India needs to double down on education to emerge as a global superpower

With the global economy grappling with uncertainties coupled with the recent Covid mayhem in China, manufacturers are increasingly looking for options to shift their manufacturing base outside of China. This yields an enormous opportunity for India to emerge as the manufacturing hub and global superpower.

"There is an enormous opportunity in India, especially given the change in the geopolitical world and companies looking to find a country for manufacturing, other than China. The country has a talented workforce, particularly around technology," said Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania.

However, India needs to address some of the fundamental challenges to fast-track its journey of becoming a global superpower with education being one of the biggest challenges.

"There simply aren't enough schools in India and most importantly, there aren't enough qualified teachers in the country to educate all the students, because of the enormous number of children here. And similarly, there aren't enough University positions in India for all the talented and capable people. While India is now beginning to open up its higher education to foreign universities like the University of Pennsylvania, universities aren't going to invest heavily and jump in, without Assurances," added Emanuel.

The University of Pennsylvania was the first university in the US to teach Sanskrit and also unveiled the University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India (UPIASI) 25 years back.

Emanuel also opines that India will have to demonstrate its capability to perform high-value manufacturing to prove its mettle across the globe.

"I think the way forward for India is to show that it can do high-value manufacturing, and with high-quality output and consistency. There's nothing like the ability to demonstrate that you can fulfill the market demand and quality education will play a pivotal role here," added Emanuel.

While the NEP 2020 holds enormous potential to transform the Indian education segment, the need of the hour is to ensure a holistic collaboration between the government, educational institutions, and private players to ensure the last-mile delivery of quality education.

India already has the advantage of a vast human resource, and it is time for the country to utilise and upskill it to emerge as the economic hub of the globe.

For this, a significant investment in research and innovation as well as the digitalisation of education is of utmost importance as citing the colossal number of students in the country, digital learning is not an option but a necessity for India.