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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 09 NEW DELHI 003128 
 
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SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ENRG TRGY SENV KGHG TSPL TNGD EIND KSCA ECON ETRD
BEXP, EINV, KPAO, OEXC, SCUL, PINR, PREL, PGOV, IN 
SUBJECT: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN 
INDIA FOR A KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY 
 
NEW DELHI 00003128  001.2 OF 009 
 
 
¶1.  (U) Summary: Technical education in India is expected to expand 
rapidly from its current level of 600,000 engineering graduates per 
year to about 800,000 in three years.  It is also projected that 
India will experience shortage of skilled human resources to meet 
its developmental needs.  Hence the Government of India (GOI) has 
increased the allocation for higher education over eight fold to INR 
850 billion (USD 18.1 billion) for the Eleventh Five Year Plan (FYP) 
period (2007 - 2012).  The funds are to be used for the creation of 
many new centers of excellence in technical education, expanding 
capacity and attaining a Gross Enrolment Ratio of 15 percent in 
higher education by 2012.  In an effort to understand the issues 
involved in transformation of the current technical education system 
into a globally viable one and the opportunities therein for 
US-India collaboration, Post's Science Section in partnership with 
Public Affairs organized a dialogue among 15 invited experts in the 
technical education field.  The challenges as envisaged during the 
course of the discussion included shortage of faculty, quality of 
curriculum, the process of affiliation, accreditation and ratings, 
governance, effective regulation for private and private public 
partnerships and industry academia interactions.  The highlight of 
the discussion and the overall assessment of the technical education 
scene in India was an overwhelming interest in India to seek US 
support and participation in an effort to create these centers of 
excellence and a sustainable high quality technical education 
system.  The support sought was essentially of US intellectual 
capital (US experts) and best practices in establishing these 
centers of learning.  This offers a unique opportunity for a 
long-term partnership in technical education in this era of 
knowledge based economy. End Summary. 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
The Need for Expansion of Technical Education 
--------------------------------------------- - 
¶2.  (U) Higher education in India and especially technical education 
has been expanding rapidly in recent times.  India today has over 
400 universities and 20000 colleges of which about 2200 are 
engineering colleges producing over 600,000 engineers annually. 
Further, the growing population and the demographic composition make 
it necessary for India to look at expanding the educational 
infrastructure.  The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), [an indictor used 
in the education sector by United Nations to indicate the percentage 
of students enrolled in a particular age group] in higher education 
in India was just 10 percent in 2007, as compared to near 100 
percent in South Korea, 60 percent in US and Canada, over 40 percent 
in several European countries and more than 20 percent in even many 
developing countries. 
 
¶3.  (U) A relative stagnation in educational infrastructure and 
capacity expansion especially in the public sector in the last two 
decades as compared to the accelerated economic growth has 
necessitated expansion of capacity.  GOI realizes that to sustain 
growth in this age of knowledge based economy, it has to leverage 
from advances in knowledge and use it as an effective tool for 
inclusive growth.  To accomplish this, it has to literally revamp 
its marginally effective technical education system and make it 
globally competitive.  With this as a key objectives the GOI has 
increased its budget and allocated INR 850 billion (USD 18.1 
billion) for education in the Eleventh FYP (2007 - 2012), which is 
nearly an eight fold increase compared to the budget allocation of 
INR 96 billion (USD 2.04 billion) during the Tenth FYP (2001 - 
2006).  For the first time, the education budget has moved from 
typically single digit to thirty percent of the national budget for 
the current financial year 2008-2009. 
 
