In the current scenario of COVID, the corporate world is facing multiple challenges. One of them is to reduce over-dependency on China. This is leading to finding alternative destinations for the production units in China to Other Countries is happening in the rapid pace. A recent news article says around 1000 organizations are in the process of discussion with the government of India. With so much happening, this became an exciting topic for discussion across business and media houses.
The availability of more young work-force with less labor cost and the government's willingness to listen and adopt policies to fulfill the needs of corporates are strengths of India.
This gives India to be considered as one of the favorite destinations to move ventures from China to India. Without any doubt, this is also an excellent opportunity for our country India.
IPR Violation, Human Rights, Stricter Government Policies, Government Surveillance, etc are the existing challenges in organizations in China. The availability of work-force with less cost was one of the major factors for which China had become one of the favorite destinations even above challenges exists. But in recent times the cost is also getting increased in China.
On-top of the above: In the current COVID scenario, firms are analyzing the impact of the over-dependency of having production units in China. MNC Firms are getting encouragement from their home countries to move or to check for alternatives.
Many countries like Japan are encouraging the movement of Japan-based industries to come out of China. The recent announcement from the Japan Government where it is ready to spend over $2 billion to help its country's firms move production out of China. This is one of the many examples.
There are multiple countries that are waiting in the frontline to grab this opportunity to welcome organizations that are considering moving from China. The recent trade war between the US and China created a similar situation. From the Nomura study, between April 2018 and August 2019 in 56 firms that relocated from China 26 went to Vietnam, 11 to Taiwan, and 8 chose Thailand. In these 56 only 3 firms chosen India [1].
This time not to lose to grab the major pie, the government of India is moving the steps aggressively. Govt.of India’s recent announcement of Corporate Tax Cut from 30% to 22%. The Government of India is developing a land pool nearly double the size of Luxembourg to lure businesses moving out of China. This land pool size is around 4.5 Lakh Hectares [2]. This shows the determination and aggressiveness of how much India is trying to attract the organizations and get most of this opportunity.
Policies, Cost, availability of appropriate Workforce are few important strategic pillars for a country to be chosen while establishing an organization.
I would like to put forth my view which explains our country's readiness in terms of grabbing the opportunity. This article is more focussed on the availability of an appropriate workforce with relevant skills/experience. Let me start with Part-1 which explains the Hierarchical Educational System in India.
Section-1 Buckets and Bridges in Hierarchical Academic System: Prima Facie
Note: Kindly note that Medical Sciences related courses like M.B.B.S and M.S are not considered in the above diagram. It is an Eagle view.
If we call each of the above blue boxes as a Bucket, there is a hierarchy of the courses. There are bridges across buckets. This helps the student to choose an academic progression. These combinations of bridges and buckets will show the options to progress.
Another observation that needs to be discussed here is: In the above picture, based on financial/intelligence/academic-excellence/affordability students have multiple options to choose from. There are bridges to meet from one end to another end of the carrier bridge. This helps everyone to have academic progression by improving/correcting in achieving one’s ambitions.
Investments for Infrastructure and Faculty are different for each course(Bucket). This helps the institutions get established in Tier1 to Tier3 Cities.
Having a different hierarchical structure of buckets will also produce different levels of workforce with different levels of requirements like salary expectations, place of work, cost of living.etc.,
This hierarchical availability will also facilitate the industries in Tier-1 to Tier-3 cities based on the available workforce professionals.
Because of the wide variety of buckets, it will also make workforce availability across domains like Electronics, Electricals, Manufacturing, Management, Accounting, Research, Arts, Academicians, scholars, etc., if we consider each of these as a different Vertical.
There is no model that is Realistic and fool-proof. So, this model also had a few anomalies like lack of availability of highly Expertise workforce if required in lakhs, aspirants vs availability of seat ratio were too high, etc.,
Section-2: Evolution in Engineering Education
In the 1990s globalization happened in India under the leadership of PV. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh ruling times. This opened up India to world markets and top-tier organizations to open their establishments in India.
There was an explosion in the availability of employment opportunities in India. But the requirements were for Engineering professions. In further years, the requirements for expertise professionals saw a surge. The majority of the jobs created by MNCs were falling into the high-paid category. The states which had the establishments from MNCs were able to increase the revenue taxes to the state and raised higher revenues.
This created competition across the states in India. Governments started easing the processes to welcome the MNCs. The governments also started giving too many approvals for many colleges. This opportunity got used by many local entrepreneurs and led to the creation of colleges like mushrooms which serves mostly into making engineering graduates.
The managing institutions like AICTE were not updating the course content which serves the industry’s requirements and needs. No strict checking or monitoring was happening towards the colleges. This led to many college managements to flout rules and exploit the opportunities by employing non-experienced lecturers, poor infrastructure. AICTE's outdated course content made the passed out engineers less efficient.
The continuous increase of Engineering seats in India grown into lakhs, the highest peak stands at 1.7 million in 2014. Currently, the total number of seats is approximately 1.4 million Engineering seats in India. The states Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh .has more than 1+ lakh of Engineering seats, Tamil Nadu has nearly 2+ Lakhs seats. These few states are contributing more than 60% of the total country’s seats. Considering the Lucrative profit opportunities by establishing Engineering colleges, private funds moved into making Engineering colleges. This also helped to increase the number of colleges.
Below is the picture which is from the AICTE website[3] show the progression of the number of seats across the years. In the 2014-15 year, 1.7 million Engineering seats available with 3400 colleges. The highest number of Seats.
