How India and China can take their human capital to the next level

Education may be holding India back from emulating China’s economic trajectory, with India producing far fewer skilled workers than China

Yet while India can learn from China’s success in education, China still has strides to make in critical thinking and allowing a diversity of ideas

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Pupils gather outside a school in Hyderabad in India’s Telangana state on February 1, 2021. Photo: AFP

Winston Mok

Winston Mok, a private investor, was previously a private equity investor.

Published: 12:30am, 14 Sep 2022Updated: 1:03am, 14 Sep 2022

At the 75th anniversary of its independence, India has much to celebrate. It has surpassed the United Kingdom to become the world’s fifth largest economy, and by the end of the decade, it is poised to overtake Germany and Japan to occupy the No 3 spot.

While China’s working-age population has been declining for a decade, India’s growing population – which is set to surpass China’s next year – is young; more than half of Indians are below 30. Meanwhile, on both sides of the Atlantic are high-profile business and political leaders of Indian origin. In particular, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have produced a strong pipeline of talent for Silicon Valley.

Yet while Indians at the top of the pyramid are thriving, it is not the case all round. In August, India’s overall urban unemployment rate was 9.6 per cent. The situation is much starker among young people (more than 25 per cent were recorded as unemployed in the second quarter of 2021) and graduates (almost 18 per cent early this year), and particularly acute among women.

Scarcity of good jobs is only one side of the equation. Inadequate training has been a key contributing factor. In 2019, India’s workforce was ranked 107th for skills in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index. Alarmingly, its position is projected to further drop in the years to come.

Job candidates wait outside a packed venue after larger than anticipated numbers turned up for interviews organised by the state-run employment centre in Kochi in the Indian state of Kerala on July 8. Photo: AP

While India saw a decline in the latter half of the last decade in the number of secondary school and university graduates with competitive skill sets, China’s numbers rose in the same period.