education | CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

08/06/2014

China taps tech training to tackle labor market mismatch | Reuters

China is waking up to a potentially damaging mismatch in its labor market.

A record 7.27 million graduates – equivalent to the entire population of Hong Kong – will enter the job market this year; a market that has a shortage of skilled workers.

Yet many of these university and college students are ill-equipped to fill those jobs, prompting the government to look at how it can overhaul the higher education system to bridge the gap. The problem is part structural, part attitude.

While most liberal arts students are still looking for work after graduating this summer, 22-year-old Li Xidong is preparing to start a job as an electrician that he landed well before finishing three years of training at a small vocational school.

Li’s diploma may appear less impressive, but his coveted job in a tight labor market may hold the key to the employment conundrum in the world’s second largest economy. The machinery sector alone projects a gap of 600,000 computer-automated machine tool operators this year, media have reported.

“We’re trained as skilled workers, it’s quite easy for us to find jobs while still in school,” said Li, who is in the final stretch of a 3-year program at Hebei Energy College of Vocation and Technology in Tangshan, an industrial city 180 kms (112 miles) east of Beijing.

“Seventy percent of our class found work and some others are starting their own businesses,” Li noted, as he waited for a friend at a recruitment fair in the capital, where fewer than a third of this year’s university graduates had found work by end-April.

The government has said it plans to refocus more than 600 local academic colleges on vocational and technical education – replacing literature, history and philosophy with technology skills such as how to maintain lathes and build ventilation systems. Course curricula will be tailored to meet employers’ specific needs.

Pilot programs will be launched this year, and 150 local universities have signed up for the education ministry’s plan, the official Xinhua news agency has reported.

via China taps tech training to tackle labor market mismatch | Reuters.

Posted in China alert, Economics, education | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Beijing, China, college students, Demographics of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, labor market, Labour economics, Li Xidong, skilled workers, Tangshan, Vocational education

02/05/2014

Chinese College Grads Choose Jobs Over More Study – Businessweek

As China’s college students prepare for graduation, more are aiming to join the job market than ever before.

More than 76 percent of those surveyed say they plan to begin working immediately after graduation, up from 73.6 percent last year and 68.5 percent in 2012. Meanwhile, about one-fifth say they will continue with higher education and 4 percent plan to start their own businesses.

That’s shown in an annual survey by Zhaopin.com, one of China’s largest job-seeking websites, which was released on April 15. Zhaopin canvassed more than 52,000 college students across China, 70 percent of which were in their final year as undergraduates, with the remainder being graduate students.

via Chinese College Grads Choose Jobs Over More Study – Businessweek.

Postgraduate studies shunned as free tuition scrapped

Posted in China alert, Economics, education, Labour | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, Class rank, college students, Education, graduation, Labour economics, Student, Zhaopin, Zhaopin.com

11/04/2014

All you need to know about business in China | McKinsey & Company

A lot of people view China business as mysterious. Relax. Consumers behave pretty much the same everywhere. Competition is pretty much the same everywhere. You just need to ignore the hype and focus on the basic fact that in China today, there are six big trends (exhibit). That’s it. Six trends shape most of the country’s industries and drive much of China’s impact on the Western world. They are like tectonic plates moving underneath the surface. If you can understand them, the chaotic flurry of activity on the surface becomes a lot more understandable—and even predictable.

Coauthors Jeffrey Towson and Jonathan Woetzel discuss China’s six megatrends with Nick Leung, the managing partner of McKinsey’s Greater China office.

These trends move businesses on a daily basis. They’re revenue or cost drivers that show up in income statements. Deals, newspaper headlines, political statements, and the rising and falling wealth of companies are mostly manifestations of these six trends, which aren’t typically studied by economists and political analysts. In fact, we happen to think that Chinese politics or political economics are wildly overemphasized by some Westerners in China. So let’s tell a story about each of these megatrends, with some important caveats. They’re not necessarily good things. They’re not necessarily sustainable. For every one of them, we can argue a bull and a bear case. Most lead to profits or at least revenue. Some may be stable. Some lead to bubbles that may or may not collapse. We are only arguing that they are big, they are driving economic activity on a very large scale, and understanding them is critical to understanding China and where it’s headed.

via All you need to know about business in China | McKinsey & Company.

