[...] 98 percent of China’s primary school enrollees reach the fifth grade, compared to 60 percent for India. Despite an external reputation for having a large pool of highly educated persons, India faces serious deficiencies in the education of the bulk of its youth population (p. 63).Before reading this article, my perceptions of India matched the "external reputation" described above. However, the data do not lie. The following table from the paper (p.52) compares India to their "peer group."
India clearly started the race a few strides back in 1960, and they still have a lot of ground to make up moving forward. While average years of schooling increased, and the share of their population without schooling decreased significantly, India still had almost 3 times as much of their population with no schooling relative to China. The authors also cite a literacy rate of just 76% among youth aged 15-24 in India compared to a 99% literacy rate for China (p.52).
Taking the state of India's education as given, the authors suggest the following.
Ultimately, India will need to redress its inadequate infrastructure and to broaden its trade beyond the current emphasis on services. Only an expansion of goods production and trade can provide employment opportunities for its current pool of underemployed and undereducated workers (p. 64).The moral of the story? India needs to utilize it's workforce better in the short to medium run given where they currently stand. They can do this by ramping up industrial production and trade, a traditional source of growth for developing nations.
Over the long run, education is key. In the race to educate, India still has some catching up to do. If they can accelerate the rate of progress they have made in education over the last 40 years, then economic growth will be sustainable for years to come.
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