Early Childhood Care and Education
for all Children until they complete the
age of six years.
Indian Institute of Science—in the top tier.184
Additionally, some of India’s select Institutes of Technology have also appeared in the rankings of world’s top schools over the past decade.185
These elite institutions were created by the national government, which is currently in the process of expanding their ranks from seven campuses to 15.186
The Indian government has made graduation in engineering and advanced technology a national priority area of investment. And the results are impressive so far. In the last seven years the number of four-year degrees conferred in engineering, computer science, and information technology has tripled.187 While the growth in
these fields has tripled, the number of students getting similar degrees in the United States has stagnated at lower levels and is projected to grow by less than 1 percent a year through 2020, according to the McKinsey Global Institute.188
India national plans have also guided invest- ments in the expansion of post-secondary
institutions that offer diplomas and certificates as well. These are lower level post-secondary degrees available in trades, crafts, and lesser- skilled jobs in the technology sectors. Annually about 300,000 students attend polytechnics, which typically prepare diploma level students in the engineering trades. Well over 700,000 students annually attend technical and trades training programs, and nearly 160,000 students are in apprenticeship training programs.189
Just as in China, Indian college graduates don’t all fare well in the global marketplace. These educational quality issues translate into economic challenges. A survey of multinational employers found that only 10 percent to 25 percent of the country’s college graduates were acceptable to multinational corporation’s hiring managers, according to a 2005 McKinsey & Co. survey. 190 Even in the
field of engineering, where India is thought to excel, only a quarter of the graduates were considered viable candidates for positions with these companies.191
Conclusion
Being the second most populous nation in the world gives India a significant advantage, but the nation faces serious problems as well. A significant percentage of students lack basic math and reading skills. And progress is uneven, with a larger share of poor students possessing weaker skills than students from more well-off families.192 Indian students tested
in two Indian states were found to perform among the weakest among 74 nations that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment in 2009.
Quality challenges also are so persistent from pre-K through post-secondary institutions that both the 12th Year Plans and World Bank investments are increasingly shifting from access strategies needed to boost the education sys- tem’s integrity and quality. Yet even with trou- bling quality problems, the number of Indian students who graduate with the skills needed to succeed in college far exceed the numbers of students who are doing so in the United States.
India is expected to release its next five-year plan in the fall of 2012. The 12th plan will propose even higher levels of education investment through 2018. There are signs that increased spending will target greater access to middle and high school, address the curricula and teacher quality challenges, and dramatically expand the number of top tier colleges and universities.
If India applies only a modestly more inten- sive effort to increase educational access and undertakes the hard work to boost the educa- tion system’s quality, it will produce higher quality college graduates at a much faster clip than the United States. This could enable India to make an even larger contribution to the global economy in the high-value fields of scientific research, engineering, and informa- tion technology. That will give India a greater role in precisely those sectors where experts expect economic growth to concentrate.
America’s economic prosperity historically rests on a relatively well-educated workforce. For most of the 20thcentury, the United States led the world in the percentage of college graduates between the ages of 25 and 64. This well-educated workforce served as a strong foundation for continuous innovation and pro- ductivity gains, supporting a steadily increas- ing standard of living.
But this important competitive advantage has declined in recent years as China, India, and other potential rivals have increased their invest- ment in education and human capital develop- ment. Our international competitors are intently focused on closing the education and skills gap that has allowed the United States to dominate the global economy since World War II.
This declining trajectory, however, is not set in stone. There is still time to identify the barriers that have stalled our own progress—causing us to fall to 16th in the world in the percentage of young adults earning college degrees—and then to implement new strategies to boost per- formance and develop our next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and skilled workers.
To maintain our economic position, the United States must commit to an ambitious economic strategy that invests in our children and families. American policymakers must learn from our own historical experience while also gaining insight from successful policy initiatives abroad. There is ample evidence in both contexts— domestic and international—to identify policies that will enable the United States to develop the world’s most competitive workforce and maintain its global leadership position. The first source of evidence is the success of our own middle-class and high-income families. These families have established a common pat- tern of practices that have resulted in decades of educational gains and successful employment outcomes. These practices include:
• Enrollment in early childhood education • Parental involvement in the classroom • Rich learning environments in the home • Teenage work experience
The second source of evidence is the success of policies and programs in developed countries across the Atlantic. In many cases, countries