I see English as more of a liability for a country like India. Only 10% of the Indian elites have any sort of proficiency in English. Indians never developed an 'infrastructure' around their native language like China did, which results in a debilitating problem for India. There is a big language barrier in India. A poor Chinese kid doesn't need to learn a foreign language to be hired as a full time programmer. But in India, unless you have a working proficiency in English, say goodbye to any chances of being hired as a programmer. Say goodbye to any real possibility of using a computer. Say goodbye to the possibility of understanding any real biochemistry. In India, I can't take a guy from the streets, give him 2 days of training and ask him to do some work on a computer. I'll have to spend 2 months with him, teaching him a new language.
Thus now there are two Indias, the 80-90% non-english speaking India, and the 10-20% english speaking elite India. And the language barrier makes it that much harder for the under-privileged India to cross over to the other side, which is not the case in China or Japan.
In 10 years, the kind of language used for human communication will become irrelevant. Thus, I hope that the Indian problem won't last very long.
>> A poor Chinese kid doesn't need to learn a foreign language to be hired as a full time programmer
Not really true.
English proficiency is a very important factor in job hunting in China also. Most of the good programmers I know have certain level of mastery in english, at least in reading. For sure, China has its own internet ecosystem, the same applies for the programmer community. But English is still the dominant language in computer science, a fact that will not be changed in near future.
China has its own english proficiency test, called "四级", literally "Level 4" or officially CET4 Test. It is required for all college students to pass this test when graduating, a huge pain for many. And we are not done
:a higher level test, "六级"(Level 6, CET6) awaits for whoever wants to show better than average english fluency. Which makes thing worse, high score in those tests doesn't really guarantee real-world good english ability, so additional tests will be taken by companies themselves to make sure the candidates meet their requirement.
Thus now there are two Indias, the 80-90% non-english speaking India, and the 10-20% english speaking elite India. And the language barrier makes it that much harder for the under-privileged India to cross over to the other side, which is not the case in China or Japan.
In 10 years, the kind of language used for human communication will become irrelevant. Thus, I hope that the Indian problem won't last very long.