"THAT IITS WERE DOOMED - THE WRITING WAS ON THE WALL SINCE 2003"

"THAT IITS WERE DOOMED - THE WRITING WAS ON THE WALL SINCE

2003"

Some tid bits on IITs on offer as 'starters' before the mains are served in this article. These are my very personal opinions and understanding of various situations. No one needs to agree or disagree.

·         In 2003 IITians incurred the wrath of HRD Minister Murali Manohar Joshi when they invited him to attend the very first PanIIT meet in San Francisco and asked him to play second fiddle to Bill Gates. A Cheap shot by IITians in USA, I should say

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     Back in India after the PanIIT meet HRD Minister MMJ, not happy that IIT alumni donated millions to Alma Mater, that he could not lay his hands on, created the Bharat Siksha Kosh insisting that all alumni donations should fall into this Govt Controlled Pot. http://www.rediff.com/money/2003/may/24spec.htm. There were no donations and the scheme died a natural death as was expected

·      

     MMJ was amongst the first HRD Minister to erode IIT’s autonomy by appointing IIT Directors and also proposing the Idea of ten Deemed IITs. Some of us alumni who realised what was happening, created the Save IITs petition endorsed by over 4500 IITians   http://www.petitiononline.com/SaveIITs/petition.html  

Luckily MMJ and NDA lost an election that they could not lose. None of the IIT Senates or IIT Boards raised too many objections then, like they are doing now, when senior Professors were overlooked for appointment as Directors and HRD Minister handpicked them. As an aside MMJ even proposed that Astrology should be taught in all IITs as a Science subject.

Today HRD Minister Kapil Sibal insists IITs autonomy will not be eroded, knowing well that IITs lost their autonomy a decade ago. HRD has since controlled the IIT Council made up of Babus appointed by HRD and also IIT Directors who were appointed by HRD and are all Puppets on strings. We cannot blame these Directors of IITs as one cannot bite the hand that feeds. That would be Namak Haram requiring Hari Kari.

The IIT Council is the governing body responsible for all of the Indian Institutes of Technology[1]

The IIT Council comprises the minister-in-charge of technical education in the Union Government (as Chairman), three Members of Parliament, the Chairmen of all IITs, the Directors of all IITs, the Chairman of the University Grants Commission, the Director General of CSIR, the Chairman of IISc, the Director of IISc, the Joint Council Secretary of Ministry of Human Resource and Development, and three appointees each of the Union Government, AICTE.

The Current IIT Council that bull dozed IIT representatives consists of 30 members with five directors of IITs as members, a Committee where even if all seven IIT directors were united they do not have the numbers to pass any resolution . The numbers are stacked in favour of the HRD Minister who is also the Chairman of the IIT Council.

If  autonomy was to be restored in all IITs, the first step would be to ensure that the HRD Minister is not the Chairman of IIT Council and also to ensure that each and every member there is a well wisher of IITs like alumni and faculty members and not some one who wants to pull IITs down.

·        In 2006 HRD Minister Arjun Singh, who was disillusioned that he was not appointed Prime Minister by Sonia Gandhi, took his wrath on IITs and IIMs and ensured IITs were further eroded by forcing 49% reservation on IITs and IIMs. IIT Senates did not object too much to this either. If they did no one heard about it. India’s Supreme Court ruled in the Govts Favour and Reservations in IITs & IIMs were to stay. PIL from Prof Indiresan opposing Reservation in IITs was dismissed by the Supreme Court.

·      

     By 2005 many of us concerned IIT alumni, realised there were major problems associated with IIT JEE. 500,000 thousand students were taking the JEE exam and it was just impossible to correct so many JEE answer Papers (500,000) x 3 manually.  

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     Some of us alumni started the IIT Global Save IIT JEE discussion group in 2005 as we sensed trouble

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     In 2006 the Chandi Committee of IITM, in charge of IIT JEE introduced the multiple-choice format for JEE, to ease the burden on faculty members correcting so many answer papers.

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     Again in 2010, when we knew there were moves to scrap JEE, IIT alumni again created the Save IIT JEE Petition in 2010, which was endorsed by 2500 IITians. (http://www.petitiononline.com/SaveJEE/petition.html ).  I initiated this move and am truly indebted to 30 odd IIT Alumni who volunteered and contributed so whole heartedly in writing he text for the petition.

·      

     With each IIT acting independently or not bothering at all, HRD ministry was convinced that they had to do something to fix JEE and block the influence of JEE Coaching schools. Very laudable objective and nothing wrong with that.

·    

            The IIT Faculty Federation all these years was a body that fought for pay rises for IIT Faculty and defended Faculty rights etc. Today Prof A.K.Mittal who is the Secretary of All India Faculty Federation of IITs has led from the front right from the beginning and opposed HRD Proposal of having one common exam . The Senates of IITK and IITD followed the AI-IIT-FF push much later.

·     

     What is not clear is that if All India IIT Faculty Federation is Opposed to the HRD proposal, how is it that the faculty association of IIT Madras has instituted a committee without Deans or Directors and put forward the current proposal that HRD is trying to finalise. One would believe that all India IIT Faculty Federation should have reined in IIT Madras Faculty association early in the piece.

·      

     As no solutions were forthcoming from the IITs, HRD appointed the Acharya Committee to look into the idea of a Common Entrance exam and to Report to IIT Council.

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     The Acharya Committee interviewed a whooping ‘2063’ ( being sarcastic here) through an opinion poll in a country of 1.2 billion population, with 4,500,000  students wanting to do engineering annually, and 5 lakh students sitting for the JEE and with nearly 200,000 alumni and may be a few thousand Faculty members they could have interviewed  to get a bigger picture. http://save-iit-jee.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/65-acharya-committee-slide-show.html.

