30 ms·

Fascinating. Currently our (UK) Prime Minister is in India trying to sell our universities (amongst a lot of other things) to Indian students. Lovely bit of in

by alan_cx 14y ago

Fascinating. Currently our (UK) Prime Minister is in India trying to sell our universities (amongst a lot of other things) to Indian students. Lovely bit of inter-cultural exchange right? Generally speaking, yes, absolutely. The more the merrier as far as I am concerned. However... Back here in the UK, the very same PM has trebled the costs of going to university for English and Welsh students, pricing many out, raised the education thresholds meaning less students can qualify, while he is supported by racist right wing tabloid Murdoch press who hate immigration, foreigners and most of all dark skins who threaten middle class house prices. Oh yeah, our right wing is that racist. Yet there he is offering unlimited places for rich Indians who can afford UK universities, while clearly snubbing Indian education. If proof of a substandard Indian education system were needed, the rich flocking to the UK for it will do the mass Indian population nicely. So, here we have our PM pricing out his own country's students, claiming immigration is out of control and evil, while offering to open the flood gates to Indian rich kids who can afford UK education, while snubbing their own, which clearly has its problems as shown by this article. While I personally am all for immigration, (and believe me Indians in particular have done the UK proud, and me personally, so much so I argue they are more British than us fairly useless white lot) I cant quite work out how this all plays out for both the Brits and Indians. Seems like a perfect slap in the face to both of us. This whole thing is a bizarre contradiction to me. If we in the UK really wanted to help India out, perhaps we could have out flag ship universities help the Indian education department (whatever) improve its own situation. Er, freely share our education knowledge. Oh.... Freedom of information. Can't have that, can we? Anyway, I'm a bit confused by the whole thing. And I can't help thinking our PM is making it worse, mostly for the Indians. If the cream of their crop flock here, then where does that leave their education system? If Indians fill out the university places left by Brits who can no longer afford it, where does that potentially leave race relations in the UK? Oh, last thought. What if these students stay on afterwards? Brilliant for us, but aren't we then brain draining India? Again, at a detriment to them? Yup, confused. (For Brits reading... yes I know Scotland's education is separate.)

