Telecom sector to provide 10 mn jobs by 2012

Indian telecom sector will provide employment to around 10 million people by 2012, a study by PwC has said.

The telecom industry will provide about 2.8 million direct jobs and around 7 million indirect jobs by 2012, the study commissioned by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and done by PwC said.

The mobile telephony industry in India witnessed unprecedented growth of more than 700%, from having less than 1 million subscribers in 1998 to over 752 million subscribers in 2010, the study titled 'Indian Mobile Services Sector: Struggling to Maintain Sustainable Growth' said.

The industry has also played a vital role in India's growth story and the industry today contributes nearly 2% to the GDP, the study said.

The study, however, indicated that though the industry has taken significant strides in the past decade, the task of providing access to mobile services at affordable rates across the hinterlands remains incomplete.

The urban tele-density at 154% is far ahead of the rural tele-density of 34%. While this spells opportunity for the industry, significant investments will be required in order to increase reach in the rural areas.

Similarly, India's internet and broadband penetration are only around 1.6% and 0.9%, respectively. This can be explained by inadequate wireline infrastructure.

Hence, mobile broadband, which is an opportunity for providers, will require increasing investments.

"The challenges that the Indian telecom sector faces today are unique and multi-faceted and will require innovative solutions coming from operators and regulator working together," PwC India Telecom Executive Direction and Leader Mohammad Chowdhury said.

In such a scenario, Foreign Direct Investment participation and increased capital expenditures by industry participants are the need of the hour. Current trends indicate significant reversal in FDI inflows and capex outlays implying strong headwinds for the industry.

FDI in telecom sector in India was $1.7 billion in FY11, down by almost 35% compared with $2.6 billion in FY10. Investments in sector by leading operators are down 50%.

Mobile operators are experiencing declining financial performance. Increasing competition (significantly high number of operators compared to global benchmarks) has resulted in reduction in average revenues per minute to Rs 0.5 per call in FY2010 from a high of Rs 7.3 per call in FY2000.

IIT - Narayan Murthy vs Anand Kumar - Views

Murthy said the quality of students entering IITs has deteriorated over the years due to the coaching classes that prepare engineering aspirants.

http://raiseindia.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/poor-quality-of-students-entering-iits-narayana-murthy-must-read/

NEW YORK: Voicing his displeasure over the quality of engineers that pass out of the IITs, Infosys chairman emeritus N R Narayana Murthy has said there is a need to overhaul the selection criteria for students seeking admission to the prestigious technology institutions.

Addressing a gathering of hundreds of former IITians at a ‘Pan IIT’ summit here, Murthy said the quality of students entering Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) has deteriorated over the years due to the coaching classes that prepare engineering aspirants.

He said the majority of the students fare poorly at jobs and global institutions of higher education.

“Thanks to the coaching classes today, the quality of students entering IITs has gone lower and lower,” Murthy said, receiving a thundering applause from his audience.

He said apart from the top 20% of students who crack the tough IIT entrance examination and can “stand among the best anywhere in the world,” quality of the remaining 80 per cent of students leave much to be desired.

Coaching classes teach aspirants limited sets of problems, out of which a few are asked in the examinations.

“They somehow get through the joint entrance examination. But their performance in IITs, at jobs or when they come for higher education in institutes in the US is not as good as it used to be.

“This has to be corrected. A new method of selection of students to IITs has to be arrived at.”

Drawing a road map to put IITs among the top engineering institutes in the world, Murthy said it has to be ensured that IITs “transcend from being just teaching institutions to reasonably good research institutes” at par with Harvard and MIT in the next 10-20 years.

“Few IITs have done well in producing PhDs but in reality when we compare ourselves to institutions in this country, we have a long way to go,” he said.

More emphasis has to be given to research at the undergraduate level and examinations should test independent thinking of students rather than their ability to solve problems.

Murthy said in order to produce good research at IITs, the Indian government has to be persuaded to create institutions that fund research projects.

In addition, faculty members should also be evaluated annually on their research performance by an independent committee, Murthy said adding that India must shift from the tenure system for its faculty to a five year contractual appointment system.