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     The  Acharya committee report

http://save-iit-jee.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/65-acharya-committee-slide-show.html almost gave HRD whatever result the committee was asked to find. Interestingly there were no protests from IIT Faculty Federation or any of the IIT Senates then either, opposing the Acharya Committee Report.

·      

     When the Indian Govt creates a Committee, the expected findings are pre-determined and the committee has to create a dummy document to endorse the HRD proposal. May sound cruel but that is the way the Govt Works to bluff the population and the media. People stop objecting the minute as expert committee says we have studied the problem and this is our finding.

·      

      For some unknown reason HRD Minister was not pleased with Acharya Committee report http://save-iit-jee.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/65-acharya-committee-slide-show.html and created a newer committee headed by Dr.Ramaswamy in 2011. Not surprisingly all IIT Directors bar Prof Acharya were dropped from Ramaswamy committee, to eliminate all dissent I presume http://www.iitsystem.ac.in/IIT-Frame/Ramaswamy-Report/ramasami-report-annexures-merged.pdf

·      

     Then the nation is told by HRD Minister that IIT Council members have unanimously agreed on the new proposal. How unanimous we do not know :-) . In political parlance unanimous is not 100%.

     IIT JEE is now is in ICU on a respirator and as good as dead and suddenly we have IIT Kanpur Senate challenging HRD decision to take into account Board exam results, normalise it and give it weightage for the CET or ISEET or JEE Main, what ever HRD wishes to call it. AI IIT Faculty federations then meet the PM, who consoles them and promises to have a discussion with HRD Ministry. 

     In most democracies under such dire circumstances the PM will take the problem into his hands and resolve the dispute. Not Man Mohan Singh of India , a good man may be but totally inept as a leader.

·     

     IITD Senate meets and decides to back IITK to conduct its own exams.

·       

            Currently the main issue is not what is going to be implemented but about implementing the changes in 2013. 

    Why 2013 ? Because UPA II will have to face elections in 2014. So HRD would like to do as much damage before he steps down as HRD Minister.

I, as an individual have followed what we call the JEE saga since 2005 understand the  issues at hand and have offered solutions to Senior IITM Faculty members in 2006. The response  “what makes you think some one like you from Australia knows more than all IIT Faculty members put together ?.” Not the reaction that was expected.

Recently when I enquired the reasoning behind the solution offered by IITM Director and IITM Senate which formed the basis of the NEW HRD proposal the response from a senior faculty member was interesting when he said “Well, if 90% of IITM faculty, who have debated this for year, come to a conclusion – and if they are fools, let that be. It was IITM’s proposal which got carried…” 

Fair enough but would be nice if we knew how they arrived at this conclusion considering many IIT Alumni, Faculty and Senates are opposed to this proposal. Many of us alumni are befuddled by the fact that IIT Madras senate did not discuss this with the Senates of IITK, IITB, IITKgp and IITD. The least that they could have done is for all Directors to meet and discuss and come up with a robust solution. If this took place, alumni are not aware of this.

History IIT-JEE:

One needs to get an understanding of the history of IITs and JEE. Thanks to Wikipedia for providing this information on line

IITs in the 1960’s -70’s as compared to  current students in 2012

Originally IITs were all about selecting the cream of students based on just one criteria – Merit, to educate them in Institutions with state of the art laboratories provided by foreign countries and taught by the best faculty the nation had. IITs provided best salary packages to faculty then, to attract the most gifted teachers from all over India. The other key ingredient was National Integration. IITs had no reputation or Brand name and attracted only students interested in engineering technology.

In 2012 an average B.Tech student earns more than the Director of an IIT ( I am quoting Prof Anant here) after forty years of service as a faculty member and this means IITs are unable to attract the best teachers.

IITs have acquired such a Global Brand image that we have over 500,000 students who want to get the IIT tag even if they are not interested in engineering technology.

This becomes clear when we find that only a very small percentage of B.Tech students continue to stay back and do research in IITs. Not only that not even 20% continue to practice in the Branch of engineering with which they graduated. The beneficiaries of India’s best Institutions the IITs are Multi Nationals who grab our B.Tech students even before they graduate making them offers of salary packages they cannot refuse. These MNCs are mostly Finance, Banking, IT and Consultancy companies. B.Techs are not employed for their engineering prowess but for the fact that they have what it takes to succeed in any field, the core ingredient being higher IQ and analytical minds and skills.

If IITians have succeeded and created a Brand for themselves they have themselves to thank and the exam that was able to pick them, the JEE. Very few alumni give much credit to the general quality and standards of teaching at any of the IITs but always say there are a few exceptionally gifted teachers.

Problems IITs are Facing today in Year 2012:

1.     Demand to get into IITs through JEE has created major problems for the filtering process. The numbers are mind boggling. There is no clear and simple way to identify who wants to be an engineer and who just wants a B.Tech Degree and an IIT Tag to get top jobs globally.

2.     Faculty: Salaries in IITs are not good enough to attract talented teachers who are also interested in research. This may sound harsh but common sense tells us that if you pay peanuts you get only monkeys. There may be a few dedicated teachers and researchers but the majority of faculty members have a kushy job for life, complete with accommodation on campus; and we wonder why IITs are not producing quality research and getting global patents. A PhD is required in India to become a Faculty member in an IIT, fair enough but can some one explain if all PhDs are good teachers and great researchers ?

