Importance of Higher Education

Couple of days back I had a privilege of attending the Sam Pitroda's NKC (National Knowledge Commission) series guest lecture. Unfortunately due to address confusion we reached the exact place quite late, almost 2/3 of Sam Pitroda's speech was over. Mainly his speech was about his committee's study & survey about the overall education system country including primary, middle, college, higher & Ph.D educations, recommendations to the central government & support and resistance their recommendations.

He & rest of the speakers talked about the importance of the higher education & English as global language with rich material for study in any stream & problem in its implementation due to importance to the regional language & political non interests. Pitroda specifically told that we need more IITs & more IIMs to become KNOWLEDGE SUPER POWER

So whenever we talk about the IITs & IIMs we tend to think that due to these institute there is BRAIN DRAIN in India. To small extent it may be true also due to their International Exposures & Placements. But according one survey each IITian has created 100 jobs. Here are the details of the survey...

1. In this survey more than 4500 IIT Alumni participated providing sufficient large sample.

2. Every IITian has created 100 jobs and that every rupee spent on an IIT-ian has 'created an economic impact of Rs 50 at the global level, half of which is India's share'.

3. IITians have been involved in the creation of over 2 crore (20 million) new jobs.

4. The survey says that IIT alumni in senior positions in industry and government, across the world today, have a budgetary responsibility for over $885 billion (Rs 40,00,000 crore).

5. When measured across industry, government, entrepreneurial activity and scientific/technological innovations, IIT alumni have been associated with over $450 billion (Rs 20,00,000 crore) of incremental economic value creation.

6. Of the IIT alumni who graduated prior to 2001, 40% are in top leadership roles in corporations, educational institutions, research labs, NGOs, governmental agencies, politics, and as entrepreneurial heads of their own companies. A majority of these top leaders believe they have contributed most through their personal impact on innovation relating to product, process, services, etc.

7. Among the IIT alumni who are in top leadership roles, almost 70% are currently based in India, with 20% of these being those who come back to India after careers in other parts of the world.

8. The study says that 54% of the top 500 Indian companies currently have at least one IIT alumnus on their board of directors, and these companies have cumulative revenue ten times greater than that of other companies on the list.

9. One in 10 IIT alumni has started their own companies, with over 40 per cent of them being serial entrepreneurs. Two-thirds of the companies founded are in India.

10. 20% of the IIT alumni work in research & education. About 75-80% of IIT alumni in research & education continue to work in science and technology related areas. Half of the IIT alumni in research & education are based in India, and of these 40 per cent those who returned to India after careers abroad.

11. 10% IIT alumni are currently engaged in social transformation working in NGOs, government administration or politics, on programs relating to education, the environment, or poverty reduction, etc. IIT alumni working in this area have founded over a 1,000 NGOs, the survey adds.

So it applies to all IIMs also...

So government needs to seriously think about this. And Pitroda also mentioned Governments alone cant do all the things. The problem with our Indian Government is POLITICIANS. First they may not be interested at all, and even if one person like Mr. Manmohan Singh interested also there is lack of support from rest of politicians inside/outside the HOUSE. Even if everything set in political place there is lack of resources from the government side. So at that should take PRIVATE PLAYERS should come into play. So through PPP it can be achieved.(about the PPP's success I already posted in my previous post about S.M. Krishna, Ex. Karnataka CM & Narayan Murthy's combination. According today's papers Karnataka is below almost all majority of the upcoming states in PRO-INDUSTRY ENVIRONMENT. Thanks to our Ex. PM Devegouda & his Sons and Yediyurappa) Actually for this also there opposition from scholars like Mr. Karat(who studied in JNU).

BOTTOM-LINE:

Sam Pitroda Set 25 years for successfully achieving this goal as Telecom reforms(which he started in Rajiv Gandhi's time) took 20 years. Lets hope to see that with all our contribution in one or the other way.


Reference...
Rediff.com