NEW DELHI 00003128  002.2 OF 009 
 
 
 
¶4.  (U) The accelerated capacity addition in technical education is 
further supported by the projected demand of over 3 to 5 million 
engineers by 2015 to address India's needs in diverse areas 
including the Information and Communication Technology (ICT), civil, 
mechanical, nuclear, electronics and electrical engineering and 
materials science.  This is based on estimates by various industrial 
organizations like the National Association of Software and Services 
Companies (NASSCOM), the Associated Chambers of Commerce and 
Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), Confederation of Indian Industry 
(CII), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry 
(FICCI) and Indian Semiconductor Association (ISA).  All these 
organizations not only favor expansion of the technical education, 
but call for greater private participation, less regulation and 
doing away with the current regulatory agencies like the All India 
Technical Council of Education (AICTE) which they believe is 
ineffective and at times, a hindrance to progress. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
New Publicly Funded Technical Institutions Being Set Up 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
¶5.  (U) This huge increase in budget by the GOI is expected to 
support not just existing institutions but also establish new ones. 
The new initiative includes setting up of over 30 central 
universities, 8 Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), 10 National 
Institutes of Technologies (NIT), 20 Indian Institutes of 
Information Technology (IIIT), 5 Indian Institutes of Science 
Education and Research (IISERS), 7 Indian Institutes of Management 
(IIM) and 2 Schools of Planning and Architecture.  Further, GOI is 
also expected to provide assistance to about 700 polytechnics.  This 
is in addition to the GOI plan to help establish over 500 new 
universities which may also have technical programs.  With all these 
new public and privately funded institutions, the GOI has set a 
target of 15 percent GER in higher education by the end of the 
Eleventh FYP period.  International studies have shown that for any 
sustainable development, the GER needs to be above 20 percent. 
 
----------------------- 
Challenges to Expansion 
----------------------- 
¶6.  (U) The principal challenge to this massive expansion of higher 
technical education is ensuring quality.  Even from the current 
output of engineers, employers report that only 20 to 25 percent are 
qualified to perform assigned tasks.  Most institutes have a severe 
shortage of faculty to meet even the basic teaching requirements. 
Finding faculty which could deliver quality teaching and also carry 
out R&D to meet the needs of a knowledge economy is expected to be a 
big challenge.  The IITs alone have a faculty shortage of over a few 
thousand, in spite of their brand value, higher salaries, 
availability of the top students and offering a better environment 
for research.  Dr. Jain, Deputy Director, IIT Delhi mentioned that 
the recent 54 percent expansion of student capacity among the 
existing seven IITs makes it mandatory for them to increase their 
faculty strength by 300 percent from their current level.  When all 
the new IITs become fully operational they would need about 11,000 
faculty by 2016.  One could imagine the situation in other 
engineering colleges which are at best teaching shops.  There are 
many more issues such as regulation of curriculum, autonomy to 
function effectively, fee structure regulation, private and foreign 
university participation, their affiliation and repatriation of 
profits. 
 
------------------------------------- 
 
NEW DELHI 00003128  003.2 OF 009 
 
 
Issues Relevant to the US 
------------------------------------- 
¶7.  (U) In the US, Indian engineering graduates form the largest 
group of students studying in various universities and working in 
startups and high-tech companies.  In addition, increasing number of 
US corporations who have set up production and/or R&D facilities in 
India employ thousands of local engineering graduates.  Hence 
understanding the multiple challenges faced by technical education 
in India and its ability to deliver qualified human resources is of 
great significance to US.  With the objective of understanding the 
Indian technical education scene and exploring opportunities for 
engagement, Post's Science Section hosted, in partnership with 
Public Affairs, a dialogue on "Challenges and Opportunities in 
Technical Education for a Knowledge Economy."  About 15 leading 
technical education experts in India participated in this dialogue. 
 
 
--------------------------------------- 
Participants in the Dialogue 
---------------------------------------- 
¶8.  (U) Below is the list of participants: 
 
-- IIT Kanpur (IITK) 
-- Prof. M. Anandakrishnan, Chairman, Board of Governors 
-- Prof. Sanjay G. Dhande, Director 
-- Prof. Vijay Stokes, Former IITK Faculty and GE 
   Scientist 
 
-- IIT Delhi (IITD) 
-- Dr. Bijendra Jain, Deputy Director 
 
-- IIT Roorkee (IITR) 
-- Prof. Satish Kulkarni, Chair, Dept of Architecture and 
   Planning 
 
-- Jamia Hamdard University, Delhi 
-- Dr. Shamim Ahmed, Vice Chancellor 
 
-- Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey (SNDT) Women's 
   University, Mumbai 
-- Prof. Chandra Krishnamurthy, Vice Chancellor 
 
