[Cronos]

with the idea that many would be used to syphon off jobs from more advanced nations, both through plant relocations and the outsourcing of jobs where the engineer can do the work from distant locations.

That may be true of China, but in india there is no one making those kind of central decisions

the logic for indian students is simple -- engineers make more money, so head for that field...

[Will88]

That may be true of China, but in india there is no one making those kind of central decisions

It doesn't have to a central decision, but just many individuals or groups of individuals who recognized that training more engineers would result in more opportunities to attract outsourced jobs from more advanced economies, plus provide engineers for internal growth. The article points that out as what happened in India.

According to data from AICTE, the regulator for technical education in India, there were 1,511 engineering colleges across India, graduating over 550,000 students back in 2006-07. Fuelled by fast growth, especially in the $110 billion outsourcing market, a raft of new colleges sprung up -- since then, the number of colleges and graduates have doubled.