In response to my last post on "Too many Ph.D's" (in USA), a commentator, Sachin, makes an important point why academia is attractive to foreigners. Another anonymous commentator states, "Too many PhDs graduating from American universities? It depends if these PhDs decide to work in countries were they would be more necessary(?)." This is an interesting point and we should compare the number of Indians graduating with Ph.D's from USA and India. Please note that I am not even including higher education institutions in UK, Canada, Australia etc.
The number of Ph.Ds awarded in USA to INDIANS in engineering is roughly 1300, which is higher than the number of Ph.D's awarded in India (around 900). The number of full time Ph.D's awarded in India is less than 500, predominantly dominated by IITs and IISc.
In 2008, the number of Ph.Ds awarded in USA to INDIANS in chemical engineering is roughly 100, while that awarded by IITs/IISc is around 50. The number of vacancies for faculty positions in India for chemical engineering is less than 15 per year in all IITs/IISc put together.
This is because, unlike the US, which is worried whether they are producing too many Ph.D's, India's enrolment ratios are very poor. India’s gross enrolment ratio in higher education (graduation) is close to 7 per cent. The enrolment from bachelors to doctorate in engineering is around 0.1 per cent. The privatization of professional education has ensured that 90% of the engineering colleges are private but less than 10% of undergraduate education in basic sciences, social sciences and commerce are privatized. In all cases, the average quality of education has been disastrous. Thus, more than 150,000 students leave the country in pursuit of higher education and spend roughly $1.8 billion to get an education abroad.
7 comments:
Prof. giri,
when is the next council meeting?
Please post the dates of all council meetings for 2010 and 2011.
Council meetings are *normally* held in late march, june, sep and dec.
Too less PhD's from Indian Institutions (IIX) every year is because of the higher education structure in India. Every Ph.D student has to go through extreme hardships, most of the cases, before earning the degree. Lack of proper infrastructure, qualified co-workers or laboratory staff are responsible for it. Establishmnet of new institutions (IITs, IISERs) may partially solve the problem but not fully. Anyhow, research is not profession, it is passion. Igniting young brains and harvesting passion for research in these may work most of the times. Indian elite academia must take responsibility to visit schools and encouraging students in this direction. If then so, after 20 years from now, R&D laboratories & higher education institutions in India will be full of qualified, passionate and committed scientists and engineers.
Research is a profession. No doubt. It may be a passion as well for some. Lets not make research a holy cow. Researchers, like any other guys, work to earn money and lead a good social life. It maybe that they keep their work both at their heart and brain. That is different. But research has to be a profession.
Same goes for politics. We call politics not a profession, its a passion. And it makes one so passionate that he forgets to retire until 90 and makes sure that his passion goes down in his family to his son/daughter/grandson...Then we see all sorts of problems.
@sm : I do not agree with your argument. There might be some researchers who are in research for equally demeaning perks like fame or social status. But money is definitely not one of them. Obviously an average standard of living is expected but that doesnt make pure research to be just a "means to an end".
I think anyone who is passionate about their work shouldnt mind a little less salary or comfort because satisfaction is much more rarer than money.
I am glad to read your article about Too less Ph.D's and the comments. In India atleast in my opinion, the supervisors dont have any research ethics. I am not mentioning everyone, but iam sure atleast 80% of professors in the Universities other than iits and iisc are greedy for publication, they steal the first author and fighting for communicating authorship without any research ethic, now i am in Europe and submitted my second PhD here in one of the leading universities in Europe. I dont know about IITs and IISc but i am 100% confident the professors dont even know there is term so called 'research ethics'. There is nothing surprise Indians are getting more PhD awards from foriegn universities. I dont know is there any organization in India to save students who are getting suffered by unethical research activities of PhD supervisors.
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