Education: What is Missing in Non-IIT’s?

Intro: There’s a 100% campus placement guarantee for an IITian and a 99.9% guarantee for a NIT students, but what about the rest?

The easiest thing I can do in my life is to find a job with a 10 lakh plus Cost to Company (CTC)!! This is what any Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) alumni have to their advantage and it is this awesome attitude of theirs that has certainly kept them success hungry and has forced the recruiters to camp in their campuses. Being a part of nation’s startup community, I was invited to participate in an event organised by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) under their unique initiative called 10,000 startups, astonishingly, though, it was an event meant for aspiring entrepreneurs. The crowd was young and enthusiastic, and was just like an under 22 cricket team’s dressing room.
I met participants and was not surprised to hear, final year IIT Kharagpur, 3rd year IIT Bombay, just out of IIT Madras sort of introductions. As on date, we proudly have 16 IIT’s nationwide which can produce not more than 9,985 engineering geniuses across different verticals annually, and 5 more such institutions are lined up to add on to the list. The spirit and confidence, found in them cannot be easily found in most non-IIT students and this is the barrier which has to be broken. But, the question is for what and how?
In no sense is this argument against IIT’s or its alumni’s tending to generate any sort of complex among other students but the reason behind my argument is quite simple. IIT’s are the best technology institutes and are producing quality Indian ambassador’s year on year; and this is a proven fact. Sighting this reason alone, practically it’s impossible and not correct for the government to setup an IIT in each district of the nation. But the question is about the future of those million odd aspiring engineers who get admitted with nearly 3,300 technical institutes across the country annually. Just for not cracking the (Joint Entrance Exam) JEE, is it justifiable for them not to get a top quality graduation?

There’s a 100% campus placement guarantee for an IITan and a 99.9% guarantee for National Institute of Technology (NIT) students, but what about the rest? Few reports published on this issue have stated that nearly generations of engineers are unemployed and about half a million plus frustrated engineers have taken jobs for which they are over qualified and, therefore, underpaid. These Engineers are the ones who hail from the Non-IIT’s, Non-NIT’s and the Non-Top 50 institutes of India.
The 16 IIT’s are among the top 50 Technical Institutes of the Nation. Only 3 Indian Institutes have managed to find a place in the list of ‘Top 300 institutes of the world’ and all 3 are obviously the IIT’s. So, where are the others! Present scenario proves that the IIT’s are the master institutes who don’t have an academic competition from outside, if this is continued they’ll certainly manage to retain the numero-uno brand but the fate of lakhs of other students will be at stake. If creating more IIT’s is hard then the government should at least regulate the existing private and government managed institutes to perform up to standards is the only valid choice.
JEE manages to get the best of the best Indian talent into the IIT’s where only 2% of the applicants get admitted, agreed, but does this make other uncompetitive, certainly not. Regulations should be mandated to ensure every faculty on board of an institution carries strong industry experience. Disastrously most of the Industry rejects get into teaching! What could they offer is best answered by those students who are underemployed and unemployed? It’s high time that all the poor performing institutes are directed to establish college environment as not just a campus but an ecosystem which could offer its students a concrete network of, industry exposure, research methods and tools, and inspire people to innovate.
An ambition and the confidence level of a student can be boosted by this. If the College Ecosystem is evolving, the thought process of a student is also evolved; the IIT again has a distinction in this. For building top laboratories, a will is more essential, Money comes second. It’s also a primetime for the Government to consider a national level policy for technical education.
Let the IIT–Roorkee slogan “To be the Fountain head of new ideas and innovations in Science and Technology and continue to be a source of pride for all Indians”, be a source of inspiration to all “engineering institutions” across India who aspire to become one.
                    Vikas Puttur (The writer is a freelance Columnist)