-- World Bank: 
-- Dr. Vinod Goel, Science, Technology and Innovation 
                                           Consultant 
 
-- ASSOCHAM 
-- Mr. S. S. Chawla, Director, Education Section 
 
-- Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) 
-- Mr. Anjan Das, Senior Director & Head, Technology, 
   Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation & Life Sciences 
 
-- FICCI 
-- Ms. Shobha Mishra, Joint Director, Education 
 
-- AICTE 
-- Dr.Dinesh, Adviser, Quality Assurance 
 
-- Defense Research and Development Organization 
-- Prof. Manas Mandal, Director, Defense Institute of 
                                 Psychological Research 
 
 
NEW DELHI 00003128  004.2 OF 009 
 
 
-- Indo-US Science & Technology Forum (IUSSTF) 
-- Dr.Arabinda Mitra, Executive Director 
 
-- US Educational Foundation of India 
-- Dr. Adam Grotsky, Executive Director 
-- Ms. Sarina Paranjape, Adviser 
 
-- US Embassy, New Delhi 
-- Mr. Larry Schwartz, Minister Counselor for Public 
                                              Affairs 
-- Dr. Satish Kulkarni, Counselor for Science, Technology, 
                        Environment and Health Affairs 
-- Dr. B. S. Satyanarayana, Scientific Affairs Specialist 
 
------------------------------------- 
Key Issues Deliberated in the Meeting 
------------------------------------- 
¶9.  (U) The key issues discussed during the course of the dialogue 
were: 
 
- Definition of knowledge based economy 
- The quality or the current state of technical 
  education in India 
- Pros and cons of the rapid expansion of technical 
  education 
- The key factors that would influence a) curriculum, 
  b) accreditations c) ratings and d) governance 
- Industry academic linkages 
- Privately funded institutions and 
- Need for strong Indo-US collaborations 
 
----------------------------------------- 
Definition of a Knowledge Based Economy 
----------------------------------------- 
¶10.  (U) Prof. Anandakrishnan, Chairman of the Board of Governors, 
IIT Kanpur, former Vice Chancellor of Anna University, Tamilnadu and 
India's first Science Counselor at the Indian Embassy in Washington 
DC stated that knowledge based economy may be defined as embedding 
benefits of knowledge in all the key factors enabling the economy 
namely capital, labor and technology, thus leading to value addition 
to the existing infrastructure.  In other words, this calls for 
translation of knowledge to innovation and entrepreneurship that 
could cater to the changing needs of both the local and global 
economies. 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
Current Technical Educations Standards in India 
--------------------------------------------- - 
¶11.  (U) Prof. Anadakrishnan mentioned that out of the 600,000 
graduating engineers, 25 to 30 percent who come from the IITs, NITs 
and other top-tier engineering colleges are well qualified.  The 
need is to see how these engineers could be gainfully employed 
towards advancement of a knowledge based economy.  He further added 
that many engineers have good theoretical knowledge, but 
insufficient practical experience or the necessary skills to perform 
assigned tasks and need additional training.  Industry organizations 
like FICCI, CII and ISA have made similar observations. 
 
¶12.  (U) The remaining 70 percent engineering students find it 
difficult to graduate in one attempt and have to repeat the courses. 
 This could be attributed to many reasons including poor quality of 
teaching and infrastructure and the lack of relevance of the 
curriculum to the needs of industry and technological developments. 
 
