The Mythical Million

India faces similar deficits. Pay for university teachers is pitiably low (it starts at about $400 a month), especially compared with what they could make in the private sector (more than $10,000 a month). As a result, says Madhusudan Datta, an economist at Kalyani University, "talent gets soaked up by lucrative offers from industry." To make matters worse, India's educational establishment (like China's) is far too rigid. A recent example from BESU is revealing. A few years ago, science teachers there began keeping their labs open around the clock so enthusiastic pupils could drop in at any hour. Their students responded in droves and a more relaxed atmosphere began to prevail, with students sometimes showing up in shorts—a common sight in the West but comparatively rare here. After several years of this experiment, however, the administration abruptly ordered labs to return to their normal schedule and mandated that students must wear trousers, shirts and shoes on campus. "It seemed as if the dress code was more important than rigors of study," says Biplab Kumar Sikdar, an assistant professor of computer science.

Adding to India's problems is a conspicuous lack of vision amongst the bureaucracy and corruption at every level. "All this has affected the quality of our technical education," says Sikdar. One result: despite the large number of new graduates India rolls out each year, it only produces about 50 Ph.D.s in computer science, about the same number as an average public university in the United States.

To meet their rapidly growing demands for trained manpower, more and more top companies in both states have begun taking matters into their own hands, creating in-house training programs. In China, the trend was kicked off by Microsoft years ago. And in India, Infosys leads the way with 16-week comprehensive training courses that cost the company nearly $5,000 per employee. "The biggest challenge for India today and going forward will be how to create a skilled work force," says T.V. Mohandas Pai, an Infosys board member focused on human resources. "And the government is not waking up to this fact."

In fact, Delhi and Beijing are slowly moving in the right direction. In India, industry and scholars recently persuaded the government to ask two state education bodies to recommend ways to improve the country's high-tech and science programs. And in China, authorities have launched a drive to boost the reach and sophistication of technical training schools. Yet getting either country up to speed will be an enormous task. Which means the West can rest easy, at least for the moment—neither India nor China will leapfrog ahead anytime soon.

© 2007