First of all, he has define what is meant by world class. These institutions are prestigious and to get admission itself is a very great honour to students. Most of the Indian students from these institutions are affluent class and they always did not serve for this country. In view of this, even if it world class, it does not serve our purpose very much.
IIT are indeed overhyped engineering and glorifyed engineering colleges. And its faculty is also not the best, it its because of the 10,000 odd toppers in the JEE that make this insitution stand out.
Most of Indias landmark research, development and all of the research carried out is by non IITians. If one were to be honestly self critic one will realise this that 90 % of IITians who graduate out of B Tech move out of India or do work and tasks which there graduation was never designed to serve (Banks, VC Funds, Insurance cos).
IITs needs to be really self critical weather is it really a world class institution then how come that it never ranks in the first 100 Universities in the world when the 17 percent of world population lives in India.
Jairam Ramesh is right on target, the first step to make IITs world class lies in atleast accepting that they are not world class, then define the problem. When we accept the problem and define the problem can we then move to resolve and gradually make them indeed world class.
I would put it to be the story of what first Egg or the Hen. Infact it is the faculty which makes the institute of repute by their sheer hard work and then you get the best brains for honing at the institute and the process goes on. Now why Jairam has said such a statement and if it is true or not, i would point towards an unfortunate incident during the time of vp singh ie mandalisation of education at all levels and if you see the standard of faculty & the student as well has gone down tremendously. Infact if we go in for reservation policies in sectors like Education Defence, Games and Sports, Administration etc then the quality of the output is bound to get affected adversely. So if jairam has commented it is he and his fraternity of politicians are only to be blamed. vp singh never realised what and how his decision would impact the system. So I would advise our politicians not to go overboard just to grab power for some time as their decision today would impact the whole country adversely.
I think even the present lot of IIT students are not upto the mark. Old alumni from the the present industries can certify that .The coaching institutes have pumped above above average students into the IITs. Barring top 700- 1000 students, the others in the last 4- 6 years is run of the mill.To be good in quants for an engineer is expected.Its mandatory. So lets not compare IIT boys with the English Literature guys andtry to say they are worlclass. I somehow have reserved idea that if you apprise up the IIT's exstudents' performance, whom our minister gleefully called Worlclass, you will find that even he is exaggerrating with positive bais.
Lets do a practical analysis of all the students between 1980 to 1990 from all the five then IITs . If a MR collects the data and tabulate, you will find that 70% of them performed not upto the expectationtheir parents, teachers, freinds and nation expoected.
In a country, where admssion is controlled by birth pedigree, it is diffuclt to have world class tag for the full lot. Fact is 2- 5 % students have done well and rest sail through in the first segment's laurel. This is true even for the IIMs. Many are employable after 3- 4 years. Industries know that very well.
if really "worlclass", can anyone tell how many Noble award cam eto the IITs hitherto?
Others insitutes like IISC, JNU, UDCT, IARI, BAARC have done well too.
Re: IIT IIM
by Debabrata Pal on May 27, 2011 09:21 AM
The key point is gaining applied knowledge and exposure from professional instituions - I'm using my earlier post:
Mostly Student - then Professors - then Facilities (non-science) by me on May 26, 2011 05:21 PM
My 2 cents ;-)
With no intention to insult anybody, let me give you an example from lot of my interactions with many IITans & IIMians - btw, I'm not arguing this since I haven't passed from these universities:
One of Top 5 students of IIMC batch (Finance Speciality) mentioned to me that his practical knowledge about daily use of Finance in an Investment Banking World is very minimal, compared to my knowledge - I have "Master of Applied Finance" from a reputed Australian University where our teachers were 15-20 years practioners (Traders, Product Control, Hedge Fund Mngrs, Privite Equity guys, Accountants, Corporate Finance head hochos, Lawyers, etc.) and Reseachers.
So, you see that it's important to learn whatever is applied from Practioners & Reseachers rather than Theory Masters.
Btw, I hold a first class Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from one of India's Top10 Engineeing Institute also, which was the incubation centre for IITKGP in 1950s and been with Global Investment Banks for 10 years.
Thus, the brand like IIT & IIM matters sometimes - may be in the initial part of career but not after that - it's all about the calibre of the students (& sometimes profess
Re: Re: IIT IIM
by Debabrata Pal on May 27, 2011 09:23 AM
Continued:
Thus, the brand like IIT & IIM matters sometimes - may be in the initial part of career but not after that - it's all about the calibre of the students (& sometimes professors) that make or break a name for their institute or their careers !
