From: kumarr@ivan.intel.com (Kumar Ranganathan)
Subject: Re: IIT's and REC's. Training factories for US? (was: NRI's returning to India
Reply-To: kumarr@ivan.intel.com
Organization: Development Tools Operation, Intel Corp., Hillsboro  OR
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 16:59:25 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.011332.113632@ua1ix.ua.edu>, ngopalas@ha05.eng.ua.edu writes:
|> 
|> [Godbole's and Vij's articles deleted to save BW]
|> 
|> I am glad NRI's are returning to India, this is quite commendable on their
|> part they feel enough for their home country to go back and serve there again.
|> 
|> I think we should talk about a more serious problem, the drain of talent from  
|> India. Subsidized education has taken its toll on the educational system in     
|> India. Why should the taxpayer pay for the IIT's and the REC's, when they      
|> are not going to serve the country by staying back and using their learning    
|> for the betterment of society which paid for their education. It is as if      
|> the IIT's and REC's were set up to train guys for the US industry] Compare     
|> this situation to the doctors who are also educated at taxpayer expense. They   
|> are required to work for five years in rural areas before they set up practice 
|> (mint money]) in cities. Similarly before engineers embark on the dollar hunt  
|> they should be made to work for a certain period of time in India. At the      
|> very least they should be made to pay back whatever the Govt has spent on their
|> education. A few thousand dollars will hardly make a difference in the pocket   
|> of the professionals here. If people are not willing to go back then they should
|> at least reimburse India for whatever she has spent on them. Sound reasonable? 
|>                                                                                
|> I myself am from IIT and know that the Govt spends nearly 2 lakhs on every     
|> BTech product. It's high time we stopped free-loading on the system and paid    
|> something back. I would like some honest opinions instead of rationalizations. 
|>                                                                                
|> Nath.     
                                                                     
I would submit that subsidizing higher education to the extent it is done in
India (often at the cost of primary education) corrupts Education itself.
It distorts the market and provides the wrong incentives on both the supply
and demand sides. Since the cost of higher education is so much lower than
its market rate, it loses much of its value; since students haven't had to
pay much for it, they are content with a receiving a mediocre education and
rarely demand better quality - after all, they are getting their money's worth.
Secondly, on the supply side, the faculty are free from all market pressures
and enjoy a lifelong tenure; increasingly, their time is spent on internal
politicking and influence peddling while the quality of the education they
purvey is thrown to the winds. With some exceptions, the Indian system of
higher education is known to churn out thousands of degrees every year based
upon a highly theoretical paradigm of examinations, consequently producing
large amounts of functional illiterates instead of competent engineers.

Before we launch into a controversial debate on this touchy issue I would
suggest the following questions to guide our inquiry:

1. Given that one of the goals of higher education is to provide equal 
   opportunity or access to all, has the current method of subsidizing
   higher education in India acheived this goal ?

2. Is there a less blunt instrument to ensure 1) equal opportunity and 
   2) a return on investment than the current method of subsidizing
   higher education ? For example, maybe the cost of higher education should
   be at the market rate and student loans be provided easily to an aspiring
   student. This would make the student more sensetive to the quality of
   education he/she receives. Alternately, if higher education is subsidized,
   the student must be made to render some community service in some form
   for a period of time to ensure a return on the taxpayers investment.

I think the current system of financing higher education lacks these 
checks and balances. It is consequently deeply flawed, terribly wasteful,
and sorely in need of reform. After all, education is an investment, not a
free lunch.
   

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