Indian students in Australia are in focus for some time, due to "racist" attacks. The intensity of these attacks have now come to a tipping point - endangering the relationship between the India and Australia. Why these attacks are not abating? Are these, really racist attacks? Why these are happening just in the recent time with higher intensity? is it something more to be analyzed to understand the emerging pattern?
Indra Nooyi, Vikram Pandit, Rajat Gupta or any Indian student in Australia, Canada, US or New Zealand have something very common. All these as students went to Western world in search of a dream, an American Dream, a British dream or an Australian dream. All these people have endured extreme hardships in their lives since landing in the western world - to reach the pinnacle.
World did change a lot from 1960's or 1970's to today. The flow of Indian students to the western world is not a new phenomenon. While the students prior to 1960's have endured extreme and sometimes adverse immigration rules to work through their world, the students today have no such barriers.
Now a days, all the countries in the world throw a red carpet to the Indian students. As a result, the number of students going abroad increased significantly. As the number grew, we have now started seeing the kind of episodes as in Australia and to a lesser extent in other countries.
Today, as we see in India - Education is a big global business. As the population is dwindling in the western world, the universities are struggling sustain, to keep their growth and remain competitive. Secondly, we now have a fundamental question in the western students - does the University education worth an investment? Today most of the global entrepreneurs are University dropouts - some from Ivy leagues. For example, Great Britain numerically got more universities than required to meet the domestic demand. This is a gap, that must be filled. On the broader perspective to run a part of the wider economy in the Western world. As a result we see attractive Visa policies and mushroomed "paid brokers" in India & their mis-selling.
Indian education system changed dramatically in the past two decades. With the globalisation and the outsourcing boom of 1990's - India also expanded Universities, Engineering, Medicine and other professional schools capacity. Consequently, for example - in Andhra Pradesh we have in excess of 600 Engineering colleges (in 1985 there were just 7) and close to 50 medical colleges. I think we have close to 25 Universities - i.e one per each district. This education boom also created greed. The expectation was that - India would become a global powerhouse for the Technology services. Yes, to some extent - India emerged a global power. But the rate with which the students are coming out for the Universities, they all cannot be absorbed in the domestic job market (even if there were no recession)
Having spent significant money on the education, neither parents nor students are willing to compromise for anything less than a "dream job". Most of the students have developed "ego" instead of "right qualification and skills" due to lack of faculty, infrastructure and environment. Now that we have surplus graduates in the system - these students are not willing to go for the marginalised and low paid job (the very theme of Indian Outsourcing). With India Outsources already looking for Latin America or Eastern Europe, students have no option but to look for something else, the is more attractive and satisfy their ego.
It is here they have spotted the so called "gap" in the Western Universities. And Western Universities a solid source and demand.
Pre-1990, most of the Indian students left to Western world due to lack of opportunities in the homeland. The stagnant Indian economy could not absorb, even the brightest. All these bright people had no option but to look for the greener pastures. Aided with the excellent education, knowledge and intelligence - majority of them went to enrich themselves and utilized the opportunities that have come on the way. Even in the western world, at that time education really did not become a business. Immigration and visa system was stringent and there were no shortcuts available readily with the "brokers" or "on the Internet"and importantly, false promises.
Today for most of the students, Education abroad is basically an investment. Having paid huge sums to brokers, and for the visa - by the time they land in Sydney, London or Chicago, top of their agenda is to earn from day one. Earn as much as they can in the couple of years - by all means. Poor qualifications and "poorly rated" universities and "poor" neighbourhoods - it is all a perfect fit to put the education in the back burner. Most of the students are so sure that they possibly cannot get a foreign degree with their inferior qualifications. But the the exchange ratio with Indian rupee is even a bigger attraction. More the backlogs, longer they can live and much more they can earn.
Already, some of the "brokers" in India would have told them the "means" and "ways" to hang on, or how to acquire a Permanent residency, or even citizenship. Most of these students, end up in ghettos and sometimes with up to 10 people sharing one apartment. By living in ghettos, these students never understand the local culture nor respect the local norms. Most of these students speak poor English and end up living in their mini India's. From here, they will sell false dreams to their parents with iPods and internet chats. The poor parents in India too end up sometimes with false dreams.
By doing all these illegal jobs often working close to 40 hours a week (exceeding the legal limit for a student), these people are in direct confrontation with the low paid citizens of those countries. Already in recession, their frustrations would be going up as India and China are "taking" away their jobs on one side and these students are "robbing" the leftovers in the country.
As I said the main problem is this "false gap" in Universities in West and "demand" coming from India. For this students are not to be blamed. They are basically trapped in the system, a complex web created by Indian and Western Governments. Only remedy is to cut the capacity in both worlds. Improve the quality of education. Remove the "paid brokers" in India who are acting like pimps.
Unless this is fixed - these students not only create problem for themselves but also to the wider Indian diaspora reputation.
Note: I am not concluding all students are in the similar category as discussed in the blog. But, I am confident that the number is fairly high. Also, I am not discounting all attacks are not racist - but, I believe that significant effort is needed from the students to ensure their right identity presented. I am also conscious of the fact that, this blog in analyzing few of the angles but not everything.
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