Hire, then Higher than Higher Ed

“Indian industry isn't relying on India's education system to gain an edge. Indian industry has developed a surrogate education system that can take workers with weak educational backgrounds and turn them into world-class R&D specialists…

“India graduates around 200,000 engineers a year, but the quality of the students varies widely. India's main tech trade group, NASSCOM, says that only half of these new graduates are employable…

“Yet… India is rapidly becoming a global R&D hub in several industries. Its scientists are doing sophisticated drug discovery for Big Pharma. Its engineers are designing key components of jetliners for Boeing and Airbus, [and] developing next-generation networking equipment for companies like Cisco Systems…

“In all of the companies we studied, we found that the intense focus by senior corporate executives on implementing companywide staff-development initiatives caused dramatic improvements in productivity and performance.

“Workforce development helps to explain, for example, how IT service firms have been able to increase billing rates and productivity levels and maintain high levels of growth and profitability despite skilled-talent shortages, rising salaries, falling exchange rates, and other challenges. Employee development similarly explains how companies in India are able to hire bright but largely inexperienced talent to successfully engage in R&D and other innovation.

“The achievements of companies in India show that employee investment, development, and empowerment are central and critical means to building and sustaining long-term competitiveness and innovative capacities in a global knowledge economy. The U.S. can learn and incorporate these lessons from India as it rethinks how to train and develop its workforce to maintain its global competitive edge. U.S. companies have long played the guru. Perhaps the time has come for the guru to learn from a disciple.”

(“What the U.S. Can Learn from Indian R&D; Engineering companies in India play a leading role in educating their research employees, a practice the U.S. can adopt to help keep its global competitive edge.” Vivek Wadhwa. BusinessWeek.com: July 24, 2008)

IF PEOPLE ARE INDEED potentially your greatest asset and your greatest potential liability, then what is your best investment?

Private enterprise has always out-educated educational institutions. So let's not lose our grip on the future by loosening our grasp on where the future really lies.