The Infosys mentor also lamented the poor English speaking and social skills of a majority of IIT students, saying with Indian politicians “rooting against English”, the task of getting good English speaking students at IITs gets more difficult.

“An IITian has to be a global citizen and must understand where the globe is going,” he added.

Murthy also stressed the need to have the governing council of IITs made up of its alumni.

The only way IITs can become better is if 80-90 per cent of members on their governing council are alumni.

“Nobody is bothered about an institution more than its alumni. We must somehow persuade the government of India to let go of its control and make sure majority of the council members is the IIT alumni.”

Murthy urged IITians spread across the globe to work with their alma mater to ensure that IITs are among the top 10 engineering schools of the world.

He said while only a couple of IITs feature in the top 50, there should be at least five IITs in the top 10 engineering schools in the world in the next 10-20 years, he added.

Anand Kumar, who founded Super 30, Bihar's widely acclaimed free coaching centre for IIT aspirants, has blamed the institute's exam panel for the poor quality students making the cut, a concern voiced by Narayan Murthy.

Anand Kumar  said if poor quality students, as felt by Narayan Murthy, were able to get into the IITs, it was the responsibility of the joint entrance examination (JEE) committee.

He said that students went to private coaching institutes simply because they don’t find the school education system up to the mark for the JEE.

“The IITs should frame questions in such a manner that the real talent reaches there. The IITs should try to bring in greater transparency and have a proper examination pattern,” Kumar told IANS.

“It is because of the lack of knowledge about the IITs’ pattern that the students have to run around the coaching institutes to acquire that little bit extra, which makes the ultimate difference,” he said.

Anand Kumar, who welcomed the reforms announced by the IITs for the JEE, said that the students needed to be applauded, rather than criticised. It is their hard work that makes them crack arguably the toughest competition.

“Once the students reach the IITs, it is the job of the teachers there to provide the environment where they grow. Blaming the coaching institutes will not solve the problem. It is the professors and the teachers to teach in a manner that brings the best out of the students, who are from different backgrounds and social classes.” he said.

He said it was a shame that in a country like India, Hindi is plays second fiddle to English. Just because students cannot speak English, his talent can be undermined.

Addressing a gathering of hundreds of former IITians at a ‘Pan IIT’ summit in New York, Murthy said the quality of students entering IITs had deteriorated over the years due to the “coaching classes that prepare engineering aspirants”.

Anand Kumar’s Super 30 has helped many poor students from Bihar to enter the prestigious IITs. He had set up Super 30 to prepare 30 students for the IIT-JEE in 2002, providing free boarding, lodging and coaching to the selected aspirants. In the last nine years, 236 students from Super 30 have made it to the IIT-JEE.

Most of the successful candidates have been from the less privileged sections of society.

Anand Kumar, who could not go to Cambridge University in the UK for higher studies due to extreme financial constraint after the death of his father, started the Ramanujam School of Mathematics in 1992 and founded the Super 30 a decade later.

Decision Making - An important skill

Noble art of decision making is
an adaptation of an orderly
assemblage of data;
as source material obtained through
discrete or non-discrete systems.

Chaos exists as raw material
from which order is superimposed.
Order is a product of species interaction;
which consists of hierarchy between
differing species and within species.


Order is an institution which we create
ourselves; impose for universal advancement.
Truth is perceived as a series of revelations;
filtered through contemporary
conceptions defining truthsense.

If true quality is distilled true statement
attained; conformity adherence to law
is assured; integrity loyalty is guarantied;
pledging of security is prime guarantor.

There are therefore rarely, any unalterable
truths, generating dissension,
disagreement producing open conflict,
is indicator of corruptive disharmony.


Why a rational being
would belie life defies logic.
Explanation of such exhibited rational;
upon intensive investigation proves
not a scintilla of logic in prime evidence.

Accumulated wisdom and knowledge
are cultivated practiced formalized arts.
Requiring diligent symbiotic application.
True learning abhors staunch ignorance
a precocious maze by acolyte readily taken.