3.    B.Tech Degree: We started off with a 5year B Tech degree with surprise exams in each subject, called periodicals. If a student failed in one subject he had to repeat the entire year and all subjects all over again.  One also needed  minimum 70% attendance to be allowed to sit for the final exams. Today a B.Tech degree is a lot easier to pass. It is now a 4 year B.Tech and we have the semester system and if you failed in a subject you could clear the subject during the summer vacation courses offered. Its is like a production line and IITs do not want it clogged by duds who keep failing so they just push them out regardless.

4.     Why IIT Alumni are divided on JEE: IIT alumni are made up of B.Tech Graduates and the non B Tech Graduates. Majority of B.Tech Graduates know the true value of getting selected to an IIT through JEE. In the early years they felt great to be in the top 1% of students in India. In 2012 with 500,000 students sitting for JEE for 10,000 seats it makes the success even sweeter as they are in the top 0.02% of just aspirants and top 0.002% considering about 50 lakh students in India want to be engineers every year. The Non B.Tech alumni are the Post Graduate students most of whom did not get selected by IIT JEE but did their masters and doctorates in IITs. Alumni who are non BTechs don’t value JEE as much ( no offense meant ), while the B Techs are most vocal in preserving JEE, understandably. (there will be exceptions as always )

5.     Why Faculty are Divided on JEE: The same reasons as the alumni. IIT Faculty members who did B.Tech after clearing JEE are the minority group while the vast majority of IIT Faculty members are non B.Techs

6.     Socialists: Then we have among alumni and faculty socialists who oppose IIT Brand and elitism and want to get rid of JEE to make it a level playing field for poor students especially from Rural India. IITs are constantly being accused of being Brahamanical and elite, which is unfair accusation. The question is whether scrapping JEE will allow poorer students to get into IITs. I do not think so.

7.     IITs go From Pro Merit to Pro Rich as a consequence of JEE Coaching schools: IITs were always about Pro Merit and this was successfully maintained for about four decades before the rot set in. JEE was made tougher and tougher as time went by and it reached a stage that no school student could get into IITs without going to coaching schools. Whose fault was this? Faculty at IITs blame the coaching schools. In fact the fault lies with the JEE Committees who lacked the vision to see the monster JEE they were creating. The result is that almost a million students attend coaching schools today as teaching standards in regular schools are woeful. JEE coaching schools can cost as much as Rs 1 lakh per student as a minimum and this wiped out the students from poor sector from even thinking of competing. From Pro Merit IITs became Pro Rich by default for students whose parents could afford expensive JEE coaching schools. The fault is not the coaching schools, or the HRD or the students. The fault lies with IIT JEE Committees who were wearing blinkers and could not read the trend.

8.     Propogating a New Caste system in education: If the last five decades IITs were Brahamanical we are told.: Quoting Dr Pritam Singh, former IIM Lucknow Director “The Brahminical arrogance of some institutions which consider themselves superior and others untouchable is not fair.”  Assuming what he says is not disputed, imagine the consequences of the one engineering entrance exam system proposed by HRD now. A student has to have parents who can afford all sorts of coaching from Board school lessons to JEE Mains Coaching and JEE advanced coaching. Are we not creating a new Caste system in education where quality education in India is reserved for the children of the wealthy?

9.     IITM’s Solution: The current solution offered by IIT Madras senate and adopted by HRD is again nothing more than tinkering with an existing system that is already flawed and tinkering would make it worse. Normalising Board exam results Nationally and having a JEE Main for 5 lakh students followed by a JEE-Advanced for the top 50,000 is again so flawed that it makes you want to cry. Is this the best IITM Faculty can come up with is the question or they pandering to pressures from HRD and guided by flawed recommendations of Acharya Committee and Ramaswamy Committee ? One problem is that IITM Faculty have this attitude that they know more than others and seldom look outside the box to find solutions to complex social problems. Assuming IITM Senates recommendations were exemplary, why would other Senates oppose this proposal?

Question  - What is wrong with HRD Proposal:

Answer  - Basically everything:

We cannot put all eggs in one basket. Failure in one exam should not kill some ones dream to become an engineer forever. Currently there may be many exams that cost a lot as well as being stressful, but at least the students have a CHOICE to try for IIT or NIT or State Colleges or Private colleges as they see fit. One Common entrance exam nationally removes all options as well as opportunities and is so wrong. You do not need a PhD to understand this.

The whole idea behind HRD Proposal is to draw students away from JEE Coaching schools. Unfortunately the outcome of this proposal will be exactly the opposite as the proposal feeds coaching schools the opportunity to coach for Board exam, to coach for JEE Mains and also coach for JEE Advanced. If the expert committee members cannot visualise this I must say they are as blind as bats, Acharya and Ramaswamy and IITM Senate and all. JEE Coaching schools business opportunity will become three fold.

Indian National Congress Party’s election manifesto promises financial inclusion of the masses below poverty lines to raise their living standards Yet HRDs One exam policy is going to exclude talented students from poorer communities dreaming of engineering education as they cannot afford coaching schools.

If the HRD Minister cannot see this, and if IIT Senates other than IITK Senate cannot see it then we have to hope the Prime Minister of India an Ex teacher of economics at Delhi University can see this. We are creating a situation where engineering education is only for the rich thus creating one more caste system all over again.

IIT Faculty members are already complaining that the current crop of students are burnt out because of JEE Coaching schools. Yet they fall prey to a proposal that will feed even more burnt out students into IITs, students who would have attended multiple coaching schools to meet the format of the new "One exam policy now called JEE Main"  by seeking coaching for board exam subjects + JEE Main+ JEE Advanced.

Trying to normalise 40 odd different standards of High Schools nation wide based on some statistical analyses from Indian Institute of Science is so ill conceived it is not funny. Students are the children who will shape the nation and they are not mere numbers. They are people with dreams and aspirations and hope. No one has the right to destroy all their dreams based on some analytical mumbo jumbo, even if it comes from experts of Indian Statistical Society. 