What could happen in China in 2014? | McKinsey & Company

Posted in Affluence, China alert, Consumer, Economics, education, graduate, Internet, Manufacturing, saving, Technology, urban development | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Asia, Business, Business and Economy, China, China business, Economic, Jeffrey Towson, Jonathan Woetzel, McKinsey & Company, Meher Baba, Nick Leung, Service management

30/03/2014

Accomplished women in India face higher risk of domestic violence: study | India Insight

Women in India who are more educated than their husbands, earn more or are the sole earners in their families face a higher risk of domestic violence than women who are more dependent on their partners, according to a new study.

Much of India is still deeply patriarchal and there are wide gaps in the status of men and women. And this form of violence could be a way for men to reassert their power or maintain social control over their wives to preserve the “status quo” in the relationship, said the study’s author Abigail Weitzman.

Weitzman, a graduate student at New York University, looked at data from the female-only module of India’s National Family Health Survey (NFHS) collected between 2005 and 2006, concentrating on married women.

The study found that compared to women less educated than their husbands, women with more education face 1.4 times the risk of violence from their partners, 1.54 times the risk of frequent violence, and 1.36 times the risk of severe violence.

The study appeared in the latest issue of the Population and Development Review, a peer-reviewed journal published by the Population Council, an international non-profit organization that conducts research on development issues.

“The result of such violent responses may in turn prevent some women from pursuing employment or greater earnings opportunities either because they have been injured or because the material benefits of such opportunities no longer outweigh the physical costs at home,” the study said.

via Accomplished women in India face higher risk of domestic violence: study | India Insight.

Posted in Economics, education, Gender issues, India alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Domestic violence, Education, India, India’s National Family Health Survey, married women, men and women, National Federation of State High School Associations, New York University, Population Council, Risk, Women in India

21/02/2014

Who Is WhatsApp’s Neeraj Arora? – India Real Time – WSJ

Another renowned alumnus of IIT! See https://sites.google.com/site/123iitphysics/iitalumni

“As jaws dropped across the globe at the amount Facebook paid to acquire messaging company WhatsApp on Thursday, the media in India was quick to credit the deal to Neeraj Arora, an Indian who describes himself on his website as “all things business at WhatsApp!”

Mr. Arora is the vice-president of business development for the messaging service.

He studied mechanical engineering at one of the country’s most prestigious education establishments, the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, and received his Masters in Business Administration from the Indian School of Business in 2006, made the front page of The Economic Times on Friday with the headline, “This Chat is Laced with Indian Masala.”

Mr. Arora’s success story fits the beloved script of an Indian making a mark in California’s Silicon Valley or anywhere else in the U.S. for that matter.

He spent four years handling corporate development for Google Inc. before joining WhatsApp when it was still a fledgling startup in 2011.

Prior to Google, he was part of the Investments and Corporate Strategy teams at Times Internet Limited, a subsidiary of the Times of India Group, and an engineer and “self learnt hacker” at mobile file sharing company Accellion Inc., according to his LinkedIn profile.”

via Who Is WhatsApp’s Neeraj Arora? – India Real Time – WSJ.

Posted in Economics, education, India alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: business development, Facebook, Google, India, Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Masala, Indian School of Business, LinkedIn, Neeraj Arora, WhatsApp

17/02/2014

The Other MIT: Microsoft CEO’s Alma Mater in India – Businessweek

Satya Nadella studied engineering at southern India’s Manipal Institute of Technology. Unlike its Massachusetts namesake, the Indian MIT isn’t so accustomed to the spotlight. The school is part of Manipal University, a private school that traditionally hasn’t enjoyed the same prestige as the Indian Institutes of Technology, the country’s elite public-sector schools launched by Jawaharlal Nehru shortly after independence.

Image representing Satya Nadella as depicted i...

