In recent years, with the onset of India as the global back office there has been a lot of discussions in the living rooms across India talking up the Indian education system and how it gives us a great advantage over fellow Asian or eastern European nations. Even Barack Obama, addressing a group of students at a high school in Brooklyn, said “billions of people from Beijing to Bangalore to Moscow are working every day to out-educate and out-compete us,” 4 out of 10 scientists at NASA are Indians. IIT & IIM alumni are not just powering internet giants of the Silicon Valley but are also corporate high wheelers at the Wall Street. Enough reasons to believe our education system is prepping the Indian kids to take on the world. But does the premise hold any water? Is the conclusion even true? There are a few independent studies that survey the scholastic performance of eighth graders or students aged 15 around the world and the results are shocking! In 2003, TIMSS rank