JOIN USA new survey of India’s school children shows that the ‘The Web 2.0 Generation’ are digital natives, with high technology savvy and global in terms of aspirations and outlook. Besides, as many as 40 per cent of students across the country have the desire to study abroad, especially in the United States, indicating that the flight of intellectual capital would continue despite the global economic meltdown.
The survey, conducted by the country’s largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is among the largest youth surveys in India, and was conducted across 14,000 high school children between the ages of 12-18 in 12 cities across India during 2008-09. And the outlook of the survey was increasingly optimistic about India’s economic future.
The desire to study abroad cuts across students nationwide with the US being most preferred destination with nearly 40 per cent preferring to study there.
Singapore and Dubai are preferred by one in five students in Chennai and Kochi, respectively, as top choice for overseas education. For decades, the country has watched many of its best-educated move abroad, never to come back. But over the past few years, a reverse migration has also been noticeable, though TCS’s survey suggests that some parents are still able to fund their children’s education expenses abroad.
TCS Managing Director and CEO S Ramadorai said: “The TCS Generation Web 2.0 survey confirms that today’s students are shifting their academic and social life online and embracing the digital world as true digital natives. This societal uptrend has important implications for parents, educators, policy makers, as future employers as well as companies and brands that want to sell tomorrow’s generation.”
DH News Service