The concept of upgrading an already good institution is a misatake. The problem is the politics, why have an Eye wash IIT when we can have a new one, instituions take time to establish themselves, why this instant IIT, start from the scratch and allow the newly established IITs to come up with specialisations in the technological areas.
Think of it this way, is an instituin in America say MIT replicated by upgrading an already ok institution , how this ?
For the population we are and the number of technical graduates we produce. We have very less number of IITs and by the day the competition in the IITs is increasing which means we are going to get quality students even if we increase the IITs number or seats. We have capacity crowd for more IITs and we are not going to toil their quality.
The biggest thing going for IITs is the extremely high quality of entrants the JEE allows in. Since the times of the original five IITs, the pool of students taking the exams has easily doubled. Assuming intelligence distribution in the population is more or less the same over the thirty-fourty years, the quality of students that would make it through the JEE, with more than double the seats available, would remain more or less the same.
The second thing is resources. Each IIT today has more resources than it did fifty years ago and with increasing private participation they are on the rise. So there isn't a negative impact of reduced resources per IIT.
The requirement in India and the world over of such people has never been more than today.
Having been through the system of IIT's i have to say there is lot of room for improvement in the existing IIT's. The government can spend more money to upgrade present IIT's and elevate them to the status of world class research institutions like IISc Bangalore, as of now they continue to be export factories to American University research. As such seats have been progressively increased in the last few years. I don't see any hurry to create more IIT's. The government is trying to cash in on the brand name IIT rather easily which is a bad idea as sooner than later, the fringe IIT's will take a toll of the reputation that the older ones created for themselves.They have decided to make the REC's, NIT's which is a good move as competition to enter them will be at a national level. Let them concentrate on creating a brand name rather than making some institutes parasites on the others. As far as the population growth is concerned well unfortunately our country as yet doesn't have the resources to match the growth in numbers. So i conclude we DON'T need MORE IIT's.
First of all, just by changing name, a REC does not become IIT. What will happen is the IIT name will lose value, and become synonymous to RECs. IITs are meant for the top 2000 Engineering oriented guys in India, and NOT 20,000. And IITs losing value abroad will cause damage, both to IITans and India's tech sector.
The government is finding it hard to take care of the existing IITs(recently they reduced funding). The IITs with good alumni support are somehow able to sustain the standards....with the rest..its already a tough time managing funds for better standards.
I dont think this is a feasible idea in terms of sustainability
New IITs should be created. Converting RECs to IITs doesn't make sense. It would just bring down the standards. There is a vast difference between an IIT and a normal Eng College...u just can't merge them. Even for positions of teaching, we would be doing unfair treatment. we would be bringing some non-proven professors into the elite club. I think we should think before giving a cake walk....its a matter of national pride...its the matter of the cream of India
We have enough technical expertise or brains capable of thinking enough to make technological break throughs. IIT's, REC's and other regional/local institutes satisfy this purpose.
What we need now is to sell ourselves in the international market. People adept with financial sector nuances. New breed of next generation entreprenuers will courage and vision.
For this we need more business schools to re-kindle this thought.
We must stop living in false pride. IIT's and IIT'ians are no doubt good but what good are they for the nation. IIT's should survive like just any other world class universities - donations, tuition fees and some federal funding.
The government should ask all current IIT's fund themselves and stop all funding over next 5 years.