Image via CrunchBase

“People’s general perception was the private universities were not able to bring out this kind of quality,” explains Ranjan Pai, Manipal’s chancellor. When it comes to higher education, “the private sector in India has generally been looked down upon.”

Having an alumnus from the Indian MIT in one of the world’s highest-profile—albeit most difficult—corporate jobs should help Pai, 41, as he tries to change that perception. His grandfather founded Manipal in the early 1950s, and today there are two campuses in the state of Karnataka as well as separate schools in the northern city of Jaipur and the Himalayan state of Sikkim. Combined, there are more than 30,000 students attending Manipal classes in person, with an additional 250,000 enrolled online.

via The Other MIT: Microsoft CEO’s Alma Mater in India – Businessweek.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2014/02/04/microsoft-names-satya-nadella-as-ceo-india-real-time-wsj/

Posted in Economics, education, India alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Alma Mater, India, Indian Institutes of Technology, Jawaharlal Nehru, Manipal, Manipal University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Microsoft, MIT, Satya Nadella, Sikkim, southern India’s Manipal Institute of Technology

13/02/2014

* China spends billions on rural education – Xinhua | English.news.cn

The Chinese central government has invested 61.8 billion yuan (10.1 bln U.S. dollars) improving schoolhouses and educational facilities in rural areas over the past four years.

Since 2010, 39.9 billion yuan from the central budget has been used in schoolhouse renovation and 21.9 billion yuan in educational equipment, said Liu Limin, deputy minister of education, at a press conference on Thursday.

Money was also used to build cafeterias at schools in 699 “poor” counties, after media reports exposed that some students in remote villages have to cook for themselves during study time, according to Liu.

The deputy minister revealed that the ministries of education and finance and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly worked out a plan on improving the level of education in poor areas at the end of last year.

The plan aims at completing six major tasks in three to five years, including improving basic school facilities like teaching equipment, sports grounds and toilets, promoting digital teaching methods and improving the quality of teaching staff, according to Liu.

He also said that the ministry will try to ensure better compulsory education and care for 23 million rural left-behind children at school age, who stayed alone or with their relatives while their parents go to cities to make a living.

via China spends billions on rural education – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

Posted in China alert, Economics, education, Good news, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, compulsory education, deputy minister of education, Education, educational facilities, Liu Limin, National Development and Reform Commission, NetEase, Rural area, rural areas, rural education, The Chinese central government

11/01/2014

China parents count cost of sending children to overseas universities – FT.com

Jack Ma, one of China’s best-known entrepreneurs, thinks business success in China has nothing to do with prestigious foreign degrees: “When you want to judge whether a person . . . is excellent or not don’t look at whether they went to Harvard or Stanford,” he is famous for saying.

More and more Chinese parents apparently disagree with the co-founder of internet company Alibaba: they are increasingly spending three or four years’ annual family income to send their only child for foreign study. Some are now asking whether it is worth the investment.

The number of Chinese studying overseas has more than tripled in the past decade and continues to shoot up. The rise has been particularly dramatic among lower-middle-class families: according to a report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, up to the end of 2009 students from such families made up only 2 per cent of all those who studied overseas, but by the end of 2010 the proportion had risen to 34 per cent.

For many Chinese families with children overseas, money is no object. But many lower middle-class and working-class families are counting on their only child to support them in their old age.

Foreign universities also increasingly rely on fees from Chinese students to boost their income. But is it worth spending Rmb1m-2m ($165,000-$330,00) on preparing for and completing an overseas degree, only to return to a job market where seven million graduates cannot find jobs?

According to Chinese recruitment agencies and human resources professionals, people who have studied overseas – known as “haigui”, or sea turtles, because they have one foot on land and one in the sea – command little if any salary premium when they start entry-level jobs back in China.

via China parents count cost of sending children to overseas universities – FT.com.

