When expats kids eye home country for opportunities

Top Stories

When expats kids eye home country for opportunities

Asia is fast becoming the new 'west' and India is turning out to be the land of opportunity a la America.

By Vicky Kapur (From the Executive Editor's Desk)

  • Follow us on
  • google-news
  • whatsapp
  • telegram

Published: Sun 31 Mar 2019, 12:00 AM

Last updated: Sun 31 Mar 2019, 5:19 PM

I was more than a little taken aback when my 14-year-old son said he wanted to talk to my wife and me over the weekend about exploring schooling options in India for him - after the next couple of years, that is. A million thoughts crossed my mind - the primary of which was: why on earth? Turns out, he is aspiring for a slot in one of the top Indian Institutes of Technology in India (Google CEO Sundar Pichai graduated from IIT-Kharagpur, he tells me) and believes that he will be at a disadvantage if he doesn't switch to the Indian curriculum - in India. There are, as he puts it, extremely professional IIT prep schools that can help him crack it.
Now, a slot in one of the coveted IITs is definitely worth it, but from here, he could gun for the MITs, the Stanfords and the Cambridges of the world, can't he? 'Yeah, but imagine the number and quality of career opportunities there will be in India in about 10 years from now when I graduate,' he said. 'And IIT grads will be preferred over foreign ones as they'd understand the market better. The salaries are good, and the cost of living is modest - what's there not to like,' he said with a smug look. That got me thinking. While many Indians and South Asians have long strived for a western education for their children so they get a good job and a good life there, that thinking is slowly turning on its head, with many an expat kid now opting to relocate 'back home' for the sheer job opportunities there.
I, for one, left India to work in the Gulf in 2003 and like most other South Asians coming to one of the GCC countries, I had imagined spending a couple of years, maybe three, 'out there' before returning with, hopefully, a sizeable amount of savings. Today, 16 years later, I'm still around and not just because the 'sizeable' savings never materialised. What happened? Well, life happened (and let's leave that for another column). Suffice to say for now that, apart from the occasional homesickness that everyone feels at some point, I'm as guilty as the next expat of not having a calendar of 'when' to return home. Over these 16 years, even as I have longed the whole year to visit India, my annual trips back home - during the initial few years - worked as a reminder of the contrast in life in my city of birth and in one that had adopted me.
The last several years, however, have been progressively different, with every visit putting in perspective the obvious developments in infrastructure, the accelerated evolution in the market dynamics and the express improvement in India's prosperity levels. It's in your face - the growth story unfolding there and the future potential that the country holds as the fastest growing major economy, with one-fifth of humanity calling it home. Asia is fast becoming the new 'west' and India is turning out to be the land of opportunity a la America, with a wave of 'reverse migrants' washing up at its shores as we speak. So, will I explore schooling opportunities for my son In India? I have two years to figure that out, but I just hope that having grown up in Dubai all his young life, he doesn't find himself 'not Indian enough' when he lands there.


More news from