Engineering Education: Can India overtake China?

Posted on June 14, 2006  Comments (5)

Engineering education: Can India overtake China? by George Iype, Rediff:

India currently has 113 universities and 2,088 colleges, many of which teach various engineering disciplines. Engineering colleges in the country have been growing at 20 per cent a year, while business schools have grown at 60 per cent.

According to a McKinsey Global Institute study on the emerging global labour market, India produces a large number of engineering graduates every year, but multinationals find that just 25 per cent of them are employable. ‘In India, the overall quality of the educational system, apart from the top universities, could improve significantly,’ the report said.

Once again they quote the 600,000; 400,000 and 70,000 figures which the Duke University study shows is misleading. Still the short article provides some interesting information. Also the comment section shows the Duke study is beginning to seep into the public consciousness.

Examining the best numbers we can get (and trying to get better numbers to use for analysis) is a good idea. Still, we should not ignore the importance of the large macro trend. China and India are producing a significantly increasing proportion of the world’s engineers. Duke’s study indicate the comparison numbers are exaggerated, but the underlying trend is still strong and real.

I think the increase in China’s and India’s engineers will be a good thing for the world. And I think the both countries will continue to increase the numbers of engineers that are equal in skill and ability to others internationally (I can imagine today a higher percentage of USA engineers are highly skilled but that will not necessarily be true 30 years from now – it depends on the actions taken by many people, in government, academia and industry).

The continuation of the trend is not guaranteed; it will largely depend on the the continued economic success of India and China. If it continues it will also require some adjustments by engineers everywhere, which is one reason getting better data is wise.

5 Responses to “Engineering Education: Can India overtake China?”

  1. Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » Blog Archive » Manufacturing is Cool
    June 17th, 2006 @ 3:53 pm

    […] Posts from the Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog on engineering careers, items of interest to science and engineering students and science and engineering economic impact by curiouscat   Tags: Manufacturing, Education, Career   Permalink to: Manufacturing is Cool […]

  2. Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog » The World’s Best Research Universities
    August 19th, 2006 @ 9:44 am

    […] Engineering Education: Can India overtake China? […]

  3. eric ember
    May 23rd, 2008 @ 3:44 pm

    I think India will overtake china simply because India has right to intellectual property and is moving into a capitalist economy rather quickly. People tend to thrive better in this environment and do better in their work

    China is a communist nation. No right to intellectual property. Take for example the inventor of the video game tetris. It make hundreds of millions of dollars, but since the inventor was in communist Russia he did not get a piece of the tetris pie.

    India is hungry and becoming very comfortable with technology very quickly and they have opportunity to help fuel the push

  4. Anonymous
    May 21st, 2009 @ 9:26 am

    India can overtake china. But i think more important is can india generate as many jobs in comparison of passing student. Compare average post graduate salary in India with other country.

  5. Anonymous
    April 30th, 2012 @ 8:03 am

    Hi,
    Thanks for your nice article. I think India can overtake the China, because engineering University and students are increasing day by day and the students are not working only in India also all over the world.

    IIPM Full time National Economic Planning and Entrepreneurship Programs in India.

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