Japan is fascinated by Indian education

The Japanese are fascinated by the success of Indian eduction and some Japanese seem to be enrolling their kids in Indian school. I do not know whether to believe that this is a trend as yet, but we may not be able to ignore that they have begun to sit up and take notice of it somewhat seriously.

This is quite an interesting trend and worth watching out for. Viewed in one perspective, the Indian education system appears to be good enough as shown by the success of many Indians. Having been though it myself, though many years back, the system is not flawless and has to imbibe some of the better things from Western education system. It must be noted that the success of Indians is attributable to a few good reasons in addition to the education system itself.

Traditionally, education has always been given utmost importance in Indian society. One of the world’s first and great universities in recorded history was established in Nalanda (in today’s central/ northern India) in 5th Century BC, which was flocked by Chinese and South East Asians. (It’s beside the point that this eventually resulted in spread of Buddhism from India across rest of Asia.) Back to our times, the founding fathers of independent India had the noble vision to start institutions of technology and management – the fabled IIT-s and IIM-s - which have produced some of the most highly succesful professionals and managers in the world.

It’s common knowledge that the typical Indian parent in middle and lower strata does not believe in a career around sport and art and relentlessly stresses the importance of pure education to children. This coupled with the very high level of competition amongst a large population to gain admission to few reputed institutions takes this zeal even further and makes the sense of purpose a necessity than an ideal. This would partly explain the success of Indian students as also the institutions.

A large number of Indian students (in absolute numbers than as a percentage to total population) undergo their education in arts, science and commerce in English as a first language rather than in their mother tongue. This is a distinct advantage for a large number of Indian students who gain access to the best of knowledge, books and reference materials at the same level as their peers in West. In this aspect, India is quite unlike the rest of Asia.
Having said all that, Indian education system will have to take some leaves from West to further improve its own approach to study of Science. Last and not the least, having visited Japan myself so many times, one does not stop wondering how the Japanese have learned to place the community interests ahead of individual interest and how they behave as a group, which makes them so different from others. It would benefit a large country like India to imbibe those qualities from Japanese education system.