India, China to share world's 40% graduates by 2020
As per the revelations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), India and China are set to produce the largest number of university graduates by the end of this decade. These countries will share 40% of the world's total population of university graduates aged 25 to 34 by 2020. However, with India's share rising only marginally, China will account for most of the growth by 2020.
The China Story:
In 1990s, China had a comparable graduate population as compared to US, which was the hub of higher education. However, since then China has surpassed US and has the world's highest proportion of graduates. Moreover, over the last ten years, China has doubled its number of tertiary institutions and aims for 20% of its people to own a tertiary degree by 2020.
China had 18% of the world's graduates in 2010, which amounts to 23.22 million graduates. By 2020, about 29% of the world's graduates are expected to hail from China, which is nearly 60 million of them.(Read more)
The India Story:
India will not even have half as many graduates as China, by 2020. Nevertheless, India is expected to surpass China to become the world's most populous country by then.
In 2010, India's graduate population is reported at 14 million, while the number is expected to rise to 24.48 million in 10 years.
While the proportion of Indian students might seem high among the global graduate population, but the growth in actual terms is negligible. Only 8% of Indians aged between 25-34 are graduates. Majority of the enrolments happen in BA followed by BSc, whereas, professional graduates from fields such as engineering and medicine are in minority, according to the 2010-11 statistics of the human resource development ministry. The number of institutes imparting higher education has increased but remains insufficient to cater to India's ever-increasing population.
However, by 2020, India is expected to have more ‘fresh' graduates than the US, considering the 25-34 year age bracket. India will have 12 per cent and 11 per cent is expected to be claimed by the United States.
The bulk of growth in the total pool of graduates has been observed in non-OECD G20 countries including the Russian Federation, Indonesia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, apart from India and China. Consequently, the numbers in Europe, North America and Japan are falling.Read complete story...
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