to the US has dropped in the last few years," says Virul Acharya. "However, if they want higher qualifications they have to come to the US or Europe as Indian universities lag far behind."