My daughter called me sounding upset. She had come across a press report that India’s teachers are angry because the government’s pay commission has given them a raw deal. She made the argument that we should pay teachers better and, if need be, link their performance to outcomes. Those teachers who get better pass rates among their students should be rewarded more than teachers who don’t bother to teach and who get dismal results.

The Indian private sector attracts talent today and is efficient, vigourous and dynamic. That is because compensation in the private sector is set based on competence, performance and market forces. This is not to deny that there are errors, gross overpayments and abuses. But given that talent is at a premium, these shortcomings are subject to self-correcting mechanisms.

In the academic world, compensation has become completely lop-sided. A college teacher in the US may be making $80,000 which is approximately Rs 40 lakh a year. If he wanted to relocate to India and teach in a good college or university, we offer him Rs 4 lakh or even less. However much you may adjust for purchasing power parity or for the opportunity for patriotic service, a ten to one differential simply does not work. And remember most top professors in the US do not make Rs 40 lakh; it is more like Rs 1 crore. No wonder US universities are full of Indian academics.

This used to be the case for engineers and managers till some time ago. As Indian compensation levels have adjusted, there is no mad rush for these talented persons to emigrate en masse. Many still do go away. But on balance, there is a healthy two-way traffic. In the academic world, this is simply just not the case. It is ironic that the best Indian professors and researchers are teaching students in America and in other parts of the world but not in India. This is true not just in the sciences, engineering or economics; the best professors of Indian history, anthropology, archaeology and even Sanskrit are abroad, not in India. It can be argued that countries like the US are in effect out-sourcing their “professorial” requirements to Indians.

... contd.