Quite a few members of the IIT faculty still disapprove of the government’s decision, taken some three years ago, to open eight more IITs. They have all the usual apprehensions: the quality of education in the new IITs will be far from satisfactory, and sooner than later, the credibility of IITs at the international level will suffer. One gets the impression that only a very, very small number of faculty members in the IIT system support the government’s decision in principle.
Those in the political and bureaucratic circles who believe that fifteen IITs are grossly inadequate for India are not really wrong. There are indeed many capable students who fail to get into the IITs for reasons of luck rather than merit. It is uncontestable that they too deserve the same quality of education. This would be possible if either the number of seats in the existing IITs is further increased, or some of the existing engineering institutes are upgraded to IITs, or more IITs are set up. The first is obviously not a real option. Upgrading an existing institution, however good, to an IIT is not a sound proposition either. In a certain sense, IIT is an idea of an academic culture; not merely an institute that imparts quality technical education. For instance, whether undergraduate technical education should be broad-based, and if so, how broad-based, is a question of the academic culture of an institute. Whereas IITs execute the idea of broad-based undergraduate education, other engineering colleges in the country by and large seem reluctant to do so; they do not even subscribe to this idea. Upgradation of an institute does not necessarily lead to transformation of its academic culture. Thus establishment of new IITs seems to be the best option. In this context it must be noted that eight new IITs means catering to just about five thousand students. A very small step indeed, one might say, towards the solution of the problem of making available quality technical education to the most deserving in our country.
Now the fact is that in the existing situation even taking this small step is by no means easy to take. With adequate funds, physical infrastructure can be created in about five years, but the same cannot be said of the faculty. Hiring and retaining qualified faculty has always been and still is a problem for the IITs. The apparently simplest, and without doubt, an un satisfactory thing to do is increase the age of retirement of the faculty to even 70, and in addition, make it virtually obligatory for the faculty to remain on job till that age if there are no major health problems. But this somewhat bizarre solution would ease the situation to only a limited extent. In desperation the authority might think of lowering the qualification requirements for hiring for a certain period as an interim measure. But all this would lead to dilution of quality education at the IITs, defeating the very purpose of setting up of more of them.
IITs have to be seen, not just as teaching institutes, but as centres of research in engineering, sciences, and humanities as well. The present Union Minister of HRD seems to view them as such. Now compromise at the level of faculty recruitment, for example, might constitute (or be viewed as) some solution as far as undergraduate teaching is concerned, but it would be detrimental to the cause of research, including graduate research. Research environment is not just a matter of making available to the faculty and graduate students enough funds and even state-of-the art equipment; it is also a matter of availability of time for research to the faculty. It would be a loss if institutions such as the IITs are progressively weakened in terms of research. The proposed world class universities would be hardly able to compensate for this loss.
Those in the political and bureaucratic circles who believe that fifteen IITs are grossly inadequate for India are not really wrong. There are indeed many capable students who fail to get into the IITs for reasons of luck rather than merit. It is uncontestable that they too deserve the same quality of education. This would be possible if either the number of seats in the existing IITs is further increased, or some of the existing engineering institutes are upgraded to IITs, or more IITs are set up. The first is obviously not a real option. Upgrading an existing institution, however good, to an IIT is not a sound proposition either. In a certain sense, IIT is an idea of an academic culture; not merely an institute that imparts quality technical education. For instance, whether undergraduate technical education should be broad-based, and if so, how broad-based, is a question of the academic culture of an institute. Whereas IITs execute the idea of broad-based undergraduate education, other engineering colleges in the country by and large seem reluctant to do so; they do not even subscribe to this idea. Upgradation of an institute does not necessarily lead to transformation of its academic culture. Thus establishment of new IITs seems to be the best option. In this context it must be noted that eight new IITs means catering to just about five thousand students. A very small step indeed, one might say, towards the solution of the problem of making available quality technical education to the most deserving in our country.
Now the fact is that in the existing situation even taking this small step is by no means easy to take. With adequate funds, physical infrastructure can be created in about five years, but the same cannot be said of the faculty. Hiring and retaining qualified faculty has always been and still is a problem for the IITs. The apparently simplest, and without doubt, an un satisfactory thing to do is increase the age of retirement of the faculty to even 70, and in addition, make it virtually obligatory for the faculty to remain on job till that age if there are no major health problems. But this somewhat bizarre solution would ease the situation to only a limited extent. In desperation the authority might think of lowering the qualification requirements for hiring for a certain period as an interim measure. But all this would lead to dilution of quality education at the IITs, defeating the very purpose of setting up of more of them.
IITs have to be seen, not just as teaching institutes, but as centres of research in engineering, sciences, and humanities as well. The present Union Minister of HRD seems to view them as such. Now compromise at the level of faculty recruitment, for example, might constitute (or be viewed as) some solution as far as undergraduate teaching is concerned, but it would be detrimental to the cause of research, including graduate research. Research environment is not just a matter of making available to the faculty and graduate students enough funds and even state-of-the art equipment; it is also a matter of availability of time for research to the faculty. It would be a loss if institutions such as the IITs are progressively weakened in terms of research. The proposed world class universities would be hardly able to compensate for this loss.
2 comments:
This is a timely topic and I somehow get the feeling that even if this article were to be re-written (with a few minor factual changes that might have taken place in the next ten years) in 2010, this would still be timely. I, for one,completely agree with you when you say that having a few new IITs is only a small step towards addressing the issue of accomodating a large number of extremely intelligent and hardworking, yet unfortunate students. The govt. should of course try to provide for good infrastructure, no less than the existing ideas. I believe that the reservations in some quarters regarding the dilution of standards (both at the faculty and student level) is largely misplaced. I sometimes look at the reports of IITs not being able to hire or/and retain good faculty with a great deal of amazement. I also find the emphasis on (from my admittedly little experience) hiring faculty from abroad overlooking the ones from India (sometimes even those who have graduated from IITs) a pretty absurd one...I think the IIT faculty are paid enough (to me, it's more than what they deserve), when compared to the faculty in other insitutes in the country...So, instead of running after only the fcaulty from abroad, merit should be the one and only criterion in selecting faculty...And yes, having 8 new IITs is way too less. Let's have more IITs and Central Universities.
This is a timely topic and I somehow get the feeling that even if this article were to be re-written (with a few minor factual changes that might have taken place in the next ten years) in 2020, this would still be timely. I, for one,completely agree with you when you say that having a few new IITs is only a small step towards addressing the issue of accomodating a large number of extremely intelligent and hardworking, yet unfortunate students. The govt. should of course try to provide for good infrastructure, no less than the existing IITs. I believe that the reservations in some quarters regarding the dilution of standards (both at the faculty and student level) is largely misplaced. I sometimes look at the reports of IITs not being able to hire or/and retain good faculty with a great deal of amazement. I also find the emphasis on (from my admittedly little experience) hiring faculty from abroad overlooking the ones from India (sometimes even those who have graduated from IITs) a pretty absurd one...I think the IIT faculty are paid enough (to me, it's more than what they deserve), when compared to the faculty in other insitutes in the country...So, instead of running after only the faculty from abroad, merit should be the one and only criterion in selecting faculty...And yes, having 8 new IITs is way too less. Let's have more IITs and Central Universities.
Post a Comment