NEW DELHI 00003128  005.2 OF 009 
 
 
Absence of a R&D culture also affects faculty recruitment.  India 
produced less than 1000 doctorates in all engineering disciplines 
put together in 2007.  This leads to shortage of qualified faculty. 
For example, the state of Andhra Pradesh has 532 engineering 
colleges with a provision to admit 191,000 students.  If it were to 
satisfy all the AICTE norms it should require nearly 11,000 faculty. 
But in reality there are not even 4,000 faculty and even these are 
predominantly entry level with at the most a master's degree. 
Nearly 80 percent of engineering colleges are in the private domain 
and a reasonable percent of them have good infrastructure as 
prescribed by the regulatory agencies; however, faculty shortage is 
an issue of great concern.  Some institutes are trying to overcome 
this through collaboration with industries and R&D labs by hiring 
their staff as guest or adjunct faculty. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
Pros and Cons of Rapid Expansion of Technical Education 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
¶13.  (U) Most of the academics present were of the opinion that even 
though they agreed with the need for expansion, they were very much 
concerned about the rate of expansion based on political exigencies 
rather than any rational reasoning.  The general belief was that it 
would further degrade the standards.  So they called for a more 
gradual and planned step by step expansion which would be 
sustainable.  However, the industrial organizations like FICCI, 
ASSOCHAM and CII felt that the expansion could not wait any more and 
it had to happen now.  If the best practices were adopted the 
quality could be achieved, if not overnight at least over a period 
of time, say 10 to 15 years.  They called for allowing more private 
participation or even public private partnership, but with more 
autonomy and simpler and clear cut regulations.  Mr. Chwala from 
ASSOCHAM said that their study showed that in recent years, nearly 
five million Indian students were pursuing higher education in 
technical areas in foreign universities at any given point of time. 
This suggests that there is already a market for quality technical 
education. 
 
¶14.  (U) Dr. Dinesh of AICTE said that AICTE as the regulatory 
authority approving engineering programs had already facilitated 
nearly hundred percent expansion of technical education in the last 
decade.  He added that in order to accelerate the process of 
approval, AICTE has also set up zonal offices.  Prof. Vijay Stokes 
opined that there was a need for creation of new technical 
institutes of excellence in India as the existing engineering 
institutes including the IITs had failed to inspire or nurture 
innovation, entrepreneurship and path breaking technological ideas 
as generated in US universities like Stanford, Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology (MIT) and Princeton.  He hoped that at least 
the new institutes coming up would hopefully provide thought leaders 
who could inspire the younger generation to take up engineering 
education and thus create a truly knowledge based economy thorough 
innovation. 
 
------------------------------ 
Technical Education Curriculum 
------------------------------ 
¶15.  (U) Technology is changing rapidly.  Product cycles have come 
down to literally eighteen months.  Increasingly the boundaries 
between the various disciplines are disappearing.  Yet technical 
education in India is highly compartmentalized and no serious effort 
is being made to make it interdisciplinary.  AICTE, the key 
regulating body for technical education, discourages the study of 
humanities and even basic sciences in engineering colleges by giving 
 
NEW DELHI 00003128  006.2 OF 009 
 
 
insignificant credits for these courses.  Only the IITs and some 
autonomous engineering colleges have some exposure to humanities and 
basic and social sciences. 
 
 
-------------------------------------- 
Affiliation, Accreditation and Ratings 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶16.  (U) India does not have a viable accreditation and comparative 
rating mechanism.  The method is flawed and there is a lot of 
mistrust in the system; hence the call by government bodies like the 
National Knowledge Commission (NKC) and the Administrative Reforms 
Committee (ARC) and industrial organizations like FICCI and CII for 
doing away with AICTE and similar agencies.  India has over 17 
agencies regulating higher education often working at cross 
purposes.  There have been instances when a program from an 
engineering college has been accredited by AICTE, while the State 
University to which the college is affiliated has not even approved 
the college.  In 2007, India has become a provisional member of the 
Washington Accord, an international accreditation body for 
engineering education.  New Zealand is mentoring AICTE to achieve a 
full member status. 
 
¶17.  (U) Considering the above issues and the recommendations of the 
NKC, the GOI appointed a 22 member committee headed by Prof. Yashpal 
to study the working of the regulatory agencies like AICTE, the 
University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Medical Council of India 
(MCI) in February 2008.  Prof. Yashpal is an eminent physicist and a 
space scientist who has headed several GOI agencies including the 
UGC.  The committee is soon expected to submit its interim report. 
Newspapers have reported that some of the recommendations of the 
committee include granting of greater autonomy to universities, 
making the interdisciplinary approach a norm in higher education, 
the need to revamp the selection process of Vice-Chancellors and 
minimize the interference by the State and Central governments.  In 
the case of IITs the committee seems to have suggested that they 
should evolve from just producing high-quality undergraduates into 
R&D institutions akin to MIT and broaden the curriculum to include 
life and social sciences similar to a university to draw upon the 
benefits of technology. 
 