shared4you 14y ago
It's like this: * Indian PoV: I get to study abroad, make more money and increase my social prestige. * UK PoV: Indians bring in a lot of money, making our country even richer. Let's have more of them. In short, it's all about money, not about education or freedom of information.
gnufied 14y ago
Just to set facts straight - for best of Indian students UK hasn't been destination of choice for higher studies (for awhile I think). I come from one of the top 10 engineering universities and none in my batch selected UK for higher education. I repeat None. It may sound little weird, but the reason UK, Australia and New Zealand universities needs selling in India is because "it needs selling". UK isn't attracting brightest Indians (probably just richer students), it is US that gets best of them. As for India's education system - it is meh agreed. But I believe our undergrad (read B.S) is just fine. It is higher education and research facilities where we have done a thorough whack job. But this won't be fixed overnight. Problem starts from rather poor salary of university professors, little research grants and last but not the least, smart people attract other smart people. Brain drain[1] indeed is a problem for us, but the problem will need fixing by improving quality of higher education. 1.http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-brain-trade http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-bra...
- sk5t 14y ago
  One could expect engineering students to stick to top Indian schools and a few in the US, but someone interested in law, history, humanities, etc., would have a very difficult choice between Oxbridge and anywhere else at all.
- easternmonk 14y ago
  "But I believe our undergrad (read B.S) is just fine." - That is not true.
  - adamnemecek 14y ago
    Could you elaborate on that (I know nothing about the Indian education)? I was under the impression that the IITs were good. Would you disagree with that? Or is it that there is a couple of schools which are good but the rest is so-so.
    - eshvk 14y ago
      The IITs take a bunch of smart people in. These are people who have the necessary drive, intelligence to succeed in any environment. That doesn't necessarily mean the institute itself is good or something. As far as the rest of education system, my experience was that rote memorizing was encouraged and people were not necessarily taught how to think or even encouraged how to think. I dunno, maybe it is a cultural thing but I didn't like it.
burkean 14y ago
> here in the UK, the very same PM has trebled the costs of going to university for English and Welsh students, pricing many out As far as I was aware, under the new scheme, graduates only start paying back their student debt once (and only if) their income crosses a certain threshold. That seems like a fairly good deal to me--a crude approximation of saying 'you only pay for your degree if you get financial value from it'. > This whole thing is a bizarre contradiction to me. I agree that education is a special case within international trade. But I do think that it is a matter for India and not Britain to curtail the ability of Indians to study abroad, if India believes that is (a) fair, and (b) beneficial to their domestic education system. I don't find it at all bizarre or morally perverse that the PM should act as a cheerleader for influential domestic interests such as our higher education system, especially when full fee-paying international students effectively subsidise UK students. And I've never seen Cameron say he wishes to reduce the number of fee-paying foreign students attending accredited UK institutions. And a also disagree with the implication in your comment that the UK general taxpayer subsidies higher education too little. More higher education than a free market would provide is beneficial, but after a certain point the net benefit to society of the next marginal student buying subsided education would be less than the added public benefit. If you watch the front page of HN, there's occasionally an article or two about a higher education bubble; people are (probably) already buying more education (and certainly in some sectors if not others) than the job market can stand. I like the idea of free education as a 'right', naturally or socially constructed. But moving towards that reality in Britain has to come from innovation slashing the marginal cost of education, and in the short term, by increasing the number of full fee-paying foreign students. Allocating revenue or large tax rises to up the number of students in higher education are going to be politically infeasible for at least a generation. (Not forgetting the looming demographic crisis on top of the current downturn.)
- _delirium 14y ago
  graduates only start paying back their student debt once (and only if) their income crosses a certain threshold Interesting, I had missed this (but I'm not British, so haven't been following closely). It looks like the new scheme defers repayment if you earn less than £21,000 (US$32,500), and then it further caps annual payments to 9% of your income that exceeds that amount.
sultezdukes 14y ago
(and believe me Indians in particular have done the UK proud, and me personally, so much so I argue they are more British than us fairly useless white lot It seems to be ideological where that type of thinking comes from.
- eshvk 14y ago
  Yes, I am uncomfortable with the implied reverse racism here too (Not sure if that was OP was intent...).
sandGorgon 14y ago
>If the cream of their crop flock here, then where does that leave their education system? If Indians fill out the university places left by Brits who can no longer afford it, where does that potentially leave race relations in the UK? This is a solved problem. You see, England was never as aspirational as Silicon Valley for Indians in general - and that immigration has been going on for many decades. Reverse brain drain (going abroad, studying and coming back) is something that both India amd China have engineered very successfully. We have awards for distinguished Non Resident Indians given by the Prime Minister which, I daresay, is designed for nostalgia. IMHO no other country makes such a big deal of its non resident citizens. This is precisely one of the reasons that Obama is trying to introduce the startup bill - Indian and Chinese immigrants are very happy going back and starting companies at home. I think Cameron is responding to the US and Australian attraction for Indian students. England is least preferred anyway because of the racism (a couple of Australian incidents font make it as bad as England).

by alan_cx 14y ago

shared4you 14y ago

It's like this: * Indian PoV: I get to study abroad, make more money and increase my social prestige. * UK PoV: Indians bring in a lot of money, making our country even richer. Let's have more of them. In short, it's all about money, not about education or freedom of information.

gnufied 14y ago

Just to set facts straight - for best of Indian students UK hasn't been destination of choice for higher studies (for awhile I think). I come from one of the top 10 engineering universities and none in my batch selected UK for higher education. I repeat None. It may sound little weird, but the reason UK, Australia and New Zealand universities needs selling in India is because "it needs selling". UK isn't attracting brightest Indians (probably just richer students), it is US that gets best of them. As for India's education system - it is meh agreed. But I believe our undergrad (read B.S) is just fine. It is higher education and research facilities where we have done a thorough whack job. But this won't be fixed overnight. Problem starts from rather poor salary of university professors, little research grants and last but not the least, smart people attract other smart people. Brain drain[1] indeed is a problem for us, but the problem will need fixing by improving quality of higher education. 1.http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-brain-trade http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-bra...

