India IT Education Survey Report

India IT Education Survey Report

Editor's Note: From December 29, 2005 to January 9, 2006, Liu Xiao, Vice Chairman of the Hunan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, led a delegation to visit India, focusing on the National Institute of Information Technology, NIIT and India International Information. Technical College IIIT. The summary of the investigation is published for readers and for your reference.
I. Overview of India
From December 29, 2005 to January 9, 2006, we went to India to inspect NIIT of India's National Institute of Information Technology and IIIT of India's International Institute of Information Technology, and visited India's most prestigious University of Nehru and Pune University. A preliminary understanding of the University of Mumbai and Goa University was also conducted.
When I first arrived in India, it felt like I was back in China in the 1980s. The infrastructure such as transportation was much behind China. But with the depth of the visit, the long-established India is like a cup of tea that has been soaked up, and people can't help but remember.
India's land is fertile, and its ecological protection is much better than that of China. New Delhi and other cities are tree-lined. From time to time, you can see squirrels and monkeys playing in the middle of the game. Birds often fly into cars to eat for food. Land, reserved for development space is very large. The Indian people are gentle and friendly. Mahatma Gandhi led the Indian people through the "non-resistance movement" to make India finally liberated independently, and its perseverance was respected by the people of the world.
India has a large population and although the society is not developed, the government attaches great importance to education and has continued to increase its investment in education. In 1998, India’s education expenditure accounted for 3.8% of the gross national product. By 2003, India’s investment in education was 5% of the total GNP. After the Congress of the National Congress in May 2004, it was clearly proposed to increase public education spending to more than 6% of the gross national product in 2019. Indian universities are mainly taught in English, followed by native languages. Therefore, the degree of internationalization of graduates is very high, and there is a lot of room for employment in the international community. Its status in the global education community is also increasing. Not only does the government increase investment in higher education, but it also encourages corporate and private investment education. Universities and colleges in India have developed rapidly. By 2003, there were 350 universities, 1,500 research institutions and 10,428 private training colleges. Each year, there are 200,000 graduates of software engineering, and 300,000 software technology training graduates enter the first line of the software industry.
For sustainable economic development, the quality and quantity of human capital is far more important than the quality and quantity of real capital. Indian software can also achieve such achievements today, and it is inseparable from the Indian government's emphasis on education and the emphasis on talent cultivation.
Second, the Indian software industry
In 1990, the export volume of the Indian software industry was almost zero. By 2000, it exceeded 8.5 billion US dollars. In 2002, it reached 9.6 billion US dollars. It plans to reach 50 billion US dollars in 2008, and strive to become the world's software export leader. The basis of the Indians is the "development momentum". Once an industry has obtained the conditions for its take-off, the development will be rapid. On a global scale, both developed and developing countries have formed a number of software industry clusters of varying sizes, such as Silicon Valley in the United States, Yeouido in Kyushu, Japan, and software parks in Bangalore, India. . These industrial clusters have become an important part of the global economic structure. Among them, the gathering of software industry in India is quite interesting.
The development of the Indian software industry has the following characteristics:
1. The government strongly supports it. In 1991, the Indian government issued an archive, vigorously supported the software industry, implemented zero tax rates, and also given “priority” in bank loans, triggering a revolution in the Indian software industry. In July 1998, India decided to support the government to set up a fund of Rs 1 billion for financial venture capital, managed by the Small Business Development Bank. At the same time, banks are given priority to lend to newly established high-tech venture companies, especially small businesses. These policies have stimulated the rise and development of the Indian software industry.

2. There is a rich talent pool. Today, there are more than one hundred software companies in India with more than 1,000 employees. The top five companies have more than 5,000 employees. These large companies are basically only software developers. India has access to software technicians in several ways: First, it relies on higher education institutions. More than 400 colleges and universities in India have set up computer majors, which can train more than 10,000 graduates each year. The government also provides some teaching funds for more than 250 colleges and universities. The second is to rely on private or private institutions to train talents. At present, there are more than 700 such institutions, and tens of thousands of students can be trained each year. Third, software companies establish training institutions themselves. The Indian government has also opened computer training courses in 250 institutions across the country, launching “Secondary Computer Literacy and Learning Programs” in about 3,000 secondary schools. This multi-channel training provides a continuous “soft blue collar” for software companies. It is precisely because there are a large number of basic technical talents that Indian software companies have formed a reasonable talent structure such as “project manager, system analyst, software engineer”.
