Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Number of doctorates...

My colleague, Abi, writes in his blog about the number of Indians studying in US universities. The online newspaper, Rediff, mentions that India continues to be the the leading country to send maximum number of students to the United States for the seventh consecutive year.

Some interesting stats from the survey of earned doctorates and from articles by Gangan Prathap, Rangan Banerjee, Highered and a host of other places (all stats are for 2006)


Number of Ph.Ds awarded in USA: 45,596 (20,539 female)
Number of Ph.Ds awarded to Asians in USA: 11,706 (4,345 female)

Number of Ph.Ds awarded in USA in engineering: 7,191
Number of Ph.Ds awarded in China in engineering: 8,573
Number of Ph.Ds awarded in USA in engineering to Indians: 1,200
Number of Ph.Ds awarded in India in engineering: 925
Number of
Ph.Ds awarded in India in engineering by IIT/IISc: 434 (65 by IISc)

Number of Ph.Ds awarded in USA in chemical engineering: 893
Number of Ph.Ds awarded in USA in chemical engineering to Indians: 149 (guessing 893x1200/7191)
Number of Ph.Ds awarded in chemical engineering by IIT/IISc: 34 (0 by IISc)

The above shows that China has crossed USA in the total number of doctorates awarded in engineering. Contrast this to India, where the number of doctorates awarded to Indians in India is less than that of the number of doctorates awarded to Indians in USA.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There was an article sometime back about the 'secession of the elites' from Indian higher education system by Pratap Bhanu Mehta. It looks like even the middle class have now started to secede. If you look at the bigger picture - the total no. of students in higher ed. institutions in US, UK, Canada, Australia and Europe will be mindboggling. Make no mistake - most of them are lost forever to India. Indian higher ed and research will continue to lag behind, as even tiny countries like Singapore, Korea and Malaysia etc have started to make big strides. Meanwhile, we can start IITs, IISc etc in all major towns overnight with little planning, infrastructure and faculty and engage in fruitless arguments and debates about the need to produce more engg/sci. phDs etc. Oh I forgot about one thing - 14 brand new 'world class universities' on the anvil!

Anonymous said...

Sir, Thank you for your interesting blog.

You are asking why few people do Ph.D in IIT or IISc.

I am a ex-student of IISc. Your department and several others in IISC do not allow students to work in the favorite research area or professors. Every year, in chemistry and in your department, students are forced to work with faculty with whom they do not want and in the areas that they are not interested. My friend told me even this year chemical engineering department forced two doctorate students to work in theory while they wanted to do experiments and they were allocted research supervisors against their choice. Ph.D also takes too long in your departments..

After 6 years of working for a ph.d in an area which is not interesting and with a supervisor who is not helpful or was your choice, one gets a job that pays lesser than what I will get after a B.Tech. Why should anyone do Ph.D in IISc?

Anonymous said...

IITs Professors Should Teach in classes. Many IIT Professors only talk about teaching but do not go to classes. Only Assistant Professors teaches in the classes of IITs.
I am seeing some of the Professors who for years have not taken classes and in the name adminstration enjoys lavish spending and Official Facilities