India‟s high economic growth has added a number of high paying jobs, especially in theservices sector. This led to a sharp increase in the demand for qualified professionals. Theeducation system responded by setting up new educational institutions and producingmillions of graduates. But Industry complains that most of them are unemployable. There is an increase in quantity but not in quality. During boom times, most of these so calledunemployable graduates are absorbed by the industry, but only after some training. But during tougher times, they would not be able to find jobs.What should we do to increase the quality standards in the education system?In the education sector, the regulations focus on the input quality– qualifications of the faculty,infrastructure facilities and the course structure and content. The aim of the regulations is to provide quality education at a cost that is not prohibitive, aiming at efficiency in providing education.It is very difficult to regulate the output quality and that is left to the market (employers) to assess. Competition in the education sector has obviously led to an increase in the output of certificates, but not an increase in quality of output. One suggestion to take competition to a new level is to permit the entry of foreign educational institutions (FEIs) intoIndia.
Do we need foreign educational institutions? A domestic institution can hire high quality people from all over the world. It can invest in world class technology– there is hardly anylead time in technology being available in India compared to international markets. It can get access to current literature through online databases. It has access to the course material and methodologies of some of the best schools in the world. With all these, it should not be difficult for domestic educational institutions to offer high quality education. But all these inputs, by themselves, cannot bring in quality. Academic learning is only partly due to the inputs...