ISAS Working Papers

Every year, India produces 2.5 million college graduates. Out of these, the country has 100,000 more specialising in the sciences and 60,000 more in engineering than the United States.2 On the strength of this one can assume that India contains the foundations for a strong manufacturing core. To add to this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for India could signal a change of pace for the country’s flagging industrial growth given his impressive track record in Gujarat, where the annual growth rate of the manufacturing sector was 10.89 per cent between the years 2004/2005 and 2011/2012 - far higher than the national average of 8.96 per cent during this same period. Speaking on 25 September 2014 in Delhi to a group of diplomats, businessmen, journalists and politicians, Modi emphasized the “urgent need for skills development as far too many of India's youngsters are poorly prepared for globally competitive work”.3 The strengthening of ties with both Singapore and Japan under the Modi government presents several opportunities for India to improve both the economic and employment growth rates of its manufacturing sector through seeking much needed expertise on the delivery of technical education and skill development