These factors, combined with the lack of quality teachers, has the International Herald Tribune voice this bleak assessment: “most of the 11 million students in the 18,000 Colleges and Universities across India receive starkly inferior training, heavy on obeisance and light on marketable skills… only a handful of graduates are considered employable by top global and local companies.”
India enrols the third largest number of students for higher education, second only to China and the United States. However, India has the largest number of higher education institutions in the world: 348 Universities and 17,625 Colleges. However, the country produces only 6,000 PhDs compared to the 25,000 granted by the United States in 2003. According to the Times Higher Education [THE] League table, the top 21 positions in the world are held by the universities in the west. Asian Universities are fighting to break the top twenty slots, with Japan in the frontline at 22nd place, and with the largest number (11) of Universities in the top 200 list. Also in the 200 list are China (with 6), Hong Kong (with 5), South Korea (with 4), Singapore and India (with 2 each). India’s premier IITs Delhi and Mumbai are placed nearly at the end of the list at 163rd and 181st respectively, down from 154th and 174th in 2008. Israel, with a population 1/160th of India’s, has five Universities in the top 200 list.