HRD committees also lacked educationists and sociologists and psychologists to take into consideration the subjective aspects and effects of the proposal. The One exam policy is just as flawed if not worse than the Multiple choice format for JEE as it is now.

Technology is so advanced that students taking exams are using Spy cams and blue tooth technology to transmit the question paper to a third party outside the hall, as a video file, who inturn responds with correct answers. While this has not been reported from any exam halls where JEE was conducted, it leaves us wondering if some JEE Coaching schools have stooped to this level to get their students into IITs.

Indian Psyche: As a rule we Indians are very proud of our achievements even if our achievements are way below World standards.

A typical example is the Indian Cricket Team we are so proud of, we yell and scream from roof tops saying we are the best and jam the social media like Twitter and Face book when we win the world cup and then the entire nation goes silent when the same world cup champions gets dudded in all three forms of the same Cricket when they go overseas. Suddenly when we lose we do not want to talk about cricket any more and are like ostriches with heads in the sand.

The hype about the IIT Brand is No Different :

As a Nation, Indians are so proud of IITs and IITians and they believe they are the Best of the Best. It is not uncommon at partied for IIT alumni to drop the IIT name and to receive compliments like, especially from ladies “OMG you must be a genius to get into IIT” .

No doubt that the Undergraduates from IITs are world class, and this fact can be  attributed to the JEE and brilliant minds that get filtered by JEE .

Yet what can we say about the Global Rankings of IITs as Engineering colleges ?  Pretty woeful if we look at publications. ( The intent here is not to offend any one or any section of the IIT Community but to distance myself as an alumnus and visualise the real value of the IIT Brand.)

QS World University Rankings® 2011/2012 - is claimed by them as the most trusted university rankings available IITD is at 218, IITB 225 and IITM 281 other IITs not there in top 300 

However, in the ranking of Asian Universities all IITs being ranked both for 2011 and 2012. Here the ranking for 2011 are: IITK 36, IITD 37, IITB 38, IITM 43, IITKGP 48, IITR 56 and IITG 82 The rankings for 2012 are: IITB 34, IITD 36, IITM 46, IITK 47, IITKGP 56,IITR-65 and IITG 89 .

According the list of top 500 in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ACWU) 2010 prepared by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University where the criterion is possibly different  IISc Bangalore and IIT Kharagur come in the 76-100 bracket. No other IITs are there in the rank list. For the 2011 ranking only IISc is there in the same band and IIT KGP has disappeared.

There is yet another global ranking of Universities called "Webometrics Ranking of World Universities". The idea is " to motivate both institutions and scholars to have a web presence that reflect accurately their activities.

If the web performance of an institution is below the expected position according to their academic excellence, university authorities should reconsider their web policy, promoting substantial increases of the volume and quality of their electronic publications."

Among the best 100 of the Universities in Asia, according to their ranking in 2012,  IIT Madras comes 66 and IIT Bombay comes 91 and no other IIT.

In respect of Overall Word Rankings IITM 454, IITB 576, IITK 646, IITD 846, IITR 1659, IIT KGP 1742, IIT Guwahati 2658

It must be also noted that there are many "smaller" institutions rated as higher than IITR ( between IITD and IITR) and between IITR and IIT KGP and so on.

In the country score board,  India comes second from last.

Does not matter which list we are looking at IIT’s Global Rating is nothing to write home about despite having about 200,000 IIT Alumni flying the IITs Flag Globally.

Ravikumar Bhaskaran, a Ph.D. alumnus of IITM and a former Dean of IIT Kharagpur says: “IITs seem to be not too much concerned about their low rank among Global University Ranking in various surveys. Some of the Directors and faculty members of the IITs say that there is no need for anxiety as the IITs are after all only 50 - 60 years old compared to others ranked higher, which are much older. They ignore the fact, however, that many Universities which are relatively younger than the IITs in various parts of the World, notably China, have been ranked higher than the IITs in many such surveys. Even in National Rankings, Institutions like some NITs and even Private Universities like VIT  just 25 years old)  are coming within striking range of the older IITs in some of the surveys. It is quite possible that in another 5-10 years some of these Institutions may overtake even some of the older IITs unless the IITs take note of parameters on which Institutions are getting ranked in various surveys and try to bench mark themselves against the better Institutions and Universities in the World.  The Ostrich kind of approach is not good for IITs.”

"Youth is on the march in Asia. Not only are four of the continent’s top ten universities less than 50 years old, but they are also among the leading institutions in the world for their age."

"Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), which is top in Asia for the second year in a row, is the youngest of all, having been founded only in 1991."

      Kindly see the following as well:

      http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/top-50-under-50

      The year of establishment is also given there in the ranking list.

Look at their world ranking and compare with the IITs in the same list!!

The Million Dollar question - Why ?

If you remove the students who clear JEE to enter IITs from the equation, it becomes clear that IITs Global Ranking is a Reflection of quality of students recruited to do Post Graduate studies as well as the quality of IITs Faculty and their research capabilities. (The intent here is not to offend any one or any section of the IIT Community but to distance myself as an alumnus and visualise the real value of the IIT Brand.)

Let us look into this a Bit more:

The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) has won a national award in intellectual property for an educational institution securing highest number of patents, with 78 patents to its credit, in the last five years.

IITM has 78 Patents in Five years. How does this compare to say MIT ?

1 May 2009 - MIT has one of the most august IP portfolios on the globe, with a total of 894 U.S. patents and patent applications as of this date-- see them here ...

26 Oct 2011 - Since 2007, MIT has been granted 529 patents, proving how innovative, inventive and talented the Cambridge community is. While producing ...

