--- "Frederick Noronha (FN)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 2. "What's wrong in working as a coolie, if the pay > is good..." > This is an argument we often adopt for *others*. > Would you > like your children to get jobs as coolies? I > wouldn't. If > it's not good for us, it shouldn't be justified > for others. ---> Fred, It is unfortunate that you equate Indian workers in the tech industry as being cyber coolies. Sure, some of the work that they may do is grunt work, but this is something that we all have to do now and then. Furthermore, the work that they do is a general reflection of the poor state of education in India general. > 4. If you're a taxpayer back in India, it makes > eminent sense > to agree that tonnes of money from the state's > exchequer > shouldn't go into a highly subsidised > tech-education > system that produces some of the best > engineers in the world, but of whom upto 80% > leave India > for greener pastures abroad. If they want to > leave, by > all means. Let them pay for their > highly-subsidised > education and leave. Should Indian money go to > subsidise the already-affluent West by way of > providing > them top class skills for free? > > 5. "The brain will always leave the drain." A nice > play on > words. But it simply overlooks the reality -- the > > brain-drain is all about *brains* from the Third > World > being drained out of the very countries that > spend > phenomenal amounts (more so by Third World > standards) to > create them. Often because the *pull* pressures > are so > great and tempting, that few could resist. After > all, it's > not every Indian (living in 'the drain'?) who > gets a chance > to migrate to the US... but only those > professions whom > the US sees as desirable for itself. --> The only solution to the above would be for India to shut down or dramatically scale back its top universities. It is producing far more engineers and scientists than it can effectively absorb - unless you consider an engineer being employed as say a taxi driver as being gainfully employed. In this sense, I really dont think there is a brain drain, because if they remained in India, their brains would go down the drain, so to speak.
I do think Indian students who graduate from publically funded universities and migrate overseas should be made to pay the costs of their education. However, an even bigger issue is not the successes/"brain drain" of India's educated minority, but rather India's failure in providing quality education for its majority. This underperforming majority will continue to be a drag on India's economic performance. One sees them everywhere. For example as opposed to say, China, we continue to see obsolete, labor intensive techniques being used in the construction industry. It is highly unproductive, or to put it in another way, they labor is relatively worthless. If the laborers were more educated, they would be able to command a higher premium, which in turn would force the industry to adopt more labor efficient techniques. This is the real India we need to focus on - not the few hyper educated elite. When Nehru created these high calibre educational institutions, he had a vision of a few educational elite leading the nation towards development. I think this has failed. To me, it is the permeation of knowledge to the masses that makes a society more prosperous in the long run. Marlon ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
