Abstract
The chapter examines the trends and policies in India as a source country for the global supply of human capital, both in relation to professionals and tertiary-level students. Globalization is associated with a growing and mobile Indian knowledge diaspora of primary strategic importance to India, the USA and other countries. The chapter discusses the problems and opportunities that this creates for India, and then reviews the domestic supply of science and technology labour, the outputs of higher education and the problem of matching India’s participation in both the domestic and global labour markets with an uneven higher education sector that is as yet insufficiently coordinated and developed.
An earlier version of the paper was presented at an International Workshop on “Global Competition for International Students ” organized in March 2006 by the Institute for the Study of International Migration , Georgetown University, at Washington, D.C. The author is indebted to the participants for their comments and suggestions. He would also like to record with appreciation the field survey conducted by his graduate students, in particular Narender Thakur, Geeta Verma, Sridhar Bhagavatula and Durgesh Rai. The author is solely responsible for any errors and omissions.
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Notes
- 1.
Under these Amendments, immigrants subject to a “numerical limitation” of 270,000 worldwide and 20,000 per country per year were allocated to a six-category “preference” regime within the US visa system—two under the “occupational labour force needs” of the US economy and four under the “family-reunification objective” of the US population policy.
- 2.
“Ironically” because in 1917 the US Congress, against the opposition of two unsuccessful vetoes from President Woodrow Wilson, had introduced a “literacy test” in English, effectively to stop Indian immigrants from entering the territory of the United States (Baker 1937).
- 3.
See Table 21.1 in relation to brain drain from the IITs/AIIMS.
- 4.
India has been the leading place of origin for international students in the USA with 83,833 in 2006–2007 (an increase of 10% from the previous year), followed by China (67,723 up 8%), Korea (62,392, up 6%), Japan (35,282, down 9%), Taiwan (29,094, up 4%), Canada (28,280, up less than 1%), Mexico (13,826, down 1%) and Turkey (11,506, down 1%) (IIE 2007).
- 5.
Economic Times, 24 November 2004. Japan has instituted high-valued scholarships to match US fellowships like, the Fulbright Scholarships to attract talent from India —The Straits Times, Singapore , 15 March 2006.
- 6.
Population Headlines, No. 310, March–April 2006, ESCAP, Bangkok.
- 7.
During a visit to the UN meeting in New York, the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh appealed to developed countries like the UK to reduce their overseas student fees which are a multiple of home student fees—Hindustan Times, 25 September 2004.
- 8.
International students brought $ 13.3 billion dollars to the US economy in 2004–2005 in money spent on tuition, living expenses, and related costs, according to the NAFSA: Association of International Educators. Open Doors 2004–2005 data from campuses indicate that nearly 72% of all international students reported their primary sources of funding were personal and family sources or other sources outside of the United States. The proportion of students relying primarily on personal and family funding increased by 1.5%, to 67% of all international students in 2004–2005, with an even higher percentage at the undergraduate level (81%). Rising tuition costs and weak economies in some countries abroad place a substantial economic burden on students and their families, making less expensive study opportunities at home and elsewhere a more attractive option, especially at the undergraduate level. Nevertheless, Department of Commerce data continue to rank US higher education as among the five largest service sector exports.
- 9.
Economic Times, 29 November 2004.
- 10.
The Canberra Manual defines HRST as people who fulfil one or the other of the following conditions: they have successfully completed education at the tertiary level in a Science, Engineering or Technology (S&E or S&T) field of study; or they are not formally qualified as above, but are employed in an S&T occupation where the above qualifications are normally required. See also Auriol and Sexton 2001. For debates around these issues in the Indian context, see Khadria 2001b, 2002, 2003, 2004a.
- 11.
A few institutions like IIPM, ISB, Amity International, Rai University, Wellingkars, and Wigan and Leigh are using image-building elements to differentiate themselves from the rest.
- 12.
- 13.
India Today, 7 March 2005.
- 14.
Personal services, such as teaching and nursing care would continue to expand on a global scale. India can become a magnet economy attracting high-skilled and high-waged investment capital from multinational companies, and offer high value-added services to the rest of the world. This would require that India adopts an outward looking approach to reach out to the global markets and focus on sectors where it has resource advantage.
- 15.
BPO generally refers to Business Process Outsourcing, the practice of running business processes sent by companies to either their own units or to other providers in offshore locations.
- 16.
A High-Level Committee on Indian Diaspora submitted a Report to the Government of India in 1999 (ICWA 2001). An independent Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) has been established since 2004 and national celebration of an Overseas Indians Day (Pravasi Bhartiya Divas), has been instituted.
- 17.
Economic Times, 17 December 2005.
- 18.
Hindustan Times, 22 September, 2008.
- 19.
The term “semi-finished human capital” was first used by Majumdar (1994).
- 20.
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Khadria, B. (2011). India Amidst a Global Competition for Its Talent: A Critical Perspective on Policy for Higher and University Education. In: Marginson, S., Kaur, S., Sawir, E. (eds) Higher Education in the Asia-Pacific. Higher Education Dynamics, vol 36. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1500-4_21
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