China overtakes India in PhDs too: India's Times of India

[Communist]

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China overtakes India in PhDs too
29 Jun 2009, 0505 hrs IST, SEETHALAKSHMI S, TNN

BANGALORE: It’s not just agriculture, even in doctoral degrees (PhDs), China seems to have overtaken India. Even as the debate rages over Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal’s reforms in school and university education, the National Knowledge Commission has asked the HRD ministry to go in for an immediate revamp in the way universities go about awarding PhDs.

Their fear is not unfounded. The growth in the number of doctorates in India is a mere 20% as compared to 85% in China! Worse, not more than 1% of students who complete their under-graduate degrees opt for doctoral studies in India. The NKC’s survey across India has thrown up these facts at a time when our research laboratories are crying for well-trained young doctorates.

‘‘In many disciplines, there is severe shortage of doctoral fellows. This problem is likely to be even more acute in the new universities. We must stem the rot today. Else, India’s position as a knowledge economy will wane away. There is a need for urgent government policy interventions, including high priority initiatives to attract, nurture, and retain the country’s best young minds in academia and research,’’ a renowned scientist, who is a part of PM’s scientific advisory council, said.

Though the exhaustive survey was completed early 2009, it was revised recently to take into account the new changes in the higher education sector. As a first step, NKC has recommended introduction of well-planned four-year courses to enable direct entry into PhD programmes. This apart, to provide flexibility for those with a bent of research, there must be multiple pathways for entry into PhD.

At present most of the universities or elite institutions in the country are involved in training for the Masters or PhD degrees. To put India on the global map in research, NKC has recommended that NRI/PIO scientists conduct cutting edge research in India and create joint PhD programmes between universities both within and outside the country.

China overtakes India in PhDs too - India - The Times of India

[psugumar]

In India very few of the PhDs of really good, Most of them are just dont worth full to hold PhD.

[pmukherjee]

In India very few of the PhDs of really good, Most of them are just dont worth full to hold PhD.

The very heavy investment in higher education planned by the Government in the forthcoming budget is aimed at addressing the deficiencies at the research/doctoral levels. Also the application of Pay Commision recommendations to educational institutions across the board should help attract better quality teachers in schools and colleges/universities.

[Screaming Skull]

Hi,

This trend has started to reverse already. This year in IISc, Bangalore, we saw unprecedented demand for research degrees from qualified undergrads and masters degree holders. Thousands of applicants applied for just a few tens of seats. For e.g., thousands applied for the multidisciplinary Nano-Science and Nano-Engineering programs, out of which only 400 hundred were called for interview. Out of the 400 only 10 were selected finally. Same was the case with other departments too; Aerospace engineering too got thousands of applications and finally 400 were called for interview. Finally, about 20 were selected.

This clearly shows a change in the priorities of qualified students, who now value higher degrees. This can be attributed to the slow down in the industry and also the proactive steps taken by the last UPA govt. Believe it or not, the faculties at IISc and IITs are now paid on par with the CEOs of multinationals (thanks to the sixth pay commission). A good prof. at IISc or IITs can now make anywhere between 2-4 lakhs a month with a combination of govt. paid salary (about 80k-1L/month) and industry consultancy fees. PhD and MTech stipends have literally doublrd in a few yrs. A PhD student at IISc now gets 14k/month. This too is set to increase to about 18k-20k.

Industry demand for qualified PhDs is also going up steadily. Now, all that the gov. needs to do is to build more capacity. More research institutions must be set up or upgrade the existing universities to IISc and IIT level. There are talks of making IITs universities, so that more and more students can benefit from them. Already the number of IITs has been increased to 15. IISc too is getting a huge new campus in Karnataka. Institutions like JNCASR, BARC, TIFR etc. too are awarding more PhDs annually.

Having said that, one must also note that, the number of PhDs alone, does not indicate the quality of research done in a country. Since, China has a huge number of PhDs, they naturally produce more research papers than us (In fact in China researchers get monetary benefits for publishing papers, while there is no such thing in India). But going by the quality of the papers, which is usually measured by an index called ‘Impact Factor’ or ‘Citation Factor’, it appears that the quality of papers produced by India is much better than China and whole of south Asia (I can provide relevant sources if required). So, though our Chinese friends have managed to overtake us in the numbers game, we still rule the roosts when it comes to quality of research!

[Khalids]

Pakistan should compete with regional countries in knowledge economy too. Not just an arm race.

If SAARC collaborates in producing quality research personnel, this region may become far more better socio-economically than it is at the moment. Politicians must take initiative to bring up knowledge and research based change in the region.

[notting hill]

i guess there will always be a difference between assembly processing and make to order .... quantity vs quality .. we know where these two giants of asia stand ..