Life is divisible
divinely imposed order
upon an endless recycling of cells;
originating in cosmic
creation’s common star dust.

This aphorism is a concise formulaic rational
simplistically defining the meaning of life.



Terence George Craddock 

Lady Gaga

If Lady Gaga Can be Useful

http://zhaolearning.com/2011/09/11/if-lady-gaga-can-be-useful/

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga, is no doubt one of the most successful global super stars. She has over 13 millions twitter followers and 40 million Facebook fans. Her YouTube video “Bad Romance” has accrued over 411 million views and www.celebritynetworth.com estimates her net worth to be about 110 million dollars. Apparently she has something valuable to offer.

But what she can offer is of no value in the village where I grew up. Nestled in the hills of China’s Sichuan Province, the village’s only industry is farming. With all the young people gone to the cities as migrant workers, about 50 people, including my father, live in the village, which once had a total population of over 200. No resident in the village has ever heard of Lady Gaga nor would find her interesting or valuable. When I was growing up, the most valued talent was the ability to handle water buffalos used to plow the rice field, other than physical strengths to carry things such as newly harvested rice or sweet potatoes. I don’t know for sure how good a water buffalo handler she could be, but I am quite sure she will not be able to run on bumpy muddy paths with 200 pounds of sweet potatoes dangling on each end of a bamboo pole.

If she had been born in my village, she would make a lousy farmer. Moreover, what earned her the success she enjoys today would be useless, cause her terrible trouble, and bring shame to her family. To make her useful in the village, her parents would try very hard to educate her: teaching her that meat is for eating not for wearing, singing does not bring home food, no one would marry a girl with wild hair, and fetching water from the village well everyday is a good training course for learning to carry sweet potatoes.

In the same vein, I doubt that Lady Gaga would make a great worker on Henry Ford’s assembly lines. Her eccentric personality and non-conforming style would make it hard for her to follow rules and repeat the same action with precision. She could make a great Halloween appearance, but that is just once a year. So she would have been either fired on the first day on the job or educated to forget her passion, desire, and talent in music, if she could have withstood the training program.

There have been many individuals with the qualities of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta born in villages like mine in human history, but they have been “educated,” in various rigorous ways, to become anything but Lady Gaga. Out of necessity, societies and families must ensure that their future generations have the ability, knowledge, and skills to live a successful life as workers, parents, and citizens. Thus they must have an education, formal or informal, that focuses on cultivating what meets the needs of the society. For a long period of time in human history, many societies have only needed a very narrow spectrum of human talents on a large scale and a very small pool of special talents. As a result, the dominant education paradigm has been to reduce the vast diverse potentials of human talents, interests, and abilities to what the society deems as useful or employable skills and knowledge.

Such a paradigm continues today and in even more rigorous, organized, and forceful ways. Governments and other authoritative bodies work very hard to define useful skills and knowledge through curriculum, standards, textbooks, high-stakes testing, and financial investment. In the U.S., for example, whatever raises standardized test scores on math and reading is useful and valued. This is why over the last decade the majority of U.S. schools have narrowed their curriculum to the two tested subjects, many teachers have aligned their classroom instruction to what is to be tested, students who do not perform well on these tests are considered at-risk and sent to remedial programs, and schools and teachers failing to produce the required test scores are believed to a provide low quality education. This is also why instructional times for arts, music, sports, foreign languages, social studies, and science have been shortened or eliminated.

Lady Gaga proves that such a paradigm no longer works. In addition to her, the hundreds of TV channels, numerous cooking shows, millions of YouTube videos, and the explosion of jobs that never existed before are just examples of the tremendous expansion of possible ways that the full spectrum of human talents and interests can be useful and valuable. Author Daniel Pink in his insightful book A Whole New Mindproposes that traditional overlooked aptitudes–design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning—have become essential in the Conceptual Age. I don’t think these aptitudes necessarily make traditionally valued aptitudes (logic, analytic, verbal, and quantitative) less valuable. Instead they add to the list of useful and valuable talents and skills. In a similar fashion, the frequently talked about 21^st Century Skills are another way to suggest that we have arrived at an age when society can make use of the broad range of human talents and interests.

