My column in today’s DNA – on “the IIT’s and IIM’s are truly worldclass ?”
At the very start, we can start by admitting that Jairam Ramesh, himself an IIT alumnus, is partly right. The IIT-JEE exams are held every year and are used to admit students to the Indian Institutes of Technology, IIT-BHU (Banaras Hindu University) and ISM (Indian School of Mining, Dhanbad) The institutes between them have a sum total 13,000 seats (9,600 for the IITs). This year 4,85,000 young aspirants took the exam in the hope of being selected by one of these institutions in any of the engineering disciplines they may be running. That means 2.7% of the students who take the JEE were selected. If we look at just the IITs, the figure drops to 2%.
The IIMs are even more exclusive. Over 250,000 students take the CAT (common entrance test) competing for 2600 seats (1%).For the average Indian student — whose parents can afford it — it is possibly easier to get into MIT than IIT or to Wharton than IIM.Furthermore, these 4.85 lakh students who took the JEE had most probably been preparing for the last three years for the exams. In addition to going to college and lab work and tuitions for their 10th and 12th, these students have most likely taken extra coaching and classes for the JEE. So, what you really haveare a bunch of the most academically oriented, highly motivated teenagers in schools, colleges and tuition classes across the country who have been put through an education drill with only one aim — crack the JEE.
When these 9,600 IIT students and 2,600 IIM students graduate and go out into the world to make a name, you shouldn’t be surprised. Most of them were predisposed to this success and the educational process from the 9th standard upwards just helped focus and structure their innate abilities. The question that should be asked is why despite all this “selection”, there aren’t more success stories coming out of the IITs or even the IIMs.If the IITs and the IIMs took students with mediocre or borderline marks, or students from disadvantaged backgrounds — who did not have the luxury of undergoing the multi-level training from the 9th standard — and made them into world-beaters, one could appreciate that the institutions had great teaching and systems to bring out the best in students. But, the fact remains — and sadly so — that this is not the case.
The rest of the piece is here
Hello!
Thanks very much for your sober take on Jairam Ramesh’s “controversial” comments. I’ve read the book and seen the original play production but I haven’t seen the movie so I won’t comment on life at IIT for fear of causing offence. 😉 But regarding IIMs, I thought it was common knowledge that all business schools were a place for not much more than networking and job hunting and magically boosting your salary by 25-50% in 2 years.
I’m not sure I fully understood what you meant by the second last paragraph on the version of the article that appeared at DNA. Could you please expand on “Today, we live in a different world — the demands are different. There needs to be a reorientation of these institutions to ensure they meet the demands of the market.” Aren’t IIT-IIM grads the ones nabbing all the obscene pay packets? Thanks.
Hi
sorry for the delay in responding. it is easier to sneak off to twitter, from work, than to my blog 🙂
my take is that the IIT’s were set up to train technocrats who would build and run the temples of modern India. that is what they were trained for. and that is the role they performed not just in India but across the world. That was a more industrial economy.
In this world, you need people to come up with cutting edge innovations that are game changers. more knowledge economy based.
New goals have to be set —
yes – but they still sell soap. my local corner shop does that too 🙂 (ducks)
Yes, I agree with you. 🙂 Thanks for your response.
Should not that be IT-BHU instead of IIT-BHU?
yes. it was. till March this year – from their website 🙂
I will point on their research activity in IITs with this answer. http://www.quora.com/India/Why-the-IITs-havent-given-any-great-research-work-despite-of-the-fact-that-average-expenditure-per-student-is-greater-than-20-lacs
And this country requires engineers no doubt on that. But I don’t know what is secret ingredient for good rankings.
IIM or any other B schools are glorified placement agencies rather than great institutes for academia, research and thinking. I assume IFMR, IRMA, XISS are doing much better job for giving professional where India needs rather than India desires.