20 Mar 2012 – MIT has already beat out IBM, Microsoft, Gillette and Intel for having the most number of patents granted here in Boston over the past four years.

MIT Study Finds University Patents Add Billions The study is first to document that university licensing stimulates investment and promotes jobs. It used investment information gathered directly from MIT licensees.

The study, which appeared in the Journal of the Association of University Technology Managers, reports that companies invest a minimum of $2 billion to $5 billion each year in order to market university inventions, Pressman said. Using 1994 U.S. Census Bureau figures, the average cost of a research and development job was determined to be $125,000. This means that "tens of thousands of jobs" are created before public sales as the result of this investment, Pressman said.

This being the case at MIT, HRD Ministry of India is now questioning the “Returns on Investment from IITs “which have been fully funded by GoI for well over five decades.

HRD Ministry now wants to convert IITs into Research Hub.

Akshaya Mukul, TNN Nov 24, 2011, 05.57AM IST

NEW DELHI: The HRD ministry has set up a committee to prepare a roadmap for the implementation of IIT reforms suggested by a panel headed by Anil Kakodkar.

Kakodkar himself will head the new committee which would consist of Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT-Madras, chairperson of standing committee of IITs; Devang Khakhar, director of IIT, Bombay; R K Shevgaonkar, director of IIT-Delhi and one more IIT director to be co-opted later.

Kakodkar Committee gave its “Recommendations to Take IITs forward.” ( This is a link to the full Presentation )

 The Committee made recommendations on

·      Enhanced Research Focus

·      Autonomy

·      Faculty, Staff, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Scaling Engineering education

Without meaning to offend members of the expert committee, I cannot see how the research focus will increase by creating 20 IITs or doubling student intake and more and more funding using tax payers money. Even if the research focus increases, the quality of research is not going to improve. IITs could be producing double the number of PhDs, which is a quantitative increase only, but not in quality.

Autonomy of IITs in many ways is a myth. If an IIT is to be truly autonomous it has to earn its keep, through outstanding achievements in Research and revenue generation. Global Businesses have to invest billions to market the research from IITs. Yet Global Businesses will not invest in educational institutes funded and controlled by Govts.

HRD is now providing around Rs. 250Crores per IIT annually which will amount to Rs 5000crores for 20 IITs

B.Techs command better pay that PhDs from IITs: This is not me saying this but an established fact and also reported often by the media

Can we not take cue from the success of IITs undergraduate B.Tech education and the key Ingredient for this success being – “Student Quality”. 

If IITS were to become Research hubs it is imperative to bring in better students to do Post Graduate studies.

Today it is said that students who cannot find good jobs enroll for M.Tech and PhDs ( there will always be exceptions ) to avail Govt Handouts. Every M Tech Student receives Rs8000 to Rs10,000 per month as stipend from GoI. Every PhD student receives Rs22000 to Rs25,000  per month as Stipend from GoI.

If GoI was to implement Kakodkar Committee Recommendations we will have 10,000 PhD Students, it will cost the Govt Rs 25000 x 10,000 =  Rs 25 crores per annum. The question is will this improve the quality of research in IITs ? Afraid not.

If we look at US Universities, Masters students pay fees and get Assistantships on application and acceptance by faculty impressed with your record. Not all masters students get stipend, as in India. This needs to be looked into to improve the quality of intake. At present graduates who cannot find jobs use this as a stop gap solution to get hold of an IIT Tag and we hear that in most IIT’s the first year is wasted teaching the M Tech students B Tech Courses just to teach them some fundas.

Overseas PhD students get full financial assistance most often through major industry sponsors. Instead of the Govt paying PhD students, we need a situation where the Faculty member should forward a Research proposal that has to be vetted by a Granting Body and the onus is on the Granting body to deliver value for the Research. 

For Example if an IIT Faculty member submits an application for a mega grant to research say Solar PV panels to design a new state of the art PV cell that improves the efficiency by 50% as an example and GoI sanctions a grant of Rs 30 Crores, then the onus should be on the Faculty member to interview and pick the best possible applicants to assist with this research that will also lead to a PhD plus some patents

Let us look at Higher education in US from a Broad perspective. In most western countries, local students just want to complete their under graduate studies and look for work. Meaning the demand for PG Courses from local American boys and girls is minimal. So what do American Universities do? Grab the best students available in the world by offering assistantships to do Masters and Doctorates. This is where the Cream of students from IITs, the B.Techs who go abroad land up.

Just like IITs grab the best quality students for UG Degrees, USA grabs the best from around the world for tertiary education, especially India and Asia in general. Singaporeans, Malaysians, Vietnamese, Chinese, Koreans and even Japanese students queue up to do research work in US Universities.

Any good chef will tell you that the quality of ingredients used will determine how the dish turns out. And to lay emphasis, the proof of the pudding is in the eating; meaning the demand for PGs from IITs from potential employers is not great even nationally.

How do we change this ? By getting better quality entrants to do Post Graduate studies. I do not believe Kakodkar Committee Report addresses this main and most relevant aspect.

Without being crude basically it boils down to “ Rubbish in, rubbish out as used in computer language ” in any aspect of life be it PG students selected by IITs or members appointed by GoI  to various committees in India.

As a rule, I listen carefully to people who criticize my line of thinking as these people fuel the mind and make me think harder. Then there are the arm chair pundits who waffle on each and every topic and what they say is most of the time knee jerk reactions to some one else’s efforts. These get ignored and sifted away while looking for the real gold nuggets.

I came across one such nugget of an Idea that was shared by a respected IITB Professor Kannan Moudgalya an IITM Alumnus who shared with me a post Titled

“A New appeoach to Engineering education in the Country”.