Thus, education should move beyond the paradigm of imparting in our children what government or other authorities deem useful. Instead it should work to support every individual student to become successful, help each individual to reach his/her full potential, and encourage all students to pursue their passion and interests. After all, if Lady Gaga can be useful.....

World Skills 2011

WorldSkills London 2011 - Closing Ceremony Celebrations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vptEtdmkZwY&feature=player_embedded

WorldSkills is the largest skills competition, jobs and careers event in the world. It is a competition for youth from 17 to 22 years to demonstrate their excellence in skilled professions. The competition, held in a member country every two years, is promoted and managed by WorldSkills International, formerly known as the International Vocation Training Organisation (IVTO). Started in 1950 in Spain, WSI is the lead global authority for skilled profession development, setting an international standard for excellence in trades, skilled professions and high technology. As of September 2008, WorldSkills International has 50 member countries. The most recent competition was held in WorldSkills London 2011 that took take place 5th - 8th October 2011 at ExCeL London in London's Docklands.

Governed by an international Board of Directors and administered by the WorldSkills Secretariat, WSI's mission is "...to promote, through the cooperative actions of Members, a world-wide awareness of the essential contribution that skills and high standards of competence make to the achievement of economic success and individual achievement."

Through international competitions held every two years, WSI attempts to raise awareness to the opportunities that exist in skilled professions with the intent of encouraging youth and their parents and teachers to explore career opportunities in skilled trades, skilled professions and high technology.

The WorldSkills Competition allows people from all over the world to "observe the world's best young skilled people in action" says Tjerk (Jack) Dusseldorp, President of WorldSkills International.

"The importance and opportunity for Canada to host the 40th international competition cannot be overemphasized." said Richard Walker, President and CEO of WorldSkills Calgary 2009. "Our goal is to host the best WorldSkills Competition, while offering 200,000 visitors and millions of observers from around the world an opportunity to become part of the event. We will not only stream live across the web, but we will also engage those present and virtual visitors (on the web) to become part of this historic event through interactive and hands on experiences." Walker added.

WorldSkills Calgary 2009 took place from September 1 through September 7, 2009. The event was held at Stampede Park in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. One thousand of the best skilled young people from 50 countries competed in 45 skill areas to determine who was the best of the best. More than 80,000 square meters of space was utilized during the competition and visitors and delegates from around the world occupied 30,000 hotel room nights while visiting Calgary.

The WorldSkills legacy will leave $18 million in new state-of-the art equipment after the event for youth training and education.Finally, WSI and the WorldSkills Calgary Organisation will, through education and youth awareness programs, leave a lasting legacy of awareness to the value of skills training and a career in skilled professions.

Honorary spokespersons for WorldSkills Calgary 2009 are Mike Holmes - Canadian Television personality "Holmes on Homes" and Chef David Adjey - Canadian television personality "Restaurant Make-over".

Among its main objectives are:

• Promote the exchange between young professionals from various regions of the world;
• Exchange of skills, experience and technological innovations;
• Raise the understanding in governments, education and industry to the importance of skills training.
• Raise the awareness of youth and those who influence youth to the opportunities available in skilled professions.

The young professionals who compete are selected by their respective countries, may only participate once in the WorldSkills Competition, and must be between the ages of 17 and 22 years in the year of competition.

Certificates of Achievement and medals are awarded to celebrate excellence during the competition: gold, silver and bronze, and certificates of excellence (to competitors who achieved over five hundred points).

"Knowledge is finite. It is the imagination that involves the world." Albert Einstein

"You know that your society is in peril when your entertainers are more valued than your tradesmen." Socrates

In 1946, given the need for skilled workers in Spain, the then Director-General of the Organization of Spanish Workers (OJE), Sr. Anthony Elola Olaso, realized it was necessary to create an effective system of professional training.

The idea of Olaso became a project in the hands of Antonio Almagro and Faustino Ramos, Director of the Center for Work, and awakened interests of agencies and companies where the most important centre for training Spanish, "Virgin of La Paloma," the idea embraced.

