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It may seem a very distant
threat but India and China are nearing a storm which may slowly
and steadily engulf the strength of the developing nations. The
America Competes Act (Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully
Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science) passed
by United States senate can be a major legislative weapon which
may leave the Indian Human Resources in a high and dry situation.
The America Competes Act which is a
creation of a number of reports and legislation such as the
Innovative America Report ,
National Competitiveness Investment Act,
American Innovation and
Competitiveness Act of 2006 and Protecting America’s Competitive
Edge Through Energy Act of 2006 works through a tri-model
approach : (1) increasing research investment, (2) strengthening
educational opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics from elementary through graduate school, and (3)
developing innovative infrastructure in the field of education .
Through the Act the funding of
National Science Foundation has been doubled from $5.6 billion in
Fiscal Year 2006 to $11.2 billion in Fiscal Year 2011, the funding
of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will
increase from $703 million to $937 million, the basic research
facilities of NASA will be given a greater funding. Apart from
funding, the Act heavily emphasizes on the improving the existing
educational model being followed in United Sates of America,
competitive grants are being provided to align the primary,
elementary and secondary education, post-graduate programmes are
being revamped and the concept of education through
National Laboratories is being introduced to provide better scientific
training. The students are being trained in their post-graduate
courses in such a manner that they are willing to take up teaching
as a profession. Further the Advanced Placement (AP) and
International Baccalaureate (IB) programs are being heavily
expanded to bring in more people and work force under the American
purview.
What makes the
America
Competes Act unique is the innovative approach of blending
education and human resources in a single model and further
injecting it with so much of funds that the Educational
infrastructure grows automatically. In India such a piece of
legislation has never been enacted, our education programmes and
the legislations are dealing with basic educational facilities but
have not been able to implement a technique by which the already
educated citizens can be further trained. The government is
allocating funds to IITs and IIMs but is not funding the research
programmes that are being carried out by these institutions.
Whereas, the Competes Act in USA blends in education and studies
related “innovation” in public and private sector through a
council on innovation and competitiveness. The National
Laboratories of our country are not being used for training the
students and our education boards have no affiliation with
International Educational Boards. But one thing which adds a
bitter icing to the rotten cake is that we are not encouraging
students to be teachers, we are lacking a qualified teaching force
that can actually train the already educated individuals of our
country. So we are educating the uneducated masses but then we are
not tapping the aptitude of the already educated people.
With the implementation of the
Competes Act more and more students in U.S.A would be trained to
take up speciality jobs in the IT sectors and Bio-medical
industries. These areas have been dominated by Indians and Chinese
since a long –long time but with the implementation of this Act
less and less of Asians would be required. In India the age old
problem of brain drain may be slightly decreased but then the
demand for Indian Work Force would slowly decline in the
International Workforce Arena, we will see less and less visas
will be allocated to Asians in North America. No longer will an
Engineer or a Doctor or a Professor be required in the developed
countries.
In India quality academic
institutions are still working through various acts like the
Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) work as per the
Institutes
of Technology (Amendment) Act, 1963, all the policy
implementation and the funding takes place through Central
government, other than that we also have the National Institute of
Technology (NITs) which are all state funded, same pattern follows
for the medical colleges and the law colleges in India, infact the
law colleges in India are all state run with independent state
acts like National Law School of India Act (Karnataka Act 22 of
1986) for NLSIU, Bangalore and Act No. 41 of 1997 of the Madhya
Pradesh Legislature for NLIU, Bhopal .
These institutions are
providing world class facilities and training but then if all the
educational institutions are taken as a whole and a holistic
approach is taken into consideration then these educational
institutions are not exactly helping because the legislations are
focusing on microscopic minority of institutions and students and
when we see the overall quality of the policy decisions that have
been taken in the field of education then we see that the funds
allocated have been irregular and the legislations have failed to
create educational infrastructure that is actually required in
India. We have had judicial activism in the field of environmental
laws and human rights but when we talk about education the
Judiciary and the Legislations have failed to support Indian
Educational framework. If the overall educational policies in
India are revamped in the same model as provided by the Competes
Act then the present issues of ‘reservation’ and ‘affirmative
action’ can be rectified because the overall standard of education
will increase, even low profile educational institutions will
provide good standard of education and training, and we will be
able to provide a better breed of superior human recourses.
The Competes Act in United
States of America involves the State laboratories and NASA in the
educational framework, which is absolutely missing in India.
Instead of having separate pieces of legislations we must have a
single legislation which must deal with educational institutions
and human resources and merge them together to provide a better
bread of work force and create better infrastructure in the field
of education. Unlike USA, India already has all the intellect,
what is required is a superior piece of legislations which can
bind all the aspects of educational policies and create a better
intellectual fabric that competes with the world.
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The Gathering Storm Can India Safeguard Itself From The Competes
Act?
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The
author can be reached at: aditya.nliu@legalserviceindia.com /
