Are American & the Rest of the World Behind India's Education?

Are we behind Indian's education? I have never heard of the Indian Institute of Technology until by accedidentally searching for Illinois Institute of Technology on YouTub.com by typing IIT. After watching the documentary of this IIT, I was shocked that IIT is the hardest institute in the world. Some people apply to Ivy league school for backup. The acceptance rate is 2% compares to Harvard University is 10%.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJuSL96MIkU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb-wg-7NQPU

What is your opinion? Are Indian smarter than the rest of the world?

 

I've had the pleasure to study under and with some Indians, Pakistanis and Kashmiris. They were a smart lot and generally hard-working. I wouldn't say smarter though.

Incidentally, my C programming lecturer was a Pakistani who worked on Pakistan's rocket program (or one thereof). He used to tell us how they spent 6 months going through the assembly code of missile guidance software the Chinese had sold them. It seems the Chinese had introduced a bug in the software prior to selling it. Anyway, they got it, so they must have been quite persistent.

 

Re: Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)

According to Wikipedia, it’s actually less than two percent acceptance (1.87%, e.g., 7500 accepted out of 400K applicants); but wouldn’t know whether Indians are overall more intelligent than the rest of the world ... wouldn’t that be virtually impossible to gauge?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Technology

 

The individual who started Sun Microsystems is an IIT grad, that says a lot. I would say that one school does indeed put us to shame. But that doesn't mean that their entire education system is superior to ours. IMO

 

For whatever reason, the Chinese and the Indians have never been able to become the worlds superpowers, despite their alleged advantages. The world's largest economy until 1890 was China's. Why wasn't China a domineering superpower? Answer: because there are other dynamically changing variables that Chinese eggheads and Indian eggheads can't encapsulate, either qualitatively or quantitatively. They are systematically unable to determine the Source of national blessings. The Source is a man who rose from the dead e.g. the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone raises up kingdoms -- and brings down kingdoms. All blessings come from Him.

The nations that have most successfully proselytized for Jesus have been the most blessed. Conversely, the nations that have proselytized all other religions have remained destitute, for the most part. India worships multiple gods. Red China is communist. Africa worships multiple gods. Take a look and please notice that the nations that have espoused the Lord Jesus Christ are the most blessed. Having said that, blessings come and blessings go. If the U.S. ever fully jettisons Christian principles and beliefs, then America too can fall into poverty, just as China and India have experienced for hundreds of years, despite the size of their economies.

So where do blessings (prosperity & wealth) come from? They either come from you -- or from your Creator!

 

Well, this is more of a political post, and I'm a not a Christian so I may not qualify as enlightened in this grandiose scheme of yours but it seems to me, if we were to try to find religious roots of the prosperity of nations, the ones doing best right now are Protestant nations. I'm sure someone could chime in with the discussion of Protestant work ethics etc. as I am not really an expert in the field. Latin America seems pretty Christian to me as well as several other not as well developed parts of the world.

One may however wonder, if even just at a philosophical level, at what kind of overall quality of life people in these diverse regions have. For example, India, it seems, has you squarely beat on divorce rates.

http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsWorld.shtml

Percentages for second and third marriages in the US are even worse.

 

Very good points!

 

Right on. I think of this often as I watch our country decline.

 

Deeply saddened

I am deeply saddened to agree with you.

 

Five times the population, 1/5th the acceptance rate. Seems about right.

I'm sorry but religiosity of a nation or region correlates to higher crime, higher prison population, higher teen birth rates, lower income., lower average IQ, and more to your point, countries with higher religiosity have LOWER wealth. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/2275614130/

Look at the high divorce rates and imprisonment rates of the "bible belt." How about the fact that less than 1% of prisoners are atheists.

I know this is a very touchy subject around here considering the high number of conservative Christians here that homeschool their children.

 

I do not think Indians are smarter than the rest of the world, although most of them are surely smarter than I am.

Depends on how you look at it I suppose:

India ranks second last in Quality Education

Bill Gates thinks Americans are stupid as well, that is why he wants more of the best and brightest from India. Never mind the facts to the contrary:

Perspective: Johnny can so program

Check up on Nobel Prize winners and compare nations. What makes it great is that we as Americans have people from all ethnic backgrounds, races, genders, and nationalities who have been awarded top honors.

Have you read SuperFreakonomics? Any society that has the following conditions and attitudes towards women, cannot and never will be able to count themselves among the educated societies of the world. No matter how high their math scores are.

India has high pollution and corruption, 2/3 of their population lives in rural areas where less than half of those have electricity and only 1 in four homes has a toilet.

Women are so undervalued in India that there are 35 million less females in that country. They perform countless abortions on their girl children since men can earn a wage and make enough money to take care of family.

Nearly 51% of Indian males indicate that beating their wives is acceptable. Women have very high rates of HIV/AIDS as well.


I'm sure its a good school, but come on.

 

My electrical engineer friend says if you want something engineered quickly, sub it out to India. If you want something engineered well, sub it out to China. LOL.


Sadly, America is graduating less engineers and scientists every day.

A lot of that does relate to religiousity and parents discouraging their children from seeking degrees in biology (EVOLUTION IS A LIE!!!) and physics (THE BIG BANG IS A LIE!!!!) and other sciences ([insert whatever here] IS A LIE!!!). And of course, most people don't enjoy math.

 

Not too touchy I hope. I think we can disagree in an agreeable way. I greatly respect the intelligence and integrity of those who post here, even when we disagree. You make some very good points.

 

Add in the fact that a lot of Indian institutions classify graduates as engineer's even after a two year course of schooling. Lots of American avoid STEM because they (rightly so)feel like companies will hire an Indian at half the US workers wages.

The number of people who have to redo Indian IT programs that have been outsourced is a small cottage industry in and of itself.

I'm not so sure of the religious implications that you allude to, but another reason for the lack of STEM college graduates can be seen on this very board. We are all (myself included) taking the easy route and getting degrees in Social Sciences, History, and Liberal Arts just to have a degree.

When your kid goes to school do not let them "find" themselves at the U of I Drink Too Much and get a degree in French Poetry. We should be pushing our kids towards the sciences if we want to compete and keep our country strong. We need more scientist who value the scientific methods and less community organizers and people whose "feelings" guide decisions.

 

This is a VERY good point. I am disheartened by the attitudes of many of the college students I know. They want accomplishments to be fast and easy...too many parties and too little studying. There is a very low work ethic exhibited by many American young people.

I have a college-age friend who is driving me nuts by wasting his life. Going to school is too much work for him. There is nothing to stop him except laziness! I keep attempting to warn him that now is the time to make something of himself, yet I don't feel like I'm getting through.

 

I just saw this the other day.

 

Interesting. Is there a significant difference between majors selected by men and those selected by women?

 

http://www.ieee.org/portal/site/tionline/menuitem.130a3558587d56e8fb2275875bac26c8/index.jsp?&pName=institute_level1_article&article=tionline/legacy/inst2005/dec05/12w.opinion.xml&;jsessionid=hNdqLB2Q0sfGgp1VBk94JJHBTj31YXPmGcpc4R1n16s6fTFyjTjN!-2095635371!876428984

 

That's funny. I found this while I was looking for that again.


http://freemarketmojo.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/college-degrees-by-gender-and-field/

 

Is this the true fact? If so, it is very interesting. Well, I don't think it has to do with religions. It more likes the Governmental controls & opporturnities.