Even though Kannan and I cross swords on Aakash (he is for and I am against) I have to say that he has many brilliant ideas to offer, yet he is not in any of the Committees related to IITs like the Acharya Committee, Kakodkars committee or the Ramaswamy committee. There seems to be no room for creative thinkers in such high power committees. Posts are reserved for people willing to play politics.

Prof Kannan wrote “It has been my argument that so called well wishers of the IIT system are so pigheaded about JEE that they refuse to see the writing on the wall. In view of this, I am not at all surprised about what is happening. I can only say, "I told you so".

Kannan and I are agreed about the fact that poor children can no longer get into the IITs.
"Because the IIT graduates easily get venture funds and because the IIT graduates can command a Rs. 1 crore dowry, etc., children of rich and powerful spend lakhs of money and coach themselves for IITs. Which poor child can afford this? Kannan asks.

For the same reasons quoted above, the children of the rich and powerful do not mind wasting one full year after 12th to prepare exclusively for JEE: more than 50% of the IIT entrants have appeared in JEE more than once. 

Which poor child can forego one full year of gainful employment and study in a tutorial college? Which poor parents can tell their neighbours and friends that their wards are studying in a tutorial college instead of going to the college? asks Kannan

Quoting Prof Kannan “The top notch JEE coaching classes pay more than Rs. 2 crore annual salary to their teachers. These highly talented teachers spend their entire time teaching their rich students how to crack the JEE papers. They crack whatever paper the IIT faculty members sets.

Unlike the teachers of the coaching classes who spend their entire time on cracking the JEE paper, the IIT faculty members spend most of their time in research. It is based on their research output only that the IIT faculty gets promotion. As it is, the alumni are shouting from the roof top that the IITs are not doing well in the research rankings.

Because of these reasons, IITs have become institutions that provide world class education at subsidised rates to the richest sections of the society.               

True, extraordinarily bright poor students can still get into IIT, but at only 20% rate as their corresponding rich bretheren.

This is one of the reasons why I am vehemently opposed to the JEE. IITs are no longer what they used to be when you and I entered IITM. Preserving the JEE will only perpetuate this inequality.

My solution is a lot more egalitarian. We can minimise the damages with time and eventually make the M.Tech brand as good as the B.Tech brand.

I am one of the many pig headed alumnus who backs JEE 100%. To scrap JEE would be like cutting off the umblical cord as the baby was developing killing mother and baby. Kill B Techs we will also be Killing IITs.

This was my initial reaction despite the fact that he had a lot of very valid suggestions to address various issues IITs were facing. Scrapping the B Tech Degree at IITs made no sense. In Fact it was Non Sense I thought and I put the thought away. Cutting the nose off to spite the face. No Way.

It is the 24^th of June 2012 and there is no solution in sight. Senates of IIT Kanpur and IIT Delhi have decided to conduct their own entrance exams and argue that IIT Council is only an advisory body and it is up to the Senates to accept IIT Council Proposal or not. HRD Minister has offered an olive leaf by suggesting that instead of weightage to Board exam marks, why not consider taking the top 20 or 30 from each board result and allow only these kids to sit for the common entrance exam.

Media Reports today suggest “ a compromise formula which includes a proposal to take top 20-30 students based on percentile ranking of respective boards for preparing the merit list”

How pathetic & meaningless is this solution ?. Higher education in India will become the domain of the school toppers and children of affluent parents and we wonder why half a million students leave India to study undergraduate courses overseas; children who will never return to a country that shunned them.

Is this is what we call inclusive in RTE ?.

Shubhashis Gangopadhyay writes: “Inclusive education does not mean that everyone must enter, or pass out from, an IIT. It only means that if you wanted to, you could have a shot at it. The child labourer is excluded because she can never dream of entering an IIT; she may absolutely hate IIT, but not trying to join an IIT should be her decision.

Even if there is only one IIT train, every child must have access to the platform where the train comes. Of course, not everyone will get on to the train but everyone knows what to do to have a shot at the train. This is called inclusion in education.

Everyone must go to school till class 12; those who work hard, and are willing to work harder still, will join an IIT. Others will, by choice, decide not to work that hard and become economists.”

I am glad some one else understand what inclusive education is.

All children are born equal and yet mindless politicians are trying to grade the children and youth of the nation, citizens of tomorrow, and want to create a new Brahamanical Caste system in Education, which is pandering to the neo rich who can afford to send their children to elite private schools and Coaching schools.

Solving the Problem:

Having listed all possible factors affecting IITs from the faulty JEE, to influence of coaching schools, to drop in quality of students entering IITs, to poor Global ranking of IITs and poor quality of faculty and lack of good teaching faculty at IITs, to the exponential increase in demand like 500,000 students competing for a bare 10,000 seats in 20 IITs, meaning only 1 in 50 can get in and the remaining 490,000 have wasted away a few years of the most important part of their lives plus their parents hard earned money…how do we solve this complex problem?. How do you come up with a solution that so many experts from IITs have failed to solve?.

If others have not found acceptable solutions, perhaps they are looking at small aspects of the problem and not the big picture. Most often people working within the system struggle to fix the problems in the system and that is where “independent consultants” come in handy. This is also why HRD Committees made up of IIT Directors have failed to come up with answers acceptable to all parties.

Quoting HRD Minister Kapil Sibal in an Interview with Sagarika Ghose of CNN-IBN

Sagarika Ghose: So if the IITs even today come up with a better solution… are you willing to talk to IIT faculty members.

Kapil Sibal: See anything which is better we must be open to it.

Sagarika Ghose: But for the moment these exams stand but if there is an even better exam, even better formulation.