The availability of more young work-force with less labor cost and the government's willingness to listen and adopt policies to fulfill the needs of corporates are strengths of India.
IPR Violation, Human Rights, Stricter Government Policies, Government Surveillance, etc are the existing challenges in organizations in China. The availability of work-force with less cost was one of the major factors for which China had become one of the favorite destinations even above challenges exists. But in recent times the cost is also getting increased in China.
On-top of the above: In the current COVID scenario, firms are analyzing the impact of the over-dependency of having production units in China. MNC Firms are getting encouragement from their home countries to move or to check for alternatives.
Many countries like Japan are encouraging the movement of Japan-based industries to come out of China. The recent announcement from the Japan Government where it is ready to spend over $2 billion to help its country's firms move production out of China. This is one of the many examples.
There are multiple countries that are waiting in the frontline to grab this opportunity to welcome organizations that are considering moving from China. The recent trade war between the US and China created a similar situation. From the Nomura study, between April 2018 and August 2019 in 56 firms that relocated from China 26 went to Vietnam, 11 to Taiwan, and 8 chose Thailand. In these 56 only 3 firms chosen India [1].
This time not to lose to grab the major pie, the government of India is moving the steps aggressively. Govt.of India’s recent announcement of Corporate Tax Cut from 30% to 22%. The Government of India is developing a land pool nearly double the size of Luxembourg to lure businesses moving out of China. This land pool size is around 4.5 Lakh Hectares [2]. This shows the determination and aggressiveness of how much India is trying to attract the organizations and get most of this opportunity.
Policies, Cost, availability of appropriate Workforce are few important strategic pillars for a country to be chosen while establishing an organization.
I would like to put forth my view which explains our country's readiness in terms of grabbing the opportunity. This article is more focussed on the availability of an appropriate workforce with relevant skills/experience. Let me start with Part-1 which explains the Hierarchical Educational System in India.
Section-1 Buckets and Bridges in Hierarchical Academic System: Prima Facie
Note: Kindly note that Medical Sciences related courses like M.B.B.S and M.S are not considered in the above diagram. It is an Eagle view.
If we call each of the above blue boxes as a Bucket, there is a hierarchy of the courses. There are bridges across buckets. This helps the student to choose an academic progression. These combinations of bridges and buckets will show the options to progress.
Another observation that needs to be discussed here is: In the above picture, based on financial/intelligence/academic-excellence/affordability students have multiple options to choose from. There are bridges to meet from one end to another end of the carrier bridge. This helps everyone to have academic progression by improving/correcting in achieving one’s ambitions.
Investments for Infrastructure and Faculty are different for each course(Bucket). This helps the institutions get established in Tier1 to Tier3 Cities.
Having a different hierarchical structure of buckets will also produce different levels of workforce with different levels of requirements like salary expectations, place of work, cost of living.etc.,
This hierarchical availability will also facilitate the industries in Tier-1 to Tier-3 cities based on the available workforce professionals.
Because of the wide variety of buckets, it will also make workforce availability across domains like Electronics, Electricals, Manufacturing, Management, Accounting, Research, Arts, Academicians, scholars, etc., if we consider each of these as a different Vertical.
There is no model that is Realistic and fool-proof. So, this model also had a few anomalies like lack of availability of highly Expertise workforce if required in lakhs, aspirants vs availability of seat ratio were too high, etc.,
Section-2: Evolution in Engineering Education
In the 1990s globalization happened in India under the leadership of PV. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh ruling times. This opened up India to world markets and top-tier organizations to open their establishments in India.
There was an explosion in the availability of employment opportunities in India. But the requirements were for Engineering professions. In further years, the requirements for expertise professionals saw a surge. The majority of the jobs created by MNCs were falling into the high-paid category. The states which had the establishments from MNCs were able to increase the revenue taxes to the state and raised higher revenues.
This created competition across the states in India. Governments started easing the processes to welcome the MNCs. The governments also started giving too many approvals for many colleges. This opportunity got used by many local entrepreneurs and led to the creation of colleges like mushrooms which serves mostly into making engineering graduates.
The managing institutions like AICTE were not updating the course content which serves the industry’s requirements and needs. No strict checking or monitoring was happening towards the colleges. This led to many college managements to flout rules and exploit the opportunities by employing non-experienced lecturers, poor infrastructure. AICTE's outdated course content made the passed out engineers less efficient.
The continuous increase of Engineering seats in India grown into lakhs, the highest peak stands at 1.7 million in 2014. Currently, the total number of seats is approximately 1.4 million Engineering seats in India. The states Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh .has more than 1+ lakh of Engineering seats, Tamil Nadu has nearly 2+ Lakhs seats. These few states are contributing more than 60% of the total country’s seats. Considering the Lucrative profit opportunities by establishing Engineering colleges, private funds moved into making Engineering colleges. This also helped to increase the number of colleges.
Below is the picture which is from the AICTE website[3] show the progression of the number of seats across the years. In the 2014-15 year, 1.7 million Engineering seats available with 3400 colleges. The highest number of Seats.
This completes the Part-1 of this Topic.
In the next part, I would like to explain:
- How the focus on one Bucket distorted the Academic Hierarchy.
- What changes are required to capitalize on these kinds of opportunities?
Your Thoughts are Welcome.
References:
References:
[2]https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/companies-exit-china-after-coronavirus-india-gets-ready-to-attract-them-offers-land-larger-than-luxembourg/1947825/
[3]https://facilities.aicte-india.org/dashboard/pages/dashboardaicte.php
[3]https://facilities.aicte-india.org/dashboard/pages/dashboardaicte.php
