Skill deficit
Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, recently accepted claims by Indian companies that “a significant skill gap” exists between Chinese and Indian factory supervisors and workers
Indian businesses have purchased machines from China but cannot use them productively without the help of Chinese technicians.
Rarely is there such clarity that even “low-tech”, labour-intensive production requires a deep well of expertise
Role of china
China’s experts are less expensive than those from elsewhere.
Yet, while the government has few, restrictions on international experts, it holds the Chinese back, citing national security concerns. This is a problem.
The Chinese can help India secure a foothold on the lowest rungs of the global skills’ ladder
Education
Since the government is already slow walking its promise of more visas to the Chinese, this moment must trigger action on woeful Indian education.
Without foreign technical assistance and vastly upgraded domestic education (as also in China), job-rich prosperity will remain a dream
Hindering
Chinese nationals visas, fell sharply after deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in 2020
A security-driven mindset has taken root.
This year, even the meagre 1,000 visas for Chinese electronics professionals are stuck in a “pipeline”, undergoing “intensive screening”
Foreign knowledge
East Asian economic history teaches us that foreign knowledge is pivotal but spurs development only when combined with adequately educated domestic workers.
Weak Indian education makes foreign expertise especially urgent
Chinese growth
China began its explosive growth in the early 1980s with a weaker education base than Korea’s.
However, the breadth and the quality of Chinese primary education had primed it for rapid development
Chinese school students have bettered the world’s best in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
China is at the frontiers of global technology
Western leaders, who are building trade barriers against Chinese imports with howls of unfair competition.
Such protectionism, even if dignified as “industrial policy”, will not fix the fundamental shortcomings in their education systems
Indian reality
India’s spurt in technology-related service exports during the COVID-19 years has come to a grinding halt.
Even graduates from the IITs are struggling to find jobs
A country that cannot educate its children and provide its vast millions with dignified jobs is on course to be a global economic superpower.
Foreign investors are shying away from India
India’s labour-intensive manufactured exports (goods exports minus petrochemicals and chemicals) are stuck at a 1.3% share of global markets
Way forward
If national security and self-reliance mantras block even the baby step of visas for relevant foreign experts, India will miss another opportunity for a new beginning.
With dysfunction in school and university education and an overvalued rupee, any prospect of labour-intensive manufactured exports will die again.
India must address its severely deficient human capital rather than harbouring fanciful notions of its place in the world
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