sk5t 14y ago
One could expect engineering students to stick to top Indian schools and a few in the US, but someone interested in law, history, humanities, etc., would have a very difficult choice between Oxbridge and anywhere else at all.
easternmonk 14y ago
"But I believe our undergrad (read B.S) is just fine." - That is not true.
- adamnemecek 14y ago
  Could you elaborate on that (I know nothing about the Indian education)? I was under the impression that the IITs were good. Would you disagree with that? Or is it that there is a couple of schools which are good but the rest is so-so.
  - eshvk 14y ago
    The IITs take a bunch of smart people in. These are people who have the necessary drive, intelligence to succeed in any environment. That doesn't necessarily mean the institute itself is good or something. As far as the rest of education system, my experience was that rote memorizing was encouraged and people were not necessarily taught how to think or even encouraged how to think. I dunno, maybe it is a cultural thing but I didn't like it.

burkean 14y ago

> here in the UK, the very same PM has trebled the costs of going to university for English and Welsh students, pricing many out As far as I was aware, under the new scheme, graduates only start paying back their student debt once (and only if) their income crosses a certain threshold. That seems like a fairly good deal to me--a crude approximation of saying 'you only pay for your degree if you get financial value from it'. > This whole thing is a bizarre contradiction to me. I agree that education is a special case within international trade. But I do think that it is a matter for India and not Britain to curtail the ability of Indians to study abroad, if India believes that is (a) fair, and (b) beneficial to their domestic education system. I don't find it at all bizarre or morally perverse that the PM should act as a cheerleader for influential domestic interests such as our higher education system, especially when full fee-paying international students effectively subsidise UK students. And I've never seen Cameron say he wishes to reduce the number of fee-paying foreign students attending accredited UK institutions. And a also disagree with the implication in your comment that the UK general taxpayer subsidies higher education too little. More higher education than a free market would provide is beneficial, but after a certain point the net benefit to society of the next marginal student buying subsided education would be less than the added public benefit. If you watch the front page of HN, there's occasionally an article or two about a higher education bubble; people are (probably) already buying more education (and certainly in some sectors if not others) than the job market can stand. I like the idea of free education as a 'right', naturally or socially constructed. But moving towards that reality in Britain has to come from innovation slashing the marginal cost of education, and in the short term, by increasing the number of full fee-paying foreign students. Allocating revenue or large tax rises to up the number of students in higher education are going to be politically infeasible for at least a generation. (Not forgetting the looming demographic crisis on top of the current downturn.)

_delirium 14y ago
graduates only start paying back their student debt once (and only if) their income crosses a certain threshold Interesting, I had missed this (but I'm not British, so haven't been following closely). It looks like the new scheme defers repayment if you earn less than £21,000 (US$32,500), and then it further caps annual payments to 9% of your income that exceeds that amount.

sultezdukes 14y ago

(and believe me Indians in particular have done the UK proud, and me personally, so much so I argue they are more British than us fairly useless white lot It seems to be ideological where that type of thinking comes from.

eshvk 14y ago
Yes, I am uncomfortable with the implied reverse racism here too (Not sure if that was OP was intent...).

sandGorgon 14y ago

>If the cream of their crop flock here, then where does that leave their education system? If Indians fill out the university places left by Brits who can no longer afford it, where does that potentially leave race relations in the UK? This is a solved problem. You see, England was never as aspirational as Silicon Valley for Indians in general - and that immigration has been going on for many decades. Reverse brain drain (going abroad, studying and coming back) is something that both India amd China have engineered very successfully. We have awards for distinguished Non Resident Indians given by the Prime Minister which, I daresay, is designed for nostalgia. IMHO no other country makes such a big deal of its non resident citizens. This is precisely one of the reasons that Obama is trying to introduce the startup bill - Indian and Chinese immigrants are very happy going back and starting companies at home. I think Cameron is responding to the US and Australian attraction for Indian students. England is least preferred anyway because of the racism (a couple of Australian incidents font make it as bad as England).