When the topic of India gets brought up in chatting with my colleagues (and students) or friends (especially the long drawn discussions at the dog park), I frequently start off with "No, in reality, it is not like that.." So I thought I should put some of my points in one place (not in any particular order) to decrease entropy generation:
Myth #1: The education system in India should be really good : You're very likely to hear this in the US and outside of the Indian elite, probably only in the US. My take on this myth might be good enough even for the Indian edition. While literacy rates in India have increased at an appreciable rate (from 12% when the British left us to about 76% currently and I am indeed proud of this), serious issues remain. The definition of basic literacy is downright depressing. A good fraction of primary and secondary schools are run by just one teacher (simultaneously teaching many classes while being absent half the time) and despite all the efforts, only 16% of students reach high school and only 8% graduate. This is absymally low for a rapidly growing economy with an acute shortage of skilled labor. It is true, however, that the fortunate few millions that end up in good private schools receive better training in mathematics and science than the average high school student in the US. So we have that going for us.
About 6% (of the total college age population) reach college and on average, the quality of education and employability of graduates continues to be very poor, and by all measures, is declining by the day. Adam Smith (in my book, a top 10 human being of all time) once said "…if an equal proportion of people were educated at the public expence, the competition would soon be so great, as to sink very much their pecuniary reward.” While this problem could be true in advanced economies (present day Britain, especially), this is not at all India's concern. In India, the issue is that with growth in the higher education sector, quality has taken a hit beyond imagination. Take the example of the southern state of Tamil Nadu - This is one of the most progressive and prosperous states in India (I would rate them in the Top 3 by both measures), engineering colleges have mushroomed in the last 10 years. About 20 years ago, one in 80 aspirants could get into engineering colleges.. and these days about 20% (50000) of seats remain vacant. With the explosion in opportunities has arisen a tremendous shortfall in lecturers (quality and quantity wise) and while there are some very good teachers around, a good majority (not all, bless those souls) of lecturer posts get taken up by fresh college graduates and many of them do so because they can't find other decent options. Some reports that I have read suggest that companies think that less than one in 10 engineering graduates are "employable". Access to education is one of the most important aspects of a growing economy and while the increase in quantity has done short term good, the alarming decline in quality doesn't bode well for the future.
Secondary education is about quantity and Higher education is about quality. At the present moment, India is well behind the curve in both aspects. Changes can't and won't happen overnight, but I think things will get worse before getting better.
All this said, at the very top (IITs), the quality of education is still very good (but declining according to various sources) and comparable to the Ivy leagues and Oxbridge (in technical rigor, but much less well rounded). However, less than 1 in 200 aspirants make it to the original 6 IITs) and just the cream in many other universities is comparable. Every year, more than 100,000 Indians leave for higher education to the US (an equal number to the rest of the world) and a majority of these folks rely more on hard work, survival instincts and adaptability than background knowledge to make it to solid jobs, all the way to the top of the middle class. In fact, the average household income of Indians in the US is the highest among any group and is twice that of the US average. Of course, at the highest end of this spectrum, the best of the best Indians have made amazing contributions in founding big corporations and produced significant achievements in science and engineering.
In summary, the Indian education system has always faced incredible challenges (even at the present moment, only at par with the likes of Pakistan and Bangladesh on average) and is exhibiting growing pains. You probably have to be aware of the fact that it is indeed the top 5% of the crop that comes to the US. To boot, a majority of this group is successful not because of what they learnt in the class room, but rather off of it. I am, however, confident that with the growing awareness of India's acute problems and increasing pressure on the government to perform, things will improve in a few years.