The first National Competition held in Madrid, the Spanish capital, was a success. Attended by four thousand apprentices.

But the event creators wanted more. They wanted to promote competitions that challenged competitors, showing the different levels of skill and ability of young people from other countries.

By having greater affinity, Latin American countries were invited to create an International Competition.

In 1950, with twelve young skilled competitors from Portugal and Spain, the first WorldSkills Competition was held.

Asia dominates at WorldSkills 2011 at London

http://www.themanufacturer.com/uk/content/12622/Asia_dominates_at_WorldSkills_as_misfortune_strikes_TeamUK

Despite high confidence among TeamUK trainers and mentors during the WorldSkills competition held last week in London, it seems that the best of British talent was unable to outshine foreign talent with just two UK bronze medals achieved firstly, in Mechanical Engineering Design CAD and secondly, in Welding.

These medals were taken away by Ryan Sheridan of Motherwell College (previously a gold medal winner at the EuroSkills Competition) and Jake Rambaldini of Doosan Babcock Energy Services respectively.

Mr Sheridan’s achievement was made despite chromic nerves and stress which his trainer Matt Bell of CAD Skills UK, said required medical attention during the months leading up to the competition.

Two other competitors from Japan and Switzerland took bronze medals in the Mechanical Engineering Design – CAD category at the inernational competition at London Excel. The skills test required the expert manipulation of Autodesk Inventor software in a selection of challenging design tasks.

Silver and Gold Medal in this category were won by representatives from Singapore and Brazil respectively.

Despite displaying bold confidence in their minimoto bike design, the BAE Systems team competing in the Manufacturing Team Challenge did not make it onto the medal board – just pipping Korea to come seventh out of the eight competing finalists.

Their dissappointing final placing was due to a punctured tyre which scuppered the otherwise impressive bike during the endurance challenge. Prior to this puncture the team were favorites for the silver medal behind Japan. Rachel Carr, BAE team member said: "They were the clear winners. Well done to them."

The medal tables shows that the engineering and manufacturing technologies competitions have been dominated this year by representatives from Japan, with strong presence from Korea. Outside the Far East Brazil have shown that investment in skills for its booming manufacturing industry is paying off with the South American nation gaining 7 seven medals across relevant categories.

Within Europe the best performance came from Switzerland who achieved medals in five categories including two silver medals in Construction Metal Work and Electronics.

The WorldSkills event at Excel received more than 200,000 visitors from across the UK and it is hoped the competition will have raised awareness among young people and teachers as to the opportunities available through vocational education and industrial careers.

Th Edge Foundation sponsored Team UK through their participation in the 2011 competition having supported the initial bid for London to host the event. This organisation will now be working to consolidate the enhanced profile of vocational education which the event has achieved in order to create a strong legacy. A key part of this ambition is to encourage WorldSkills alumni – past competitors – to be active in talking about the experience of representing their country on the international stage.

For full details of the medal winners at WorldSkills London 2011 go towww.worldskillslondon2011.com/info/results.

Youngsters need to be motivated towards Vocational Education

India has the largest, youngest population in the world. But it is also the most unemployable population as it lacks work skills that can make it employable.

According to a survey conducted by FICCI-Ernst & Young Paper, even though over 40 million people are registered in employment exchanges, only 0.2 million get jobs annually. Even startling is the fact that about 80% of the Indian workforce does not possess identifiable marketable skills. Equally sad is the fact that the school dropout rate in India touches 56.8% by the time students reach the qualifying examination at the 10th standard which further leads to unemployability.

The survey found that only 25% of the Indian professionals are considered “employable” by multinationals and the difficulty of employers in India to fill job vacancies has increased to 67%in 2011 compared with 16% in last year.

It is estimated that over 75% of the new jobs to be created in India will be ‘skill-based.’ While the country’s overall supply of highly skilled labour marginally exceeds demand, there is a shortage of adequately qualified (or employable) people. The study said this was primarily due to the fact that the Indian training institutions are heterogeneous in nature varying in quality of education and training provided by them.

