“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world,” says Nelson Mandela. The statement by the charismatic former South African president perfectly describes the importance of education for all of mankind.

In most, but not all, cases such a quality needed to change the world can only be obtained via formal educational institutions, namely schools and universities.

To some people, successful career opportunities are only obtainable by those that have graduated from the best institutions.

This is, apparently, the reason why people race and compete in order to gain entrance to the best schools and universities, at home and abroad.

It is also seemingly the reason why schools and universities choose to improve their quality in an attempt to attract the best minds to enroll at their institutions with, of course, parallel positive impacts — An increase in popularity as well as income.

Thanks to technological development, particularly information technology (IT), people can easily access information on the world’s best schools and universities or at least within their respective countries or regions as everything is accessible online.

Take the case of the best universities worldwide as an example. The top 10 global universities in 2012, according to the annually published QS World University Rankings, are held by universities in the United States and the United Kingdom, with Massachusetts Institute of Technology of the US at the top and UK’s University of Cambridge second.

There are only three Non-US and non-UK universities grouped in the top 20: ETH Zurich of Switzerland at 13th place and two Canadian universities – McGill University and the University of Toronto – at 18th and 19th place respectively.

Asian universities are represented by University of Hong Kong and National University of Singapore, at 23rd and 25th place respectively. Indonesia is represented by the University of Indonesia at 273rd place.

Universities grouped among the top 100 are considerably the most sought after by students worldwide. However, quality comes with a high price — in this case admission and annual fees — meaning that the top 100 universities are beyond the reach of not-rich but intelligent students.

Employees work at an outsourcing center in Bangalore, India. The business of storing, decoding and analyzing unstructured data helps companies increase profits, cut costs and improve service and is one of the world’s hottest industries. (Reuters)It is due to financial reasons that those not-rich, but intelligent students opt to enroll with universities grouped at lower ranks. And this is apparently the arena that India’s best universities can offer. Five Indian universities are ranked in the top 300, with the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi at 212th place.

With the benefit of English proficiency offered by the Indian educational system, Indian universities are considerably the best alternatives for those non-rich, but intelligent students. It is those English-speaking Indian universities that have aggressively promoted themselves via various means, including advertising.

Good English-speaking universities, however, are not the only benefit that the Indian education system can offer to prospective students. Take the benefit offered by the Indian talent development corporation NIIT an as example. The institution offers a pool of skilled graduates that global industry may require.

The company was set up in 1981 with the goal of helping the nascent IT industry overcome its human resource challenges. In the following three decades, it has grown to be among the world’s leading talent development companies, offering learning solutions to individuals, enterprises and institutions across 40 countries.

“The key problem of most nations is apparently not employment – but employability of the manpower,” Ajai Manohar Lal, Chief Business Officer of NIIT, said. “It is the application of knowledge that is needed by students most, not the knowledge itself.”

He cited the experience shared by many global companies prior to hiring NIIT either as a consultant or trainer for them. “Companies in new industrial zones have often found it difficult to obtain skilled and capable employees. They immediately turned to expatriates — although the latter are costly — to meet the urgent need of such skilled employees,” Ajai said.

“We offer a conduit of skilled manpower in the area to them, helping to solve their manpower problems as well helping them save a significant amount of money in the long run of their operation,” he added.

This is what the Indian education system offers, not only to their domestic customers, but also foreign ones.

How about the Indonesian education system? Can, or do, we have the interest and courage to “go international” and tap the still abundant market? Only we can answer this question.