Success of BPOs and KPOs: A reward for mediocrity?

For so long, Indian educationists have been lamenting the sorry state of affairs in the education sector of India. The level of research work has no doubt been lowly and meagre compared to other developing countries.

Says Kaushik Basu, in a BBC column

There is not a single Indian university in top 300 worldwide, China has atleast six. (On the other hand, )India's production of professionals is phenomenal. With over 300 universities and 15,600 colleges spewing out 2.5 million graduates each year, in terms of the volume of production India trails behind only the US and recently China.

We do have the quantity, but the quality has tied us down to menial tasks, serving as a labourforce for MNCs abroad. The kind of work that goes into a regular call centre, may be financially rewarding, but stifles the creativity of individuals at the same time. Whats sadder is to see engineers taking up such jobs with no regard to their scientific knowledge going to waste. This is a symptom of our flawed education system, where we claim to produce technical workforce numbering in millions, but fail to provide quality skillsets to them, in accordance with the industry, thereby leaving no option for these graduates in multitudes, but to move towards callcentres. Its a different matter, though, that most of these graduates, work hard to move up in the hierarchy, or get an MBA, for a better deal. The point, however remains, that the mediocre education system in India, has actually helped us in creating a success out of outsourcing. For how long, only time can tell. Coz, there are hardly any barriers here for other developing countries to come up and take away chunks of the international market from India. All this, at a time, when Indian youth is poised to be 850 million strong by 2020.

Time for action, I guess! Innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship are the ways out. But education, has to pitch up, lest we become a country of mediocres.