Educators Not In India's Creative Class?

Over a decade and a half ago, I sat in Richard Florida's kitchen at his house in Pittsburgh, looking at lists of occupational titles and deciding who was and wasn't in the "Creative Class". We were both faculty at Carnegie Mellon University, and I was working with Richard on what would become his best-selling book, The Rise of the Creative Class. So, it was an important and formative discussion.

We ended up with a pretty simple rubric: "Are they being paid to think?" The goal was to find a way to identify and categorize those individuals who were generating the lion's share of regional economic growth and development - the innovators - the disruptors - the entrepreneurs (even when they worked for a corporation). It wasn't just about education level and human capital. Peter Drucker had called them "knowledge workers". Robert Reich "symbolic processors". It was those individuals who weren't just being creative - they were being paid to be creative - being paid to think.

As we went through the list, the decisions were (and still are) pretty obvious - technology workers; artists and designers; doctors, nurses, and medical professionals; scientists and researchers; judges; lawyers; financial and management professionals. Then, we got to educators. They had to be included, right? After all, both of us fell into that category, and we were clearly creative. As were so many of our friends and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon and other universities. And, most university faculty weren't just teaching - they were also world-class researchers - even more clearly creative. So, we had absolutely no qualms about including educators on the list of Creative Class occupations.

I was recently helping to identify the Creative Class from a list of occupations from the Indian Statistics Bureau. Similar categories - similar results. But, then I stumbled. Educators? Educators?? Of course, they have to be included. They were included on the original list. They have been included on every list of occupations that I've used to identify the Creative Class from the US to Canada to Australia to the European Union to Turkey to China to Singapore to England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland to everywhere else around the world. So, of course, educators should be included in India's Creative Class…. Or, should they?

I paused because rather than stick to a predetermined, routine definition based solely on a list of occupations, I always return to the original rubric "being paid to think". Identifying the Creative Class is not just about listing a pre-selected elite group of workers (techies anyone?) - it's about finding those people whose job can create (either directly or indirectly) the conditions that lead to extraordinary growth in today's economy. Sticking to that approach and knowing what I know about the state of the educational system in India, I couldn't bring myself to include educators in India's Creative Class.

Granted, most of my knowledge is around the post-secondary (university and college) system, but if I can't even find the makings of an Indian Creative Class there, what hope is there for the lower levels of education? First, it's hard enough to meet the first criteria of being "paid". Relative to university faculty around the world, pay levels for Indian university professors is at the high end when compared to internal national income levels. But, the academic market is truly global so internal relative income numbers are pointless. The competition for academic talent is global and the salaries must be commensurate if you want that talent. It's not by chance that all of India's most famous professors are NRIs. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for. And, when you're not paying a lot….

International rankings and global comparisons just reinforce the point that India's education system is underperforming with research publications, output, and impact at near negligible levels. Understand, I am not blaming the actual educators. It is the system and programs that result in these jobs being ones that can't really be classified as creative. And, as a result, the jobs themselves end up being generally well-suited for and attracting individuals that fit that kind of job. There are, of course, amazing exceptions - but they are just that -- exceptions. If you are smart, driven and want to be a university professor, you study abroad and then get a job abroad. Or, you skip academics entirely and pursue a job in the tech sector because that's where the money and prestige lie.
"Herr(en) Doctor Professor" has about as much standing in Germany as a large tech company MD in India (if not more). While a university professor in India has about as much standing as a taxi driver in Germany. I cannot include taxi drivers in the Creative Class in Germany nor can I include educators in the Creative Class in India.

And, that's the rub. The problem isn't that educators in India shouldn't be included in the Creative Class. The problem is that educators in India are not even understood in an Indian context of being in the Creative Class. If educators were seen and treated (and paid) as the innovators - the disruptors - the entrepreneurs generating amazing returns for the Indian economy, it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Having the expectations would help to generate the results. Instead, the "taxi drivers" are doing little beyond making sure your children make it to their next destination for as few bucks as possible.