There is also lack of focus on development of skills pertaining to the specific requirement of employers. And, there is non-recognition of the value of skilled workers by employers, particularly in the small enterprise sectors.

The report said India has many lessons to learn from international practices. Germany has 75% and the UK has 68% skilled work force compared to India which account for only 2%. It said, thus, far-reaching and deep rooted reforms were needed to emulate countries whose vocational education and training systems has been successful.

Last year, another study by FICCI had pointed out that fresh graduates who posses “soft skills” and have vocational training besides the factual knowledge provided by certification programs find jobs much more easily than to those who lack them. The survey had claimed that there was a severe crunch of good manpower in the corporate sector and only 30% employers and top bosses expressed satisfaction with the new graduates they had hired indicating fresh graduates needed to posses more than just a degree.

“60%of India’s 1.2 billion people are in the working age group. However, only 10% of the 300 million children in India between the age of 6 and 16 will pass school and go beyond. Only 5%of India’s labour force in the age group 19-24 years is estimated to have acquired formal training,” said S. Ramadorai, advisor to the Prime Minister in National Skill Development Council.

Understanding the issues, the government has already started reworking its vocational education framework to be more competitive and acceptable to the world market. Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said that since there was an acute shortage of labour at Tier 2 and Tier 3. It is anticipated that by 2020, about 220 million students will pass out from school, out of which, about 150 million will not enroll for college education.

“This young talent needs to be motivated for vocational education,” Sibal said.

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_india-has-the-most-unemployable-population-report_1587604

China's examination-focussed education approach - Survival of the Fittest

In the present environment, Americans face plenty of concerns about educational achievement. This country now ranks in the lower middle of the scores globally and, thus, will have problems competing in the world knowledge economy. America's steady decline reflects not mainly a deterioration of a never highly robust K-12 education system, but rather the improvements in other countries. This situation is alarming because the global economy does not stand still.

The recent PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) exam ranked Shanghai, China, at the top of the list for both science and mathematics. Education Secretary Arne Duncan calls the PISA results a “wake-up call.” Certainly America is sub-par when compared to many of our competitors. Yet, the results in Shanghai provide some interesting lessons, positive and negative, for the United States and other countries.

Education crazy

Multiple factors contribute to China's obsession with education. Education has long been seen as a key path to upward social mobility and professional success in China. A system encouraging youth to strive toward upward mobility by performing well on imperial civil-service exams was integral to China's culture and political economy for almost 2000 years, before it was replaced by modern college and high school entrance exams in the early 20th century. Political instability and rapid social change have interfered with normal social mobility. As a result, most Chinese children believe they can be upwardly or downwardly mobile regardless of their family background. China's one-child policy has also intensified parental investment in and aspirations for each child. However, in addition, economic reforms have increased the stakes of educational achievement by enhancing socioeconomic inequalities. Other stressors include increasing uncertainty about whether Chinese families will have sufficient pensions and health insurance benefits. Further, rapidly inflating costs of housing, education, and medical care add the pressures.

Almost every urban Chinese child is an only child who will eventually need to get a job that can support many dependents. Most such jobs, however, are only available to the small minority who score high enough on entrance exams to be accepted by key-point college-prep high schools and then highly ranked universities. Many Chinese youth cannot even get entry to any high school or college. According to UNESCO's 2008 statistics from China, only 76 per cent of high school-aged teenagers attended high school, and only 23 per cent of college-aged people in China were enrolled in college.

If only children lose out in the competition for upward mobility, their parents will have no other children to fall back on; and an impoverished only child will have no siblings to turn to for help. A single-minded obsession with educational achievement is inevitable when every child desperately wants to be a winner in an educational system where success is limited.