[scshqgcm]

i guess there will always be a difference between assembly processing and make to order .... quantity vs quality .. we know where these two giants of asia stand ..

yes ,i feel so sad that we just stand with India,we should do better,at least be the best one in Aisa.
in a long run ,we should work hard to stand with the US/we have a long road to go.
we should surpass Japan first in ten years in high technology,and then ----------

nothing is impossible！if we dont do stupid thing

[notting hill]

buddy , its not upto you where you want to stand ... hyphenation and competition happens when the world thinks that two countries are similar in more ways than one. there is nothing you can do about it..the way you think about india , let me assure you the feeling in india is the same ...soemtimes , they dont want to bracket themselves with a communist state .. democracies have their own way of functioning vis-a-vis a communist govt. india knows that it is a knowledge superpower .. the way i see it india models itself on a western system of governance. the functioning is slow and inefficient ,sometimes, but inclusive .. china is swift and efficient 'coz of centralization of decision making without going back to people for their judgement... having countries in all ways similar on this planet would just take the magic out just the way if you have all the ingredients in a cocktail similar.. this was really off the topic but had to replied. you cant change your neighbour and , fortunately or unfortunately, neither can india..

[Communist]

i guess there will always be a difference between assembly processing and make to order .... quantity vs quality .. we know where these two giants of asia stand ..

[jeypore]

Currently, neither India or China is comparable to US Phd level. My sister-in-law finished her masters in India and applied for Phd at Boston University. She had to redue her master again in the US in order to apply for her Phd.

So China producing high rate of Phd, is in no comparison to the little US production of Phd.

[notting hill]

you know communist .. let me explain your reaction to fellow posters ... its like when the bad guys are killing people everything is allrite .. but when the crackdown happens human right violations and other stuff comes in .... and they protest with banners , posters and in the end when no one pays attention they start shouting slogans .. funny isn't it..

[notting hill]

Currently, neither India or China is comparable to US Phd level. My sister-in-law finished her masters in India and applied for Phd at Boston University. She had to redue her master again in the US in order to apply for her Phd.

So China producing high rate of Phd, is in no comparison to the little US production of Phd.

hey jeypore , that is true 'coz you have some real great faculty teaching in states .. ex heads of states and some senior retired people from all walks of life having experience around the world teaching in US so yeah the standard goes up considerably.. they are paid really well .. for eg.some of them earn much more in a year than what they wuld have earned in india in their lifetime. having said that not all educational institutions in india and for that matter china are below par. a person getting into PHD requires a certain checklist. for eg. the institute where you have done your masters from , recommendations from your employer,past academic performance age and yeaa ofcourse how much you can contribute to the class during discussions among other things .. if you are deserving on those score then why not. my cuzin from india got into univ of philadelphia based on the record and experience .

[scshqgcm]

buddy , its not upto you where you want to stand ... hyphenation and competition happens when the world thinks that two countries are similar in more ways than one. there is nothing you can do about it..the way you think about india , let me assure you the feeling in india is the same ...soemtimes , they dont want to bracket themselves with a communist state .. democracies have their own way of functioning vis-a-vis a communist govt. india knows that it is a knowledge superpower .. the way i see it india models itself on a western system of governance. the functioning is slow and inefficient ,sometimes, but inclusive .. china is swift and efficient 'coz of centralization of decision making without going back to people for their judgement... having countries in all ways similar on this planet would just take the magic out just the way if you have all the ingredients in a cocktail similar.. this was really off the topic but had to replied. you cant change your neighbour and , fortunately or unfortunately, neither can india..

come on ,man
i dont want to change any country
i just want to change China,and we can do better ,and we have potential to be a more efficient country.
i dont really care how you guys consider us as --------
but in what you said ,i can tell you that you r really far away with China,and you just dont get why China is so efficient or how the chinese really think now.
and i'm sure that you dont understand how CCP make it work.
i have a feeling that you r staying with Marx,China is more complex than what you think.
i dont care what india did,but they really surprise me sometimes,in good way or bad.
i just care how to do better,and how China can control it's problems like coruption ,education and high-tech industry.
as the way i dont really understand India,so i dont say how to do is right or wrong about her, i am sure there r a lot of wise people in india,and they know how to face it.
i think China has the ambition to stay with you -----the US,someday


and i dont think this is off topic,when we r talking they the numbers of PhDs,we r talking about the future of a country,we should have a big think about it.
tell you one thing ,four years ago ,no one in China really believe that we would get 51 gold medles in Beijing Olympics ,but some of chinese had faith to make it. and we all know that this is not really important for a country,we have a lot of problems in China

but i think we should think big,even it is a dream, but if you run with a dream ,you can run faster,and maybe you can get what you want

[scshqgcm]

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Currently, neither India or China is comparable to US Phd level. My sister-in-law finished her masters in India and applied for Phd at Boston University. She had to redue her master again in the US in order to apply for her Phd.

So China producing high rate of Phd, is in no comparison to the little US production of Phd.

yes,it's fair.
China must face it ,change the situation