The Indian government also treats the phenomenon of brain drain in a tolerant and generous manner, and regards cross-border employment as an important channel for cultivating international talents. It is decades of accumulation, India has a large number of scientific and technological talents working in the West, and there are 540,000 Indians working in the United States alone. 38% of Shibuya staff are Indians, and one-third of American software engineers are Indians. 820 of the 2,100 new companies in Silicon Valley in the United States were founded by young Indian engineers. It is these “outflow” talents that have made an indelible contribution to the development of India's software industry. Among them, they introduce customers to India, provide information for enterprises, and some invest directly in India and start software companies.
3. The industry has a high degree of concentration. In India's largest software park, there are nearly 1,200 software companies, accounting for half of the Indian software industry. Among these software companies, 8% are multinational companies, 24% are SMEs, and 68% are foreign companies. Among them, 43% of software companies are engaged in software development, 35% are engaged in IT outsourcing services, and 22% are software technology companies. Here, on average, three foreign companies can be attracted every two weeks.
4. The industry is clearly positioned. Indians have strong English skills, and India has no software market and has to face overseas. These factors have made India's software industry directly positioned in overseas markets, and also caused the Indian software company's products to be mostly not final products, but intermediate products, such as system integration software, which prompted practitioners to maintain the standardization of the production process. It is easier to interface with foreign countries. At present, India is the country with the largest number of quality identification software companies in the world. 170 companies have been recognized by ISO9000 quality standards, and India accounts for the vast majority of the more than 50 software companies that have received US CMM5 recognition. India is becoming a world software center, and many well-known information industry companies such as Microsoft, Intel, and Oracle have established R&D bases in India.
Third, the characteristics of Indian software talent training
1. Cultivation of language talents of software talents
India’s independence has always been a British colony, and English is one of the official languages ​​of India. Highly educated Indian college students are proficient in reading English literature and conducting English conversations. This feature makes India have many convenient conditions for exchanges with Western developed countries. The computer software developed by India can be directly exported to English-speaking countries without any language barriers.

2. Software education for software talents
The rapid development of the Indian software industry has a lot to do with the logic analysis capabilities of its software talents. Mathematics is derived from definitions and theorems, and the problem is solved step by step, consistent with the analytical and logical capabilities required to write software. From ancient India to modern times, mathematics is the driving force behind Indian logical thinking and is as important as Indian religious philosophy. India attaches great importance to cultivating students' complete logical thinking skills. At the same time, the practical training model for talents has made India pay more attention to the training of non-intellectual factors such as the attitude of talents. The skill level of software talents is not solely determined by work performance. Many other non-intellectual factors are equally important to the success of the work. Therefore, India places special emphasis on the cultivation of non-technical elements such as work attitude, expression ability, team spirit and so on. Indian training institutions often require students to give lectures and develop students' expressive ability to enhance their communication skills with clients; especially the ability to express correctly without body language, which is very important in human-machine dialogue. At the same time, they also attach great importance to intuitive training, because many problems in the computer can not be solved by logic.
3. Structure of software talents
A software company needs software talents at all levels, such as programmers, project analysts, programmers, industry experts, and staff. The cultivation of three-level talents in the software industry is a comprehensive system that needs to be coordinated.
India attaches great importance to the cultivation of middle and senior software talents, and emphasizes the cultivation of soft blue collars. The reason why software blue collars exist in large numbers is because in India, software has been designed by software design planners. The structure of software has been divided into many single modules before writing code. India's more reasonable pyramid-type talent structure guarantees a reasonable mix of high, medium and low-level talents, and forms a value chain for the internal production of the software industry.
4. Vocational education of software talents
Indian software talents are mainly cultivated through vocational education rather than higher education. At present, there are about 500,000 new software talents in India each year, of which only 74,000 are graduated from universities. The rest are almost all cultivated through vocational education and training models. This fully reflects the orientation of vocational education in the Indian software talent training model.
There are four main reasons why India mainly trains software talents through vocational education rather than academic education.