Posted in Affluence, China alert, Economics, education, overseas university, Social & cultural | 1 Comment »

Tags: Alibaba, Asia, China, Chinese, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Chinese students, Jack Ma, Overseas Chinese, United States

07/01/2014

The Curious, and Continuing, Appeal of Mark Twain in China – NYTimes.com

There are few authors regarded as quintessentially American as Mark Twain. With his preternatural gift for capturing vernacular expression and his roguish wit, Twain is still widely seen as the founder of the American voice. More than a century after his death, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” Twain’s most celebrated work, remains a mainstay of middle school and high school English classes. Ernest Hemingway famously declared it the book from which “all modern American literature comes.”

Twain’s writings have won him literary fame in China as well. Although “Huckleberry Finn,” with more than 90 different translations in Chinese, is a favorite, a large portion of Twain’s popularity in China derives in fact from another, much more obscure work: a short story called “Running for Governor.”

A humorous account of Twain’s fictional candidacy in the 1870 New York gubernatorial election, “Running for Governor” was taught alongside the writings by Mao Zedong and other prominent Chinese thinkers and literary figures in middle schools across China for more than 40 years. In this time, it was read by several generations and millions of Chinese, making Mark Twain one of the best-known foreign writers in China and “Running for Governor” one of his best-known works.

“Just about anyone who has had a middle-school education in China knows Mark Twain and ‘Running for Governor,’ ” Su Wenjing, a comparative literature professor at Fuzhou University, said in a telephone interview. “And everyone remembers the specific cultural moment and social critique represented in the story, this is certain.”

Published in the literary magazine Galaxy just after the New York gubernatorial election in 1870, “Running for Governor” is a satire that takes aim at what Twain saw as the hypocrisy of the American electoral process and the dog-eat-dog nature of party politics. In the brief yet imaginative sketch, Twain finds himself nominated to run for New York governor on an independent ticket, only to be overwhelmed by a slew of false ad hominem attacks from several unnamed accusers.

via The Curious, and Continuing, Appeal of Mark Twain in China – NYTimes.com.

Posted in China alert, education, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, China, Ernest Hemingway, Huckleberry Finn, Mao Zedong, Mark Twain, marktwain, New York, Twain, United States

02/01/2014

Private Schools for Poor Pressured by Right to Education Act – NYTimes.com

In Dharavi, a Mumbai slum, a ramshackle building houses the Bombay South Indian Adi-Dravida Sangh school, where 1,000 students from poor families take their classes in English, a language increasingly perceived as the key to a white-collar job.

Dharavi Slum in Mumbai, India (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tuition at the school is 400 rupees, or $6, a month, which represents about three days’ pay for the students’ parents, but they’d rather send their children here rather than to the free local public school because the quality of education is better. “We want our children to fare well, but we don’t have the capacity to put them in schools with very high fees,” said P. Ganesan, who stitches clothes at a garment factory nearby.

However, this school is in danger of being shut down because of the Right to Education Act, introduced by the Indian government in 2009. The landmark legislation, which mandated free and compulsory education for all children from the ages of 6 and 14, ordered all schools to have infrastructure like a playground and separate toilets for boys, among other requirements, by March 31.

The two-floor structure that houses the Bombay South Indian Adi-Dravida Sangh School is topped by a corrugated iron roof and lacks a playground, sports equipment and a ramp for disabled children, which are all required under the law. While the school has a library, the teachers complained that it is understocked. Of the seven computers in the school’s computer room, only one is in working condition

Many education experts argue that the Right to Education Act, while lofty in its goals, does not pay attention to the ground realities of low-budget private schools. In a study of 15 budget private schools in New Delhi by the Center for Civil Society, it was found that to comply with the infrastructure requirements in the Right to Education Act, the schools would have to have an approximately four-fold increase in their fees, making them unaffordable for the section of society they currently serve.

The Bombay South Indian Adi-Dravida Sangh School is undergoing some renovations, putting up concrete walls between classrooms and adding a second floor, but it doesn’t have the funds to make all the changes required by the Right to Education Act.

via Private Schools for Poor Pressured by Right to Education Act – NYTimes.com.

Posted in Dalit, Economics, education, India alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Bombay South Indian Adi-Dravida Sangh, Bombay South Indian Adi-Dravida Sangh School, Dharavi, mumbai, New Delhi, Private school, public school, Right to Education Act, State school

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