Admission to high schools and colleges depends on performance in the college entrance exam and the high school entrance exam but not on grades given by teachers or on extracurricular activities. Consequently, students, parents, and teachers focus almost entirely on preparing students for entrance exams, which increasingly emphasise the critical thinking skills tested by the PISA as well as the concentration and memorisation skills — the previous focus of such exams. From first grade onward, students stay in school all day, developing skills and taking practice exams to prepare them for high school and college entrance exams. They are constantly pressured by parents and teachers to perform as well as possible on tests. Evenings, weekends, and vacations are spent on homework, with intensive help from parents, relatives, and (for wealthier families) private tutors and cram schools. Unlike American teachers, whose role in assigning grades that determine students' ability to enter college makes them gatekeepers, Chinese teachers serve mainly as coaches, doing everything they can to help students attain high scores on entrance exams. Chinese teachers whose students succeed are rewarded not only with gratification for the positive result and a job well done but also with prestige, promotions, merit pay, jobs at better schools, opportunities to earn large fees as private tutors, and a lifetime of valuable connections with powerful former students who remain grateful for their help.

The Shanghai context

The factors that make Chinese children education crazy are especially strong in Shanghai, which has the highest costs of living, socioeconomic inequalities, educational attainment, and adherence to the one-child policy in China. According to the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, in 2006 almost all Shanghai children attended school from kindergarten through 12th grade, 55 per cent of high school-age students attended college-prep high schools, and 82 per cent of college-prep high school graduates enrolled in college. Shanghai is China's commercial capital and wealthiest city, with almost 20 million permanent residents. It has long been a magnet for highly motivated people seeking upward mobility and success, including top teachers from across China. Shanghai parents put their kids in preschools that teach English, math, Chinese, and other skills from the time they are toddlers, and spend as much time and money as possible for their children to attend the best preschools, primary schools, junior high schools, and colleges.

Rural schools in central and western China, in contrast, have trouble attracting and retaining qualified teachers. Children in poor rural Chinese villages spend much of their time doing farm work and chores, often cannot afford books and school fees or the extra tutoring and cram schools many urban children get, and are tempted to drop out of school to pursue low-skill work opportunities in cities like Shanghai. The largest educational inequalities in China are not between different groups within cities, as in the United States but, rather, between cities and rural villages — many of which lack electricity and running water. According to the China Population Information Center, 53 per cent of China's population was rural in 2009.

Test obsessed

The timing of the international PISA test is particularly fortuitous for Shanghai students. It happens that at the end of ninth grade (when most students are 15 — the age at which the PISA test is given), a high-stakes test in China determines which high school a student will attend. In many ways, the high school entrance test is the most important exam of a Chinese citizen's life. Children are less likely to have more than one chance at the high school entrance examination, both because of bureaucratic obstacles to allowing students to repeat the examination and because parents and children fear that children who enter high school at much older ages than their peers may face devastating social stigma.

In Shanghai, as in most of China, every high school has a particular rank in a pyramidal hierarchy. High school entrance exam scores determine which high school a student can attend. The top elite college-prep high schools have the most funding, attract the best teachers and students, admit only the highest-scoring students, and prepare them to attend the top universities in China and abroad. Students who attend lower-ranked college-prep high schools are rarely able to gain admission to top universities, though most can get into lower-ranked regular and adult education colleges. Students who study at vocational high schools instead of college-prep high schools spend much of high school preparing for low-paid service and technical jobs instead of college entrance exams, and some do not even learn enough skills to qualify for the adult education colleges for which they are eligible.

What does it all mean?

It is not at all surprising that Shanghai students scored so well. They are primed for test taking and competitive schooling. They have spent a lot of time studying and have had great family support — and pressure — for education. One should also keep in mind that Shanghai does not typify China — as much of the country lags far behind the prosperous coastal cities.

The Shanghai results show that investment in education, by parents, society, and the students themselves yields results on tests and in the acquisition of knowledge. Family support is a key factor. Everyone realises that educational achievement is central to an individual's success and that there are few “second chances.” It is in some ways a Darwinian “survival of the fittest” mentality in the schools.

Some observers in China have recognised that lockstep test-oriented education may not produce young people well adapted to the complexities of the new knowledge economy. Liberal education is being added to the university curriculum in a few places, and test obsession is being criticised. Does the U.S. want to embrace the traditional China's examination-focussed education approach at the same time rigidity is being questioned in China?

(Vanessa L. Fong is associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. Philip G. Altbach is Monan professor of higher education and director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College.)

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article970521.ece