Even his most stringent critics must concede that Murli Manohar Joshi deserves praise on one count at least. Irrespective of the merits or demerits of fee cuts and autonomy in the Indian Institutes of Management, he has unwittingly generated a wider debate on the quality of higher education in India that bears serious consideration as economic reforms gain momentum.

Since his headline-catching intervention in the IIMs, reams of thoughtful articles have appeared on the urgent need for better research, faculty and facilities in government-owned management and technical institutes to equip them with the ability to acquire cutting-edge intellectual property and assets.

Last month, for instance, the alumni association of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, made a presentation that highlighted the issue in stark terms. It showed that although IIT graduates match their US counterparts in terms of academic excellence, research significantly lags best practice.

The presentation was part of an exercise by the government to chalk out a fresh strategic vision for the IITs against the backdrop of economic liberalisation. The broader message of the presentation was a pithy one: to stay relevant in the current economic environment, the IITs could no longer function as technocrat sweatshops.

Similar exercises have not been done for the IIMs, but it would not need much guesswork to suggest that the similarities and discrepancies between them and the front-line global B-schools would be roughly similar.

In the IITs' case, the suggested solution has been to get the government to fund more research through specific sponsorships rather than grants.

It was also suggested that the IITs presented a unique opportunity for a win-win partnership between private industry. After all, private endowments account for a fair proportion of funding in the US institutions and has contributed considerably to America's economic power.

This much is so obvious that it almost begs the question: why hasn't it happened so far, despite the fact that it is now more than a decade after Indian industry has been subjected to global competition? Of course, a big part of the reason has to do with Indian industry's own attitudes to R&D and their stage of evolution.

Initially, most domestic corporations struggled just to align their systems and costs to global standards. But it is true that today, even as corporations have made huge progress on those fronts, R&D still accounts for minuscule proportions of budgets— the exception being pharma companies though there are some questions about whether enough is being done here as well.

Equally, however, the educational institutions and, indeed, within India's educational system itself are also part of the problem. This was one of the points that M S Banga, chairman of Hindustan Lever Ltd, made at an IIT symposium last month.

Mr Banga's broad but subtle point was that quite apart from the issue of the industry-research partnership, there was a "softer side" that also needed consideration. To wit: the need to "create a culture of research".

As Mr Banga pointed out, because of its competitive nature, India's educational system is driven "by numerological gradation and marks" which, in turn promotes a culture of rote-learning rather than of enquiry and curiosity.

Though Mr Banga's cogent argument was subsumed in the somewhat maudlin jingoism that pervaded the event, it is worth considering how the basic defects in our education system creates a chain of poor practice that eventually impacts corporations.

In the old days when jobs were at a premium, employers considered a university degree as the minimum acceptable qualification. But most white-collar job seekers routinely pile on qualifications to make themselves more eligible for the job market.

Today, in fact, despite the fact that the market for white-collar jobs has expanded, the entry barriers to employment has been raised: in a way, corporations have collectively signalled their dissatisfaction with the basic education system and most require a B-school degree as the minimum qualification.

When I asked an employer who was also a B-school graduate why this was so, he said "the B-schools teach you how to think," an attribute corporations are beginning to prize against the backdrop of global competition. But surely, it is the job of the school and university system to teach people "how to think"?

The upshot of this marks-and qualification-driven order is an unbalanced cost-benefit equation. Thus, India has a vast reservoir of people who qualify themselves at considerable cost to themselves and the state.

But ultimately, little of this translates into solid intellectual property for the country or its corporations. Instead, India continues to leverage the low-cost element of its qualified and capable manpower rather than its intellectual prowess.

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