Comments on: PhDs in India http://www.semanticoverload.com/2007/09/23/phds-in-india/ The world through my prisms Sun, 14 Oct 2012 15:46:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5 By: Semantic Overload http://www.semanticoverload.com/2007/09/23/phds-in-india/#comment-142 Semantic Overload Sun, 23 Sep 2007 17:36:10 +0000 http://semanticoverload.gaddarinc.com/?p=120#comment-142 @Abi:
To the first query about the assertion that the market for PhDs is small, I guess I need to clarify what I mean by it. Firstly, when I talk about the market for PhDs I am talking about the jobs/positions that require PhDs (and not positions for which a PhD is eligible, but a bachelors or masters graduate would do). Secondly, when I said that the market was small, I was speaking in relative terms. Relative to the market for bachelors and masters, the markets for PhDs is very small. More so in India because there is far more emphasis on the ‘Development’ part of the ‘R&D’ than ‘Research’. Now PhDs are the experts in research, and proficient in development, but masters graduates are experts in development. This is indicative of why many private companies ‘farm out’ their research to universities but keep the development work in-house. Sure you can hire a PhD to do development work (many do), but a PhDs time and worth is best served in a research position. However, for unit work of research, it takes several unit works of development (and testing) to create a product. In India, at this moment, there is a dire need for vigorous development and healthy research. It is from this observation that I conjecture that the market for PhDs is small.

As for the quality of PhDs in India, there indeed are very few institutions that have PhD programs of reputable merit. The reflection of this can be seen in many places: (1) consider the demographic of the affiliation of authors in various international journals in any field; very few of those are from India. (2) Consider the number of consulting projects from the industry and government that do come to institutions in India, they are few and far in between (lets leave out the handful of IITs, IISc, IMSc, ISI, CMI etc.). Look at a typical professors CV in India, how many such projects do you see? This is not a criticism against the faculty or the institution. This is merely an observation. In absence of such projects and investment, one cannot expect a high quality PhD program from institutions.

With regards to policy choices, what I stated in my post are merely symptoms, and reliefs from them. This problem needs a more thorough study, and our blog posts are merely crutches for such a study. It would be ludicrous to make policy choices based on these symptoms. Policy choices must address the root cause, and immediate action should address the symptoms to level the playing field.

]]> By: Abi http://www.semanticoverload.com/2007/09/23/phds-in-india/#comment-143 Abi Sun, 23 Sep 2007 15:52:11 +0000 http://semanticoverload.gaddarinc.com/?p=120#comment-143 Thanks for this discussion. I am curious about your assertion that the market for PhDs is small. Can you cite some evidence for it? I am really interested in knowing how this perception has gained ground (on my blog, Biswajit also cited this lack of a market for PhDs as a problem).

Just as I would not use a high-impact PhD from a leading institution to assume that all Indian PhDs are absolutely wonderful, may I suggest that you show similar care when you make observations that go the other way? These are clearly extremes, and policy choices cannot rely on such outliers.

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