¶18.  (U) One of the biggest challenges of the rapid expansion 
process is that there are no means to compare or rate the 
performance of the institutions.  This was echoed by Prof. 
Anadakrishnan when he stated that indictors like the student teacher 
ratio, journal publications and infrastructure alone do not make a 
good institute.  There should also be built-in mechanism for 
continuous self assessment and improvement.  Some examples of 
initial steps towards self assessment are efforts by universities in 
Uttar Pradesh and Anna University in Tamilnadu.  Universities in 
Uttar Pradesh on assessment found that out of the 170 engineering 
colleges under its fold about 20 of them had less than 5 percent of 
students clearing their exams showing the poor performance of these 
colleges.  Similarly when Anna University with relatively better 
standard indicators of student teacher ratio, journal publications 
and infrastructure carried out an assessment, it discovered that 
about 25 percent of the colleges have less than 5 percent pass rate 
among its students.  While universities in Andhra Pradesh which have 
nearly 500 engineering colleges among them have made no efforts 
towards self assessment or establishing a comparative rating 
mechanism.  Further the accreditation agencies have some times rated 
some the poorest colleges as having the best performance.  Hence an 
 
NEW DELHI 00003128  007.2 OF 009 
 
 
urgent need to have a clear rating mechanism either self or through 
an agency.  Most members present agreed that it was indeed very 
difficult to gauge the difference between the various institutions. 
NASSCOM the agency coordinating the interest of the ICT industries 
is now trying to evolve an all Indian assessment mechanism for 
rating the students coming under the ICT programs from various 
Institutes. 
 
--------------------------------------- 
Governance of Engineering Institutions 
--------------------------------------- 
¶19.  (U) Governance is another big issue. The publicly funded 
institutes have to put up with interference from the government at 
every step.  Majority of the privately funded institutes also suffer 
from poor management and lack of accountability.  Profit seems to be 
the only motive although they are supposed to be charitable 
institutions.  The government is proposing to set up new mechanisms 
for public private partnership in higher and technical education, 
but the modalities are still not clear.  The not-for-profit label 
associated with educational institutes seems to hinder entrepreneurs 
from investing in the education sector.  The academics present 
during the discussion wanted stricter norms, while the industry 
organizations felt that some autonomy was necessary. 
 
-------------------------- 
Industry Academic Linkages 
-------------------------- 
¶20.  (U) Technical education in India as discussed earlier has 
mainly been a pale imitation of the developed nations, rather than 
setting its own agenda.  This could be partly attributed to the fact 
that Indian industries in a closed economy were content with the 
knock down kit assembly culture.  They hardly needed to innovate, 
carry out R&D or interact with the academics.  Except for a small 
minority, allocation for R&D in most companies would be minimal. 
The academics with their knowledge of technology developments in the 
West, felt that it was beneath their dignity to work towards 
incremental development of a low end technology for industry.  Thus 
for nearly five decades there has been a complete disjoint between 
industry and the academia.  However, the opening of the economy and 
its accelerated growth, the success of the ICT industry and the 
arrival of techno-entrepreneurs has catalyzed a close partnership 
between industry and universities. 
 
¶21.  (U) This is also reflected in the number of education 
initiatives launched by Indian companies like Infosys, Tata 
Consultancy Services, Wipro and Hindustan Computers Ltd (HCL), US 
companies like Intel and EMC Corporation and industry organizations 
like FICCI, CII, NASSCOM and ISA.  They are increasingly organizing 
programs for faculty, developing new curriculum with academic 
institutions and facilitating the introduction of new courses. 
Endowed chairs funded by industries in Indian academic institutes 
are also increasing.  Industries with their new found desire to 
collaborate with academia are also looking for immediate results. 
Further, not being able to wait for the transformation to take place 
in the academia, Indian companies including the Reliance, Tata, 
Wipro, Nirma and HCL are all starting their own institutes.  Even 
government agencies associated with space, defense and atomic energy 
have started university level institutions to cater to their own 
specific needs.   The increasing engagement between the two and the 
realization from both sides that they need each other if India is to 
make any headway in the knowledge based economy is encouraging. 
 
