Interesting take.
But I am going to argue that the “internal” factors (a student’s interest in science and technology, i.e. whether or not a student suffers from math-phobia, which in turn depends on the styles of pedagogy) matter too. Here’s why. Clearly someone who is math-phobic and has an aversion to mathematics will not opt for an engineering degree in college. So at the very least, something must happen that makes the best and the brightest in India less prone to math-phobia. Clearly that something cannot be the style of science pedagogy, which, if anything, is even more authoritarian in India.
The difference, I will argue, lies in the way that other subjects — the non-technical ones — are taught in India. In these subjects, students are asked to learn a lot of things by heart (a.k.a. rote learning) and there is an emphasis on facts rather than method. When compared with this, the best and the brightest often find the problem-solving methods of mathematics and science strangely appealing.
via Reflections on Cog Sci: Math-phobia, pedagogy and the choice of occupations.
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