Rising Giants 1

Rising Giants:

What Can India and China Teach Each Other?

John Koetsier

ETEC 511 Assignment #3 – UBC

 Rising Giants 2

China and India are two global giants in terms of both population and

land area. However, despite their size and despite the reality that both

play large roles on the world stage, the reality is that they are just

starting to experience their eventual impact on the world.

But both of these enormous emerging countries have equally-

giant challenges facing them in terms of population size,

infrastructure, regional differences, poverty, and more. Overcoming

these challenges and being able to deliver basic as well as higher

education equitably would be huge steps towards unleashing the full

potential of their people. Aggressive investments in education will help

India and China grow into their size and ensure that they realize the

potential they have for participation in global markets and wealth

creation.

The question this paper seeks to answer is: what can each of

these rising giants teach each other about educating their citizens? To

answer this we will examine concerns common to both countries,

specific instances of success for each, and lessons each can teach the

other. While it is certainly true that India and China face mountainous

educational challenges, e-learning can help … if properly applied.

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Similarities and Challenges

The first thing that is obvious to even the most casual observer

of India and China is their sheer population size. Almost a third of the

world’s entire population are Indian or Chinese, including 1.1 billion

Indians and 1.3 billion Chinese (UN Population Division of Economic

and Social Affairs, 2007). Population size can be a good thing, as

economies of scale can be brought to bear, creating efficiencies. But

when both of the nations currently under discussion are developing

nations which have not fully extended all the infrastructure Western

nations consider basic to all corners of their lands, there are huge

challenges to overcome. Both have an enormous burden to bear

simply extending basic education to their citizens, as Zhang

documents in the case of China (Zhang, 2005).

This challenge is compounded by the fact that their populations

are not static – in spite of well-known policies such as China’s one

child per family. That is certainly helping, since according to the United

Nations, India’s population is growing faster. But China, due to the

population lag effect, is still expected to be home to 1.4 billion people

in 2050 (UN Population Division of Economic and Social Affairs, 2007).

The same report projects India’s 2050 population to be 1.7 billion,

meaning India will likely surpass China as the world’s most populous

country.
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The harsh reality for the education systems of these two giants

is that hundreds of millions of new students are on the way, requiring

tens of millions of new teachers, and potentially hundreds of

thousands of new schools. For example, if we take an extremely low

population projection for India and estimate that only (only!)

100,000,000 new students will enter the education system in the next

several decades, they will require 2.8 million new teachers (at a ratio

of 35 students to 1 teacher) and 100,000 new schools (at a ratio of

1000 students to 1 school). The numbers are staggering, and it’s

doubtful whether any nation on earth – even the richest Western

nation, the United States – could sustain the kind of investment

necessary to accommodate that kind of growth.

Related to the first issue (and compounded by it) is lack of

infrastructure. Electricity, phone service, computers, and internet

connectivity are limited in rural and northern parts of Indian education

- infrastructure has long been a concern in India (Jaya & Malar, 2003).

The same is true in China, in which internet penetration is only reliable

and available in the major cities. Even then most students do not have

home access, but must use net cafes or university libraries (Wong &

Schoech, 2005). It’s important to remember when dealing with

infrastructure it’s not only population size and growth that matter, but

the physical geography of the nations. China and India are both in the
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top ten of countries by size, India with 3.3 million square kilometers

and China with almost 10 million square kilometers. The challenges of

extending power, telephony, utilities, and other infrastructure over

such vast distances are huge, and this obviously has implications for

education. Schools require infrastructure, even if only physical

infrastructure, and this has been a challenge: “in reality, there is a

serious shortage of schools, teachers, and other basic facilities in rural

China” (Zhang, 2005).

Another challenge that both India and China face is hinted at in

that last quote: regional disparities. Indian rural communities are

under-served with local schools, and one effect is that the more rural

north has a literacy rate of 40% compared with 90% in the wealthier

and more urbanized south (Sharma, 2005)1. Similar problems exist in

China, where the government is working to equalize access to primary

education in rural and urban areas (Zhang, 2005). Rural schools that

do exist are more likely to lack resources, experience funding

problems, and pay teachers less (Yongxin, 2006). Regional differences

can be exacerbated by both of the above-mentioned challenges:

infrastructure is harder and more expensive to provide in out-of-the-

way provinces, and population growth (as opposed to population shift

or migration) tends to be higher in rural areas.

