Education and Jobs, a China-India Study

All roads lead to Rome. All supply chains lead to China. As the global mood changed and such heavy dependence on China began to be perceived as a risk, it was also clear that total decoupling from Chinese manufacturing was impossible. Hence the West has started aiming for what is called “China + 1” policy (China + one other major manufacturing country).

 

This was considered an opportunity for many countries to get manufacturing jobs, including India. But while India has benefited only a little, Vietnam has benefited a lot. Why? The biggest reason turns out to be that Vietnam has a much better work force relevant to manufacturing. India does not, and its poor primary education system is a major cause for that. Which raises the question as to why India’s primary education system is so much worse?

 

While looking into that question, I found Apurva Kumar’s post comparing China and India’s education systems. In 1950, both countries had a literacy level of around 20%. China’s focus became primary education and mass literacy. It began to build secondary and tertiary education only later.

“This sequential approach ensured that each educational level was adequately developed before moving to the next.”

China also focussed on vocational education, and most importantly this education was aligned with labour market needs. This created a virtuous cycle early – since the education was useful and relevant, Chinese stayed in school much longer than the average Indian in that era. The vocational training also prep’ed people well for manufacturing jobs. To sum it up, China took a bottom-up approach to education.

 

India, on the other hand, took a top-down approach to education. Its initial focus was on high quality tertiary education, which translated into a good service industry later (IT, BPO etc). Education reforms stemmed from government mandates without sufficient grassroots involvement or infrastructure. Vocational training has been of poor quality with little relevance to the labour market.

 

To summarize, China has adjusted its education system and focus based on changing labour market needs. Manufacturing jobs first, then design and development jobs, and finally research oriented ones. These graphs capture that aspect via a comparison of China and India.

It is not just the raw numbers and percentages. In China, the fields in which people graduated changed over time – increase in engineering and technical disciplines initially, and more recently, an increase in law, economics and management courses. The pattern is that it aligns with the job market. In India, on the other hand, the pattern has held steady since 1897 – 60% has been for arts and law, “despite India's reputation as a "land of engineers”!

“The higher share of engineering graduates in China has been linked to its rapid industrialization and economic growth.”

Whereas:

“In India, the predominance of humanities graduates may contribute to a mismatch between educational outcomes and labour market needs. The limited focus on engineering and vocational training has implications for the country's ability to compete in sectors that require technical expertise.”

 

The paper on which this post was based therefore recommends India needs to (1) evaluate which area to invest more in – primary or tertiary education? and (2) align vocational training with labour market needs.