Kapil Sibal: They may come up with something and say look this is even better let's achieve these very objectives which you have talked about in this particular manner. I'm sure the Council will embrace it.

Sagarika Ghose: Last question. Would you like to reassure the IITs that you don't want to dilute the excellence that they are so committed to?

Kapil Sibal: Absolutely. Not only… we are protective about the quality and excellence of the IIT system and its autonomy. Now we will continue to protect it because they are our premier institutions. We very much respect the faculty. Even if they have voice their opinion against us we don't think that opinion can be just brushed aside. We have issues that need to be addressed and as we move along there will be changes in this system also. We will accept those changes because ultimately that's what we are looking at.

Sagarika Ghose: So you will keep changing till you arrive to a perfect formula.

Kapil Sibal: There is never a perfect system, till we arrive at the best possible formula.

I am assuming that the HRD Minister is genuine about alternative solutions to the current stale mate wrt to JEE in IITs.

Disclaimer: Who am I to offer an alternative solution and why should any one even consider my proposal ?.

The answer is,  I am a No body.  Just another alumnus, one in 200,000. I am not a billionaire, like Narayanamurthy or Nandan Nilekani, I do not have any Padma Bhushans or Padmashrees, nor am I a renowned author like Chetan Bhagat or Sandipan Deb, nor am I a hot shot in PANIIT hierarchy etc etc which are  prerequisites for Indian Media to seek your opinion. I am not even an academic to profess that I even can think of offering a solution.

For reasons unknown to me, I am extremely passionate about bringing about changes in IITs for the betterment. I would like steps taken to prevent suicides in IITs that make head lines ever so often through professional counselling not just to students but also to change the attitude of faculty members, so learning becomes fun. I would like to see a JEE Format that is fair to all students rich and poor alike, and rebirth IITs restoring their original glory.

What are my strengths: I am an engineer, an Industrial Noise Control Engineer and for 20 years I did nothing but solve Noise Problems.

To solve a noise problem one had to study the problem, conduct noise measurements at the source, and along the path and at the receiver. Once completed, I had to establish the acceptable noise levels at the source, along the path as well as at the receiver, before design commenced.

So for every given Noise problem it is possible to treat the source, or the path or the receiver independently or treat at all three points if necessary.

Let us consider “IIT JEE” as a Noise problem,

Source: the noise at the source is the demand for JEE ( 500,000 students and increasing). Usual treatment at the source is to build acoustic enclosures around the noisy equipment. In this case We need to reduce this demand for JEE as a first step ( more on this later)

Path: in the Noise path we introduce acoustic barriers or attenuators reducing the noise reaching the receiver. In this case the path is the JEE itself. JEE is not filtering the noise the way we want it. The Filters have to be fine tuned meaning JEE format has to change.

Receiver: the receiver is the person complaining about the Noise and is provided with ear muffs or ear plugs etc. In the case of IITs we have to see what structural change is required to yield the desired results.

Currently all experts involved in finding acceptable solutions are looking only at JEE, which is the path. No one has even looked at the demand or making necessary changes in IITs.

There are a few exceptions though. As if he read my mind, Digendra Singh Rathore a 3^rd Year B Tech student from IIT Roorkee posted this message to IIT Alumni groups just now

 “It is better for us to solve this JEE issue ASAP. Because, then the intellectuals need to concentrate on an equally (or rather more) important issue of reviving the education system within IITs. 

Here I am specifically talking about B.Tech. (although  M.Tech. also needs as far as I know.)

 What a student comes out after four years depends on how he molds himself (freely) in last 3 years of his life in IIT which actually depends upon how the IIT system molds him (forcefully) in his first year in IIT.
 The formula is simple. If you confuse them in their first year, they remain confused throughout their 4 years. You teach them in first year, they will be keep looking for teachers throughout the 4 years, You make them learn in first year... and they will continue learning forever..... and ever.
”

This virtually echoes the voices of the student community currently in IITs.

Cutting the demand to Get into IITs: As a first step we need to filter out students who are not interested in engineering technology but are interested only in an IIT Tag for all the wrong reasons. How ? we will address this as we go along.

Fixing flaws in JEE: every one will accept that multiple choice format has failed and brings in lower quality of students, plus it has also given a major boost to the JEE Coaching industries finances. 

Not only the multiple choice format, JEE is unnecessarily tough and that means no clever student can complete board exam and sit for JEE and succeed. JEE questions are sadistic and intimidating potential students in many ways. Why does any one have to be an Einstein just to get into IIT ? JEE started as a simple filter to select meritorious students in the 60’s and has morphed in the last five decades into a monster. Passing JEE is like having to kill a dragon to get into the castle.

Receiver: IIT B.Tech degree was a five year degree requiring 70% attendance to sit for the final exam and any one failing even one subject had to repeat the entire year. It was cruel but made students study. Today we have the semester system and can afford to fail any number of times and repeat the exam later. This is also a key factor as to why as many as 250 to 300 students fail in the 1^st and 2^nd years in IITs. Some major changes have to be made to the degree offered.

I keep going back to Prof Kannan Moudgalyas suggestion that IITs need to scrap B.Tech Degree and concentrate on M Techs. If we kill the goose, we know we will not have any more Golden eggs. Yet the solution he suggests makes sense.

Flash of Genius: This is a movie about a nutty professor who gets a brilliant idea when he sees himself in the mirror and observes how he bats his eye lids. This flash of an idea has resulted in our windscreen wipers for cars being intermittent and variable speeds to suit the rain at any point of time. (A must watch movie for true blue engineers and inventors)

Getting down to a Possible solution: Time is of essence at this point of time and solution has to be offered before HRD scars & destroys IITs beyond recognition and neutralises all that IITs have stood for.