Re: Re: Re: IIT IIM
by Indica on May 27, 2011 09:34 AM
you sound average... beating own drums...the top IIT boys r close togenius....but not all,..not hunky dory. u r drab enough to understand the issue we are discussing
I think even the present lot of IIT students are not upto the mark. Old alumni from the the present industries can certify that .The coaching institutes have pumped above above average students into the IITs. Barring top 700- 1000 students, the others in the last 4- 6 years is run of the mill.To be good in quants for an engineer is expected.Its mandatory. So lets not compare IIT boys with the English Literature guys andtry to say they are worlclass. I somehow have reserved idea that if you apprise up the IIT's exstudents' performance, whom our minister gleefully called Worlclass, you will find that even he is exaggerrating with positive bais.
Lets do a practical analysis of all the students between 1980 to 1990 from all the five then IITs . If a MR collects the data and tabulate, you will find that 70% of them performed not upto the expectationtheir parents, teachers, freinds and nation expoected.
In a country, where admssion is controlled by birth pedigree, it is diffuclt to have world class tag for the full lot. Fact is 2- 5 % students have done well and rest sail through in the first segment's laurel. This is true even for the IIMs. Many are employable after 3- 4 years. Industries know that very well.
if really "worlclass", can anyone tell how many Noble award cam eto the IITs hitherto?
Others insitutes like IISC, JNU, UDCT, IARI, BAARC have done well too.
India's present need is removal of poverty and illiteracy? We are able to produce very good students from the present institutions(Schools and colleges)When we think of world class,it will cost a lot of money.Presently it is north worth it?An asst prof is paid Rs 7000/=PM,for 5 hrs of lecture a day?What do you expect of him?
Re: Our need and greed?
by Debabrata Pal on May 27, 2011 09:12 AM
Hi Nagarajan - if we keep aside the Poverty issue. I'm copying from my earlier post about Teachers' & Profs' Salaries:
We need to pay good salaries to teachers and professors otherwise why they will come and teach, leaving their comfortable lives !
IITs thought about getting overseas knowledgeable staff with extra pay beyond Govt pay from IITs own pockets i.e. Alumni, etc that but the Govt shot down the idea in name of bureaucracy !
I believe JR is speaking the truth. In Industry, I dont think IIT passouts perform at significantly higher level. Practically, I have seen IIT IIMs getting laid off in American MNCs,for performance reasons. They have a huge attitude and dont want to work ground level. One IIT Kgp pass out joined my team and was taking 5 days to solve a problem, and gave up in the end. On the other hand there as a nomal graduate (B.A.)who had 18 years of working experience, he could solve it in less than 5 mnts. The problem was that IIT pass out considered himself superior and thouhht that it is a shame for him to go and ask some one who is highly experienced. Next day, IITan quit the job and disappreared without settling his account with the company.
Indian graduate who is a street smart and may not have a tag of IIT/IIM is a higher level performer in Indian corporate. But, yes, IIT/IIM tag also helps to some extent
Re: Jairam Ramesh on IITs
by T S on May 27, 2011 06:27 AM
This is pathetic to judge a person's caliber based on solving one problem. Getting laid-off can happen purely from business point of view. Nothing to do with performance. When business is not generating any revenue, the entire division is closed. So every one has to loose job. I have seen in industry, especially consulting IT industry, the social skills works more than anything. Because the work doesn't have any complexity. So talent is not important in that case, any average guy can be great performer if he understands the equation.
Re: Re: Jairam Ramesh on IITs
by Debabrata Pal on May 27, 2011 09:06 AM
TS - You get Kapil's point but partially - he is pointing to EGO factor of the IIT/IIMians (not always though) which is linked to your social skills point !
Irrespective of the race, culture, geographical region, the talents are distributed uniformly. So in that way, India has more number of talented people than many other countries. But our achievement in science and engineering and other fields are lacking far behind; even a small country like Israel, whose 5-6 million population have produced many more noble laureates than we produced. There is some thing missing in our country that needs to be introspected.
Its easy to conduct a tough exam, and filter few thousands from few lak.s, and say that they are best,can do great things. Yes they are good, no doubt.
What about the exposure, the industry-academic interactions. This what India is missing
Thats why students move to West after getting a degree here.
We require a good transparent corruption free system that rewards in innovation. This indirectly triggers some kind revolution that will motivate more good people to stay and do good things.
Of course IITs are good, but considering the population and talent we have, we possibly require 100's of IITs to do justice with our talents, and also require a good system to use these talents.
IITS AND IIMS ARE THE TWO PILLARS OF TREASURES OF KNOWLEDGE WHICH KEEPS THE NATIONAL INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL HIGH IN SPIRITS BUT TARGETTING THEM TO GAIN POLITICAL ADVANTAGE IS THE BIGGEST MISTAKE AND CONSPIRACY TO DEMORALIZE INTELLIZENTSIA SINCE 1991 TILL DATE
