Economics and Education – building for the future success of both countries
Rana Sarkar, President and CEO of the Canada-India Business Council
India is a source of talent and innovation, and will be integral to Canada’s future prosperity. There can be no doubt that the growth of India’s emerging economy has significant implications for Canadian trade and investment – but it is not a one-way street. Canadian expertise across a wide range of sectors will be important, if not critical, for India to maintain not just their economic progress, but improvements in health and education.
On November 12, 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Manmohan Singh announced the launch of negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. A Canada-India joint study estimated that an agreement could increase GDP in each country by approximately $6 billion and increase our two-way bilateral trade by 50 per cent (1).
Such an agreement will have a profound impact on many sectors, but the area that may offer the greatest mutual benefit is that of higher education.
“According to the Minister for Human Resource Development and Education, of the 220 million children in primary school, only 14 million continue their education at the post-secondary level. Moreover, India has only 504 universities and 22,000 colleges to educate 14 million students. Fifty per cent of the Indian population will soon fall within the 18-25 age group, and India does not have the capacity to train and educate all of these potential students.” (2)
Canadian colleges and universities are well positioned to help provide high-quality training and education – both for Indian students overseas and in the country.
There is a growing demand amongst the increasingly mobile Indian student population to seek their post-secondary education overseas and it would be beneficial for Canada to attract the best of these students to study in our universities and colleges. Those students who choose to return to India after graduation are likely to become leaders in business, government, academic or other settings, creating a network that will strengthen ties to Canada. The students that choose to stay in Canada, however, also bring significant economic and societal benefits as a future source for highly qualified people that can supply the skilled workforce.
To meet the growing demand for higher education, India’s education Minister, Kapil Sibal, recently pledged to increase the proportion of students enrolled in colleges and universities from 12.4 percent to 30 percent by 2020. He also introduced legislation that opened the possibility of foreign universities opening faculties in India to meet the rising demand for higher education – this seems particularly likely to proceed based on warnings from education experts that sharply increasing capacity could affect the quality of education.
Canadian universities and colleges have been becoming more internationally oriented over the past few years and, with their reputation for providing high quality education, our institutions are well placed to partner with Indian education institutions or set up their own satellite campuses to help meet this growing need.
Other education activities such as academic exchanges and international research collaborations are essential to a successful economic partnership with India and ultimately are drivers for Canada’s international competitiveness.
Ensuring access to high quality education – both for Canadian and Indian students – is critical to the future prosperity of both countries. In order to maintain our economic growth and innovative industries, it is essential to ensure the availability of a highly-skilled workforce for our knowledge-based economy.
The Canada-India Business Council (C-IBC) is Canada's only private sector, member driven, not-for-profit national business association dedicated to the sustained growth of trade, investment and services between corporate Canada and corporate India.
http://canada-indiabusiness.ca
Sources:
(1) http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/
(2) http://www.parl.gc.ca/40/3/parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/fore-e/rep-e/rep08dec10-e.pdf