1
Note: there are other factors at play here as well, including poverty,
which we’ll deal with shortly.
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Poverty is another ongoing issue that affects both India and

China – once again to disproportionate levels depending on where

citizens live. A quarter of India’s population is under the poverty level

(Sharma, 2005), and while reliable statistics are harder to come by for

China, the China Development Research Foundation estimates that

150-200 million Chinese live under the international poverty line

standard of $1/day (The Epoch Times, 2007)2. Poverty has real effects

on the education of the young, as poor families tend to keep their

children at home to work on the family farm or industry, keeping them

out of the education system.

Another similarity, though in different proportions, is a concern

over gender issues and equity that exists in both China and India.

Women in India have long been the most disadvantaged elements of

society (Ghosh, 1988) and that continues today - most of India’s

adolescent girls do not attend school (Ramachandran, 2003). There

are government attempts to address this, but they have met with

limited success. China does not have this problem to the same extent,

but there is a historical Confucianism in China that perpetuates a very

real degree of oppression (Liu & Carpenter, 2005). The problem

(besides the fact that a whole class of people are being discriminated

2
It should be noted, however, that China is the “only developing
country in which programs for reducing illiteracy by half and reducing
poverty by half are being carried out simultaneously (National Report
on Universal Education in China, 2005).
 Rising Giants 7

against and not receiving equal opportunity to self-actualize) is that

ignoring or systematically not educating half the population is unlikely

to improve either domestic wealth or international competitiveness.

And the unseen problem may be that since mothers play enormous

roles in the educational success of their children (Flouri, 2006),

creating this problem today will likely have echoing inter-generational

repercussions tomorrow.

Differences and Lessons

Now that we’ve discussed many of the similar challenges that

India and China face, let’s investigate some of the key differences –

and their results – that might illuminate opportunities for each country

to improve.

One obvious difference that deserves some investigation is the

vastly diverging literacy rates. While India has a 40% literacy rate in

its rural north and 90% only in the richer, more urban south (Sharma,

2005), China enjoys an overall literacy rate of 93.6% (National Report

on Universal Education in China, 2005)3. Literacy levels are critically

3
I must note that I have some reservation reporting numbers from the
Chinese government without any comment or editorial. While there’s
no doubt that there’s been significant improvement in Chinese literacy,
there’s also no doubt that the Chinese government has the ability and
perhaps the motive to report better numbers than might be justified –
governments more open and democratic have been known to do the
same.
 Rising Giants 8

important: on the one hand they are an indicator of how well a country

is providing basic education to all its citizens; on the other hand they

form a foundation for further learning, whether vocational or higher

education.

It’s likely that this key difference is rooted in different national

priorities. Educational priorities in China have been explicitly linked to

the “two basics:” nine years of basic compulsory education, and

elimination of illiteracy for youth and young adults (National Report on

Universal Education in China, 2005). In contrast, the twin priorities of

India have been basic literacy and higher education, which enable

professional growth and global competitiveness (Franklin, 1999).

There’s obvious commonality with China on the first, but the second is

quite divergent – and the results are obvious. The conflicting Indian

foci – which have resulted in huge strides on higher education and

global competitiveness – have also cost India in terms of literacy.

But the reverse is likely also true: China’s unitary focus on basic

education has cost the country some of the traction it might otherwise

have in knowledge industries. For example, where the India software

industry is worth an annual $55 billion US and growing, the Chinese

software industry is under $7 billion US (China People’s Daily, 2007).

India is the world’s second biggest software producing nation, while

China’s industry is only just over 10% as big.

 Rising Giants 9

There are two lessons here then. One is that a strong, single

focus on universal basic education can have a major impact on

illiteracy. That’s one thing China can teach India. But the other lesson

is that strong higher education system can lead to jobs and industries

that are higher up the outsourcing “food chain” and can generate

wealth for a nation. That’s one thing India can teach China.

The question is: are these two mutually exclusive? Perhaps not.

It’s instructive to review the ways in which China achieved its amazing

literacy performance – particularly in rural China, the most difficult

region. There are three models in effect: educational CD centres,

satellite TV learning programs, and networked computer labs (Zhang,

2005). The first and third are excellent, when appropriate funding is

available, but only the second is a truly scalable connective technology

that has the potential to enable learning in a whole range of

environments, from individuals in homes to classes in schools. China’s

investment in the education of all of its people through e-learning

technologies focuses on the “five renhe,” the five basic principles of

delivering education: “whatever, whenever, however, whenever, and

to whomever” (Gu, 2006). This is duplicable in India without enormous

expense, within most existing constraints, and without the inherent

challenges of terrestrial “last mile” infrastructure projects.

