India needs brilliant minds with a research focus….

India needs a revolution in higher education. The number of world class higher educational institutions in India is very few. Research in most of the educational institutions is almost non-existent. The quality of teaching is also very average, with even the prominent institutes facing a crunch of quality faculty. Also, there is a mismatch between what the industry needs and what institutions are producing, resulting in most graduates being considered unemployable by the industry.

Take for example, engineering education in India. If India needs to make a mark in Engineering, it needs to inculcate the spirit of research and innovation amongst the students and have excellent motivating teachers. Unfortunately, there are very few quality PhD’s being produced in India each year and this is a serious issue that needs to be collectively addressed by the Government, the public and the private sector.

Unfortunately in India, there is a perception that an MBA degree is the gateway to great careers in the corporate world. Only those academically inclined need to go for MPhil’s and PhD’s. Nothing could be further from truth. In today’s knowledge economy there is a huge demand for research professionals, with research professionals, with researchers and MBAs drawing comparative salaries.

In this century of the Mind, when India is trying to emerge as a knowledge super-power, it needs brilliant minds with a research focus.

We are at the Nano and IT stage where India has to generate new ideas and concepts. India is short of quality PhDs by at least 100 times of the requirement. We cannot develop in this Knowledge economy without research.

Encouraging our youth to pursue Master’s and Doctoral level studies and open their eyes to the real prospects and rewards accruing from the same can be done only by making students’ aware about the excellent prospects available today in the field of research. Educational institutes should play a key role in bringing about that awareness.

Also students should be encouraged to make the decision according to their own orientation whether they want to be specialists or generalists, whether they want to work on their own or within a team, and whether they are inward, or outward looking. They may be able to find an answer to these questions by deeply analyzing their own approach to problems. If for instance, they prefer to go to the heart of the problem and seek its root cause; they may be more tuned to an MPhil and PhD kind of a degree. If on the other hand, they like to take a holistic view by looking at the interconnections between things, an MBA might b the correct choice.

In today’s Knowledge economy, it is becoming essential for learners to possess and inquisitive and research bend of mind to understand complex and fast changing scenarios. It is equally important to be able to apply this knowledge for problem solving using a holistic approach.

India is increasingly emerging as an R&D hub with most companies setting up their R&D facilities in India. Hence contrary to the general perception, there is a huge demand for the trained/technical professionals is being acutely felt across all industry sectors, making M. Techs and PhDs a favoured lot.