Page 42 - EW July 2025_Neat

Cover Story

21

HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERS

TO DEVELOP INDIA'S

HIGH-POTENTIAL HUMAN RESOURCE

Dilip Thakore

D URING THE EDUCATIONWORLD as a global manufacturing hub, in particular as the world’s

India Higher Education Rankings
largest producer of EVs (electric vehicles). In media
Awards event staged in Delhi on
interviews, Liang Wenfeng (40), a graduate of Zhejiang
University and promoter-CEO of the Hangzhou Deep-
April 25 to felicitate and award un-
dergrad colleges and universities
Seek Artificial Intelligence Basic Technology Research Co
which had topped the EW India
students” from China’s top-ranked Peking, Tsinghua, Zhe-
Higher Education Rankings 2025-
26 league tables (EW April-May), Ltd, has acknowledged that “fresh graduates and Ph D
jiang and Beihang universities contributed the core talent
a panel discussion on the subject ‘Why haven’t any for the DeepSeek breakthrough. During the hour-long EW
of India’s 1,168 universities and 45,000 colleges panel discussion, none of the high-powered panelists were
invented/ideated a globally celebrated game- able to explain why such a tribute to Indian universities
changer product or service in 77 years?’ failed to has never emanated from India Inc. The consensus was
provide satisfactory answers. that Indian universities are under-funded and unable to
The panel featuring half a dozen Vice Chancellors and conduct deep, new knowledge creation research.
Deans of top-ranked universities were unable to shed There is some substance in this cop-out. India’s annual
light on this query posed against the backdrop of Chinese outlay for R&D aggregates a mere 0.7 percent of GDP
hi-tech entrepreneur Liang Wenfeng crediting the ide- cf. 3.7 percent in the US, 2.68 percent in China and 5.21
ation and invention of generative AI DeepSeek app which percent in South Korea. As a result, India hosts a mere 15
has shaken Silicon Valley, and emerged as a low-priced researchers per 100,000 people cf. 423 in the US, 1,307 in
competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, to South Korea and 185 in China.
China's innovative universities. “China has been years ahead in recognizing that talent
The choice of the subject placed before the panel was is the new oil. Through flagship programmes like a Thou-
also driven by the reality that China, whose higher educa- sand Talents Plan (TTP) and Young Thousand Talents
tion system was way behind India’s in 1949, has emerged (YTT), China has systematically built a global pipeline for

42 EDUCATIONWORLD JULY 2025