Why lakhs of Indians go abroad to study

• A recent report estimates that about 8 lakh students travel abroad for higher education every year.
• Their spending is approximately $28 billion or 1% of the country's GDP.

Context

• No parent want to put their child through the madness of competitive exams, closing ranks and coaching classes in high school and placement and packages in college.
• Migration of students in large numbers to other countries reflect the condition of the Indian institutions.
• These migrations are a loss, not just of capital but also of human resource because most of them settle in foreign countries.

Some data in support

• These spendings are about $6 billion(fees to foreign universities).
• This is about Rs 45,000 crore, adequate capital to start and run 10 new IITs, IISERs or JNUs or any such elite institution every year.
• Even after 70 years of Independence, and the last 8 years of vigorous policy initiatives, Country neither have Aatmanirbharta nor a value proposition in higher education.

Why is that

• It’s about jobs.
• There are about 3 crore taxpayers(two-thirds of these are the number of salaried people).
• There are only about 10 lakh fresh jobs available each year.
• there are about 3 lakh “good” jobs which pay Rs 5 lakh per annum (LPA) or more.
• Only 30,000 “posh” jobs which pay a starting salary of Rs 10 lakh-plus per annum.
• Hardly any Indian company serving the Indian customer offers a starting salary of Rs 10 lakh per annum.

MHRD data

• About 30 lakh students graduated last year from about 45,000 colleges.
• About 1 crore unemployed graduates are seeking jobs.
• This is 10 times the number of salaried jobs, 30 times the good jobs and 300 times the number of posh jobs available every year.
• Good jobs are concentrated in about 800 top colleges and posh jobs in 80-100 elite colleges(the IITs and IIMs, St Stephen’s in Delhi, Presidency College in Kolkata etc.).

Why are there so few jobs

• Outdated labor laws,
• Inadequate investments,
• Bureaucratic cholesterol.
• There is a deeper connection with higher education and it begins with the job description.
• Most job descriptions in the public sector have remained stagnant since independence.
• There is no statistician in the district public health department nor an economist in the agriculture department.

Way Ahead

• There should be a clear role for the elite central institutions, the IITs, the IISERs, JNU and others.
• They should look at the problems of the day, formalize them, and convert them into business models and job definitions.
• They should then have supported local institutions and entrepreneurs in the deployment of these solutions.
• They have very little primary experience in solving the hard problems that the world faces today, it needs proper attention and further engagement.