----------------------- 
 
NEW DELHI 00003128  008.2 OF 009 
 
 
Indo - US Collaboration 
----------------------- 
¶22.  (U) Indo-US collaboration in research and education dates right 
back to the days of independence.  This includes activities in areas 
like agriculture, space and nuclear technology or joint Indo-US 
efforts in setting up of an institute like IITK and the introduction 
of Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) or the 
concept of tele-education that has helped India spread education to 
the remotest corners today.  These collaborations had US 
contribution in the form of both financial and Intellectual capital. 
 Indian scientists and researchers have always had a great 
admiration for the US academic system and research environment. 
This can be gauged from the number of Indian students, engineers, 
scientists and faculty who are working in US and those that have 
returned to India, but continue to have research linkages with the 
US.  Even though there is hardly any official mechanism for 
engagement in the area of high level research and education in the 
last two to three decades,  the recent opening up of the 
environment, availability of sufficient funds and the starting of 
innumerable institutes in India, offers immense opportunities for 
engagement.  Indian scientists and administrators believe that US 
can share its intellectual capital and the best practices of 
establishing institutes of excellence and help it create centers of 
excellences for the future. 
 
 
¶23.  (U) Prof. Dhande, Director, IITK highlighted this point when he 
said that the higher education scene in India was like a joint 
family with institutes of varying capabilities, some good and some 
not so good.  The GOI was like a patriarch supporting everyone.  It 
was a grumpy joint family with no one ready to completely break 
away.  Mediocre leadership was one of the main reasons for the poor 
performance of higher education in India.  US could help here by 
educating more administrators of Indian universities, like the 
recent program where the US Embassy Public Affairs Office supported 
visit by Indian university leaders to the US for a meeting with 
their counterparts.  Dr. Dhande also suggested the setting up of a 
"Think Tank for Education" in India where agencies like the national 
academies, USEFI and IUSSTF could facilitate interaction between the 
two countries. 
 
¶24.  (U) The SciCouns while summing up the discussion highlighted 
that the challenges faced by the two countries were similar.  He 
cited the example of the US National Academies report "Rising above 
the Gathering Storm" and Indian reports from the NKC and the Prime 
Minister's Science Advisory Council and similarities of some of the 
key challenges which include: 
- Making science and math more attractive at the school level so 
that students would take it up as a career; 
- Ensure quality along with quantity (both in the case of students 
and faculty), enhance investment in R&D (private and public); 
- Higher level of transparency in the peer review process; 
- Accelerate the rate of growth of Indian science; 
- Unshackle science from bureaucracy, and 
- Inculcate an innovation culture. 
 
--------- 
Comments 
--------- 
¶25.  (U) The massive expansion in technical education is expected to 
continue over the current Eleventh FYP and to certain extent in the 
Twelfth FYP.  Many countries including the UK, Australia, Germany 
and Canada have enhanced engagement with Indian technical institutes 
 
NEW DELHI 00003128  009.2 OF 009 
 
 
and are partnering with them in setting up of new centers of 
excellence.  Yet Indian administrative, scientific and technological 
planners believe that the US, as the global leader of intellectual 
capital, would be the best source to seek help from to set up 
sustainable centers of excellence.  The engagement could include 
planning for the formal structure of the institutes, involvement in 
developing curriculum, help in faculty training, collaborative 
research and participation in think tank activities.  This 
overwhelming interest across the spectrum offers a unique window of 
opportunity for US engagement and extension of a positive influence 
at all levels from the highest policy makers, to the academicians, 
scientists and engineers to the vast number of engineering students 
who would be beneficiaries of this.  Additionally, the US could draw 
upon all the goodwill generated and resources created for mutual 
benefits.  End Comment. 
 
MULFORD