Is there something China could learn from India with regard to

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higher education and global competitiveness? Again, perhaps. There

are a number of ways in which India has set itself up for success. First,

it’s had a long policy of decentralization of education that has resulted

in the ability of local educational institutions to adapt as needed to

meet local needs (Bhushan, 1987). That contrasts with a very strong

centralized Chinese governmental education system (Zhao, Zhang, &

Li 2006) – which is hardly surprising since the Chinese government is

essentially a totalitarian government whose constitution includes the

words “democratic dictatorship4.” And secondly, as the world’s largest

democracy, India has maintained much higher freedom of information

standards than China. Particularly in the early 1990s, China restricted

access to the internet in a variety of areas including education (Zheng,

2001). An electronic bamboo curtain still hangs across the internet

today – the so-called “great firewall of China.” This has affected e-

learning capabilities (Lo, 2001), but it appears that some changes are

starting to occur – though the issues of control are still front and

centre as the Chinese government attempts to “strike a balance

between tight regulation and flexibility” (Zhao & Zhang & Li, 2006). In

the case of India, however, decentralization and open information

policies have been part of the education system that has enabled

4
Retrieved from the Chinese news organization People’s Daily English-
language website November 26, 2007.
http://english.people.com.cn/constitution/constitution.html
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higher learning and easy access to technical and business training. If

China adopted more liberal attitudes and actions in these areas, some

of the same benefits could start to accrue.

Another set of lessons that could be shared revolve around

attitudes toward and implementation of e-learning. As mentioned near

the beginning of this paper, the influx of population that particularly

India but also China will continue to experience in the coming decades

is enormous – and traditional education simple cannot meet the needs.

Just as e-learning is crucial to India’s business future (Kaui, 2006), it

is critical to meeting India’s enormously demanding basic education

needs. As a scalable education solution, it’s also an important possible

poverty reduction step (Khan & Williams, 2006). But there’s a

problem.

India, which has a history of class and caste discrimination

issues (Sharma, 2003), also has something of a negative attitude

about e-learning (Sharma, 2005). This contrasts fairly starkly with

China, where e-learning in the higher education sector is explicitly

viewed by the government as equal to traditional education. Part of

the reason for this might be that online education in China often

features in-person, rigorous, and screened exams (Zhang, 2005). The

point is that if Indian e-learning – at all levels of education – could be

designed in such a way that it was obviously as rigorous and effective

 Rising Giants 12

as in-person education, and if it was promoted as such and treated as

such by the India government, Indian attitudes could start to change.

That would be a very welcome change, because India desperately

needs scalable education solutions – and e-learning is one of them. As

100,000,000 or more Indian children come into the education system

in the next few decades, will they be met by millions of new teachers

in hundreds of thousands of new schools? Whether yes or no, powerful

connective learning technologies such as used to good effect in China

today would be an enormous help.

And so could a Chinese innovation that is designed to help

develop communities of learners who help each other learn. The

challenge for India is, and will increasingly be: how to maintain high

quality education while class sizes are increasing. China has this

problem as well, and a number of researchers at the e-learning lab in

Shanghai Jiaotong University have:

“created an artificial intelligence system to help guide learners

with similar interests into reasonably sized learning

communities. The system uses a multi-agent mechanism to

organize and reorganize supportive communities based on

learners' learning interests, experiences, and behaviors. Through

effective award and exchange algorithms, learners with similar

interests and experiences will form a community to support each

 Rising Giants 13

others' learning.” (Yang, Wang, Shen, Han, 2007)

Now, whether this precise innovation is one that makes it to market

and becomes used in technologies in China and India or not, the core

concept is one that can be of enormous utility in any country with

quickly growing populations. Helping learners help themselves is not

only a good educational principle, it may be the only thing that can

rescue the Indian (and, to a lesser extent, Chinese) educational

system from the coming onslaught of students. But first, Indian

attitudes to e-learning must change … and the government must lead

the way. One can only hope that the Indian openness to information

and knowledge which came with its democracy will stand it to good

stead here as well.

In conclusion

In conclusion, India and China are rising giants – rising giants

with appropriately gigantic challenges. Meeting the challenges will

require innovative thinking, adaptation, and experimentation. But

there are large potential benefits in China and India studying each

other, seeing how the other country has solved or attempted to solve

its issues, and learning from both the successes and the failures.

China has much to teach with regard to universal basic

education; India has much to teach about higher education and how it
 Rising Giants 14

can lead to global competitiveness. China has an attitude and vision

which will serve it well in implementing e-learning throughout the

nation; India has an openness to information and knowledge that

could be of help in changing its attitudes toward e-learning.

How both nations position and adapt their educational policies in

the next decade will influence, enable, and perhaps even govern

whether India and China take over centre stage in world affairs in the

21st century.
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