For most software talents, the main ability is to “do” rather than master the systematic computer theory and conduct computer science research. Computer science research is of course necessary, but for software market development, it is more important to have a large number of software-applied talents who can realistically develop broad market prospects;
The software industry is a very fast-changing industry, and its update speed can be said to be the first in all existing industries. To this end, talent development must keep up with technological development, and universities cannot do this because the courses at universities are often rigid, and vocational education can effectively solve this problem;
In software talent training, teachers themselves must continue to receive training. This requires not only funding, but also whether professors want to change constantly. The teacher training model of vocational education can effectively solve this problem;
To cultivate a large number of software talents quickly, it is impossible to rely on universities. The Indian software industry began in the mid-1980s. In order to obtain a large number of software talents in a short period of time, it is absolutely impossible to pass university education alone. Because the establishment of a university requires a lot of investment, and the Indian government did not have sufficient financial support at the time, even with sufficient funds, it took a long time to establish a university, and the university's academic system was often very long. The market-oriented operation mechanism of vocational education and training determines that it can effectively solve this problem.
It is based on the above various reasons that in the final decision of the software talent training model, India chose vocational education instead of academic education.
The benefits brought by vocational education are very obvious: first, effectively solve the problem of low-end talents; secondly, greatly shorten the training time of talents and improve the efficiency of talent use; again, the talents cultivated through the combination of practical teaching methods are better. Meet the needs of the enterprise. Finally, the abundant talent pool reduces the cost of human capital and enhances the competitiveness of software companies and industries.
5. Quality Control In addition, India has also vigorously promoted the process of education standardization. With regard to teaching content, software training centers have strict regulations and establish uniform standards. Many training centers have also introduced ISO9000 to implement total quality management. Indian software companies have quality management departments that manage from standard projects to standard changes until the final test. Almost all Indian software companies use the CMM rating set by the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute's SEI as their benchmark for quality management, and the highest level 5 is their ultimate goal. In this way, the Indian software industry has a higher starting point since its establishment. Compared with China, Indian software technicians have the same level of software engineers, which is 3-5 times higher in terms of understanding and accuracy of software documents.
6. Internationalization of software talents
Indian leaders also have a more sensible view of brain drain. Prime Minister La Gandhi once said: "Even if a scientist, an engineer or a doctor returns to India at the age of 50 or 60, we have not lost them. We will be happy because they have become managers in foreign countries. We will bring our experience back to China. We must establish and develop talents in India who work not only in India but also in the world. At the same time, we must realize that we have nothing to lose and work abroad. A lot of talents are returning to India. They want to come back. We don't make a fuss, don't think of it as a brain drain, but think of it as a think tank, accumulating interest, waiting for us to extract, we can invest it in India is under construction.” India has a large number of middle and senior software talents studying or working in the western developed countries such as the United States. Since the 1980s, the Indian government has implemented a series of policy concessions for the software industry, creating a good investment environment, opening a "green light" for overseas students or staff to return to China to start software companies and engage in software development. These overseas returning software talents have good skills in software development and service, have accumulated rich experience, and have certain funds, especially with overseas counterparts. Each of them has formed a The huge overseas “relationship network” has played an important role in promoting Indian software outsourcing.
Fourth, the enlightenment to China's IT vocational education
1. The Indian software talent training model chooses vocational education, not academic education. Their successful experience proves that even in the era of knowledge economy, even in high-tech industries such as software, vocational education has a very important position. Although they have reasons for the shortage of funds in the selection process of this model, the fundamental reason is that they deny that the academic education model has the ability to cultivate a large number of skilled and skilled software talents. This is in stark contrast to the current software education model in China.
In China, when it comes to the development of software education for talents, it is natural to think that it is necessary to establish a college and establish a master's and doctoral degree award points. It is considered that vocational education is too low-level and not high enough. In the curriculum setting, it is even more important to emphasize the basic theoretical study. The results of it? Perhaps students have many principles in mind, can write a large number of academic papers, but can not design a software with broad market prospects. At present, many software companies in China do not recruit qualified personnel, which has reflected this profound problem in China's education system: emphasis on academic education and light vocational education.
In fact, among the talents that the society needs, a large number of talents are practical and capable of accomplishing their tasks. Academically, the talents who specialize in theoretical research are usually only a minority. This is especially true for developing countries like ours. Therefore, in the training mode of talents, the dominant position should be vocational education, not academic education, even for a high-tech industry such as software.