I will put them down in bulleted form so that the order can be rearranged as necessary.

1.     Let us scrap the B.Tech Degree in the original Five IITs altogether. Lets us instead use JEE to select students truly committed to engineering & Technology, weeding out those who just want an IIT Badge. Let the top five IITs give only Dual Degrees leading to an M.Tech lasting five years as we have now or an M Tech Hons that is of six years duration for those committed to doing Research at IITs leading to a PhD.

2.     If top 5 IITs offered only Dual Degrees, the number of students taking JEE will drop from 5 lakhs to may be 2 lakhs over night. This will weed out those who want to do MBA or body shopping business ( I mean Recruiters) or  get into the finance sector etc

3.     HRD and Kakodkar Committee are right in wanting to  convert IITs into Research Hubs. What better way to do it than by selecting the right students through a fair JEE.

4.     Current Multiple choice JEE is a flop and needs to be discarded immediately.

5.     Proposed JEE Mains and JEE Advanced etc again pander to coaching schools and put IITs out of reach of poor students who may be bright. This idea has to be dumped for good.

6.     Make JEE an On line exam that can be taken throughout the year. Limit the JEE Syllabus to CBSC syllabus. No questions should be from outside the syllabus. Create a database of all JEE questions from physics, maths and chemistry for the last 55 years. Eliminate questions that fall outside the syllabus. Ensure that all questions have one word answers that are alpha numeric that can be keyed in using a computer key board. No multiple choice. Just one answer. You either get it right or not. Student will be asked are you sure you want to lock in this answer? as in Who wants to be a Millionaire. Say yes and you move on to the next question.

a.     Here is the beauty. Every student taking the exam will get a random selections of questions in physics, chemistry and maths all at the same time. Computer generated random questions taken out of the database.

b.     The student will have to answer as many questions in a three hour period and the program will terminate the exam exactly after three hours from commencement.

c.     There can be no cheating, no use of wifi and blue tooth technology to get answers from outsiders. Plus as every student is getting different questions all the time, there cannot be a fairer exam.

d.     This system is used in some Australian universities for some exams and is also used by Road Transport Department of NSW for Driving Licence Tests.

e.     At the end of the JEE exam the computer will tell the candidate how many questions were attempted in the three hours and how many were correct plus give instantly a rank, telling you how many students have taken the exam before you, and  what percentage of students who took the exam are worse off than you. Example a JEE Score of say 99.5 suggests that 99.5% of students who took the same on line exam scored less than you at that point when the result is furnished. Let us call this IITAI – IIT Admission Index all Computer generated with zero scope for human error or manipulation etc as is now with JEE.

f.      This rank as we can understand will keep changing on a daily basis as more and more students take the exam. It could improve and it could also get worse with time. For this reason every registered user will be allowed two attempts at the exam in a calendar year and the better result of the two locked in.
g.     To make JEE fair for all students Nationally, IITs should publish the entire database of questions in all three subjects, with answers like JEE guide books. This Guide book must be sold along with application forms to apply for JEE.

h.     This will allow poor students who cannot go to expensive coaching schools a fair opportunity if not equal, to have a shot at IIT through home study.

i.      IIT Aspirants should also be able to take mock on line exams any number of times to boost their confidence as well as understand how it works.

j.       Let us say we have 5000 questions in each subject, maths physics and chemistry, say a database of 15,000 questions in all, the software can be designed to change the numerical value of the variables in the questions, to eliminate students mugging questions and answers and regurgitating.

k.     To make it even more challenging, this on Line JEE should be an OPEN Book exam with blank papers scribble pad for doing calculations. While every one believes that Open book exams are easy as you have the book to assist, referring text books in exams causes inordinate delays and slows down the student who does not know the answer and is looking up the text book for solutions.

l.       This on line JEE is all about how many questions one can answer in three hours and how many one gets correct. When this new format comes into vogue, JEE Coaching schools will die off gradually even if not instantly.

m.   JEE should not end here. Top 20,000 students should then take JEE Advanced which is the Original IIT JEE where students have to write answers and solve problems. This is where IIT Faculty can distinguish between true native intelligence and spoon fed reasoning. Pick the top ten thousand and allot them to IIT of Choice.

n.     Here is another key ingredient that needs to be introduced into the selections process. DO NOT ANNOUNCE RANKS AND DO NOT ALLOT BRANCHES EVEN BEFORE THEY JOIN IITs. Let all the students enter IITs as equals having cleared the two step JEE. The Ranks should not be shown even to faculty members to avoid prejudices. Ranking and talk like x,y,z was rank 6 nationally  etc just places a halo on the heads of young students, who ought to be taught to be humble

o.     Years one and two shall be general engineering and humanities

p.     Before they go to third year, students have to nominate three branch preferences from available courses and attend interview where faculty get the opportunity to get the best students who could go on to do research under them. The next two years will be grooming and polishing these rough diamonds.

q.     These dual degree M.Techs coming through JEE , would beat current PhD students hands down, only because the core Ingredient came through JEE Process. These dual degree IITians and should be allowed to become Professors to teach Nationally.

r.     If this is acceptable and adopted it would become easy to implement Kakodkar Committee recommendations turning IITs into Research hubs.

s.     This would please the HRD Ministry, would please Senates of all IITs and would please All India IIT Faculty Federation, the alumni and the parents will not be out of pocket so much.

t.      Who knows the proposal may even send students back to schools full time as Coaching schools will have very little to offer. When this happens we will get top teachers from coaching schools, opting to teach at regular schools and even in IITs.......

Before I forget, I believe that IITs should also have a dual degree in Business studies leading to an MBA catering to the demand out there. This also gives students an opportunity to not continue with engineering if they don't like to.