IIT vs Harvard a session's observation

Observations from a session at IIT Delhi at which about 10-15 students from Harvard came over as part of an exchange program. The students from Harvard were presenting on their trip to IIT and India. The quality of presentation, level of inter-personal and communication skills were far superior than IITians in general could deliver. As students if we were comparing future leaders in the making it wasn't really a very pleasing experience sitting on the end I was. Very few of IITians could have matched them if at all. It was quite embarrassing when our director sir bragged about us being the best of the best of the best. The reason behind are many but the main reasons were they were being educated in a developed world, their experiences were diverse for example a girl had taught in Africa's poor territories as part of her intern and to me the quality of education imparted to them was far superior than we receive at our best institutes in India. The other important thing to notice was the flexibility they had in choosing their curriculum. They didn't have to choose a major like us in engineering at starting of their graduation. They were free to decide their electives right from the beginning, plan their schedules and come up at the end of day with the number of credits required. And thus they can choose to complete the requirements of their major and minor degrees as they go on their stint at the university. So a student who gets an entrance can explore and pursue his interests once they are exposed to all the subjects around them unlike us who choose their engineering subjects mostly due to the All India ranks that we get in JEE and that is true for any other engineering graduate in this country. Clearly we have a long way to go in terms of the flexibility we provide to our students while they are at college.The ease with which they presented themselves and their work was truly worth learning and giving importance too. Often we forget the importance of presentation and effective communication. Our education has to stress on this aspect. I would not blame completely IITs as schools also should be responsible for it. Our academicians are a disjoint set from business leaders and more often than not the professors in India lack personalities to inspire the modern generation. Students tend to learn more from teachers whom they respect. Gathering attention and arousing interest is the first step to teach subjects which sadly assumes lesser importance in Indian education system. And quite clearly it reflects in students as well unless they are groomed by industry. We are a long way behind compared to the best of the best of the best outputs that we can achieve and will require some effort to get there.