2. The vocational education adopted by Indian software talent training is market-driven. The government does not specify how the school operates, but the school itself decides, and the school itself can determine the charging standard. This model determines the quality of vocational education and only has students; otherwise, students are not recruited. And this is precisely to improve the quality of teaching. At the same time, the market drive also determines that vocational education must not only have quality, but also respond quickly to technological changes, and provide training in a timely manner. In order to ensure the quality of the course, in the course development, they have to conduct a large number of investigations to predict what kind of knowledge, skills and attitudes are needed for the post three years later. The course is updated every year, and small adjustments are usually made, such as changing one or two courses, and updating all courses within one and a half years. In order to keep the teaching content up to date with technology development, we must keep close contact with big companies, not only from big companies to understand new technologies, but also to understand the background of new technologies.
3. In terms of teaching, they have a great feature, that is, they do not follow the path from basic theory to professional theory to the internship. Instead, they reverse the teaching order completely, starting from the beginning and doing it. In the process of learning, if students encounter problems, then use this question as a basis to learn professional theory. This new course sequence is based on two basic concepts.
Basic theory is not a necessary condition. Students can learn how to do without the basic theory. And what is the foundation is itself a theoretical issue that is worth pondering.
Being a middle school is not only a very important teaching mode of the knowledge society, but also a very important ability. We often say that we must learn how to learn, but the study outside the school is mainly carried out at work, so learning how to learn is essentially to learn to be a middle school. Only the teaching program that starts from the beginning can contribute to the formation of this ability. In the future work, when students encounter new problems, he can't learn first, and when they learn to do it again, they will be fired. Therefore, in the teaching process, students must be able to learn while working. Their students are mastering software skills in the process of doing the project. They try to make the problems that the students may encounter in their work in the future, which are encountered in the two years of study.
Rethinking the current order of vocational education in China, its model is almost the same from theory to practice. This model is so ingrained that it is almost a legal program. In the context of enhancing students' employment adaptability, the influence of this model is increasing. In many vocational colleges, the basic theory of classes is further increased. The result is that on the one hand students are tired of learning, on the other hand students' employment skills are getting worse. The teaching reform of vocational education in China will go from here. The software training mode of India should also give us some inspiration.
4. In terms of curriculum development, they have a large number of personnel who specialize in curriculum development. The curriculum is the core of the whole process of software education. As the key to the success of software education, it is the cornerstone of building a training brand. Curriculum awareness has penetrated deeply into its entire educational philosophy. Compared with this, the current curriculum development awareness of higher vocational colleges in China is still very weak. Schools usually have only teaching concepts, no curriculum concepts, and no one dedicated to curriculum development. If you want to open a new major, or adjust the curriculum, you usually refer to the professional teaching plan of the same major in other schools, and rarely invest in the development of the curriculum. Schools think far more about teaching methods than thinking about them. In fact, the curriculum is like a production line to a company. Only when the production line is transformed, the company has the basis to improve product quality and efficiency. For the school, the teaching is subject to the curriculum. If the curriculum is not fundamentally adjusted, it is impossible to achieve quality improvement to a large extent from the reform of the teaching method. In order to embark on the road of specialization and branding, vocational education in China must greatly enhance the awareness of curriculum and invest in curriculum development.
5. Pay attention to the cultivation of compound talents. In India, some vocational education institutions themselves are also software development companies. For example, NIIT is the largest education and training company in India, the second largest IT service company and the third largest software exporter. Based on their own development experience, they are very accurate in locating talents. According to their analysis, about 35% of the distribution of software development in the future is information system development, 15% is network and system engineering, and 50% is professional application development and commercial application. This means that IT students must be able to serve both software companies and technology product companies. In other words, software people are required to use software development as a tool to serve the professional application field. Software talents should not only understand software development skills, but also some professional application domain knowledge. Therefore, they attach more importance to cultivating complex software development talents from non-computer majors.
The computer majors of colleges and universities in China are basically software development for software development, ignoring the fact that software development as a tool should serve the application. Of course, language skills and comprehensive quality training are also things we need to strengthen.
In short, we only fully recognize our own deficiencies, truly implement employment-oriented, adjust professional settings according to market demand, optimize professional curriculum structure, reform teaching content, innovate teaching methods, strengthen practice links, especially strengthen Students' learning ability, hands-on ability and innovative ability enable them to adapt to the needs of their posts as soon as they are on the job, in order to cultivate IT talents that meet the needs of China's national economic development.