“The Quality of students at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology seems to be degrading”, says N.R. NARAYAN MURTHY, the Chairman of Infosys Technologies.
Voicing his displeasure over the quality of engineers that pass out of the IITs, Infosys chairman emeritus N R Narayana Murthy has said there is a need to overhaul the selection criteria for students seeking admission to the prestigious technology institutions.
While addressing a mob of IIT alumnies at Pan IIT summit in New York, he said that the quality of students entering IITs has deteriorated over the years due to coaching classes that prepare engineering aspirants.
He also added that majority of students perform poorly at jobs and global institutions of higher education.
“Thanks to the coaching classes today, the quality of students entering IITs has gone lower and lower,” Murthy said, receiving a thundering applause from his audience.
This way, Murthy has taunted the methodologies by which coachings are flourishing.
Apart from The top 20% of students who crack the tought IIT entrance examination and can stand among the best anywhere in the world, quality of remaining 80 percent of student leave much to be desired.
Coaching classes teach aspirants limited sets of problems, out of which a few are asked in the examination.
“They some how get through the joint entrance examination. But their performance in IITs, at jobs or when they come for higher education in institutes in US is not as good as it used to be. This has to be corrected. A new method of selection of students to IITs has to be arrived at.”
Drawing a road map to put IITs among the top engineering institutes in the world, Murthy said that it has to be ensured that IITs “transcend from being just teaching institutes to reasonably good research institutes” at par with Harvard and MIT in the next 10-20 years.
“Few IITs have done well in producing Ph.D. but in reality when we compare ourselves to institutions in this country, we have a long way to go”, he said.
More emphasis has to be given to research at the undergraduate level and examinations should test independent thinking of students rather than their ability to solve problems.
Murthy said in order to produce good research at IITs, the Indian government has to be persuaded to create institutions that fund research projects.
In addition, faculty members should also be evaluated annually on their research performance by an independent committee, Murthy said adding that India must shift from the tenure system for its faculty to a five year contractual appointment system.
The Infosys mentor also lamented the poor English speaking and social skills of a majority of IIT students, saying with Indian politicians “rooting against English”, the task of getting good English speaking students at IITs gets more difficult.
“An IITian has to be a global citizen and must understand where the globe is going,” he added.
Murthy also stressed the need to have the governing council of IITs made up of its alumni.
The only way IITs can become better is if 80-90 per cent of members on their governing council are alumni.
“Nobody is bothered about an institution more than its alumni. We must somehow persuade the government of India to let go of its control and make sure majority of the council members is the IIT alumni.”
Murthy urged IITians spread across the globe to work with their alma mater to ensure that IITs are among the top 10 engineering schools of the world.
He said while only a couple of IITs feature in the top 50, there should be at least five IITs in the top 10 engineering schools in the world in the next 10-20 years, he added.
When a top level IT person says that IIT Quality is degrading because of the way coaching institutes prepare the aspirants, it means that, the coaching institutes in India can pose a threat to the actual progress that should be achieved by capable students. I myself have encountered that, in various coaching institutes, the faculty leaves various topics because of shortage of time and mis-management. Moreover, to the “not high grade” batches, coaching institutes, don’t care a pie about their marks or syllabus completion or even thorough revision of chapters. When asked, they would justify that, prepare 60% topics and you’ll get through the examination. But is engineering only about getting through 50-60% of the course? Engineering is a collection of highly diversified and manipulated fields that can change the way things are done at personal and global level. To ensure that the world gets best of engineers, the coaching institutes should shift it interest from MAKING MONEY to producing quality students.
The Quality of Education in India is at stake and authorities should wake up and take the appropriate steps.
Just getting through the JEE exam, does not make you a stardust IT professional.
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