Indian Education System

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 27 Mar 2015 16:33

Small point to consider. From unni-varsity's POV, isn't it better to spend 200 hours/year impressing a billionaire, than on 10,000 aam-alumni? One (fill in Big-Naam) donating $50M takes an awful lot of us aam-yakherders to match. That is the other part of the issue. Yoo Ess universities sidestep this issue with a neat scheme:

$1 to the Athletic Association = 1 point towards Seat Selection for home football and basketball games
$10 to the Foundation = 1 point towards Seat Selection for home football and basketball games

NOW v're talking BIG quid pro quo.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 27 Mar 2015 17:58

Also, while a Well-Endowed University is as excellent as a well-endowed Baki mard, this is not necessarily the only ingredient needed to get to the top of the Top-10 list.

My pooch is this: IMO, desi Eye-Eye-Tees get perhaps the top 10,000 each year from about - how many? 1.5 million engg. grads per year?

India has 20 million high school grads per year.
Since this is a 40% success rate per the data, it means 100 million students total.

Of the 20 million, 10,000 may get into an IIT. A selectivity of 5 in 10,000. One in 2000.

MIT takes in ~1400 per year The Top 10 US schools together might take in 15000 total, out of 3.3 million high school grads per year.

Selectivity: 4.5 out of 1000.

So roughly, the IIT admission is about 10 times as selective as US Top Engg Schools. OK, maybe only 98 times.

So why is it then that no IIT is anywhere near the Top 10 rankings? Are they in Top 50? Top 100? Top 200? I hope so, but shouldn't they really have 5 of the top 10 spots?

Part of the answer is:
1. The rankings are fixed to suit those who do the rankings.
2. The rankings bijnej will go out of bijnej if their conclusions don't match ppl's superstitions: The Consumer Reports Problem (why each year they try desperately NOT to list the Toyota RAV-4 at the top of the rankings, and try desperately to claim that "US Automakers Are Greatly Improved This Saal Onlee" despite being mostly "in the black" vs. the Japanese mostly "in the red".

But let's get beyond that:

1. Research is a HUGE part of the rankings criteria. This holds that ppl who graduate with engg degrees from a research institution come out with an education that is not matched by the "excellent undergraduate institutions".

2. Research FUNDING is a huge part of the "funding per student" equation.

Anything else?

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 27 Mar 2015 18:01

And regarding "Size Matters":

He continued, “Our target this year is about 70 fewer students than last year.” There were 1,118 first-year students enrolled in the fall of 2013.

According to Schmill, the decreased target class size was not the only reason that MIT admitted fewer students to the Class of 2018.

“We admitted fewer students also because our yield has been going up. If a higher percentage of admitted students choose to enroll, we have to admit fewer students so we do not over-enroll,” Schmill said.

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 27 Mar 2015 18:35

UlanBatori, what statistics are you quoting? Around 15lakh applied for JEE last year. That's 1.5 million, not 20 million or 100 million.
10,000 out of 1.5M comes out to about 1 in 100 admission rate.

As for why the IITs aren't as good as they should be, the reasons are extremely complex and cannot be reduced to a numerical equation.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 27 Mar 2015 18:35

UlanBatori wrote:So why is it then that no IIT is anywhere near the Top 10 rankings? Are they in Top 50? Top 100? Top 200? I hope so, but shouldn't they really have 5 of the top 10 spots?

There was comment earlier that a large number of IIT folks these days move to management/finance type position and abandon their training. Not sure how far this is true. From what I remember of IIT-M making the jump to actual practical engineering is very unlikely for these folks.
------------------------------

Pet peeve. WTH is is it so hard to get folks to focus on the 16 things they need for good design and ignore the 60,000 other high funda items that one can distract oneself with. Back in another life my boss used to tell me that the toughest job he had was get PHD types to 'un-learn' their subject matter.... ..why am I stuck with this job....

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 27 Mar 2015 19:17

UlanBatori wrote: 1. Research is a HUGE part of the rankings criteria. This holds that ppl who graduate with engg degrees from a research institution come out with an education that is not matched by the "excellent undergraduate institutions".

2. Research FUNDING is a huge part of the "funding per student" equation.

Anything else?

IITs have always focused on just the UG education part in the past. This is the primary reason for why they do not list anywhere in the top300 in the world. Once they fix this, which will take time, you will see at least the older IITs showing up in the ranking lists.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 27 Mar 2015 19:58

Badeji:

Around 15lakh applied for JEE last year. That's 1.5 million

That is not the right metric. Look at what MIT claims: They selected 1 out of 7 who applied.
So by that metric, the IIT only selected 10,000/1500,000, or 1 out of 150. A lot more selective.

To take the JEE, one already has to be 'phisht class pass' etc, hain?
To answer yuwar pooch, UBCN only quotes the best statistics.

as for this:

IITs have always focused on just the UG education part in the past. This is the primary reason for why they do not list anywhere in the top300 in the world. Once they fix this, which will take time, you will see at least the older IITs showing up in the ranking lists.

For comparison, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology claims to be #1 in Yoo Ess for engg. ejjikation. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University claims to be #1 (among undergraduate schools) in aerospace. Neither has much hope of being on any global Top 100 list unless they transform into research universities.

Until then they will continue to be viewed as glorified quasi-vocational schools for rich kids, where ppl memorize textbooks with calculus equations instead of only charts and algebraic empirical fits and DON'T learn real vocational skills. The only reason why the EyeEyeTees didn't get relegated there, is that they get an extremely selective group, and the professors did indeed teach them to become better at many things than they were when they came in - and set exams like the ones set at the top universities, with the textbooks taught there. Strange fluke of history? Can it be sustained? Can it be evolved and improved for the future global workplace?

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 27 Mar 2015 20:05

Ulanji, That was saurabh, not me. Statistics on selectivity cannot prove anything by itself other than it is hard to get in to IIT. If anything it also indicates, despite being very selective and getting the cream of the applicants, IITs are failing to retain or mould them into great researchers within the system, some of whom may stay back and give dividends later, which shows up in better rankings.

So it ends up with IITs taking credit for alumni who have done well elsewhere and in diverse fields. Even the alumni themselves will often tout this as indicators of why IITs are great or have done well in a very restricted role.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 27 Mar 2015 20:13

Ah, but that is because the transformation into a 'research' university is an immense change AND IT WILL COME AT SOME COSTS TO THE FOCUS ON UNDERGRADS. As in

This job would be soooo good if it weren't for the ishtudantz!

This is why IISc refuses to have a massive undergrad program.

So my other pooch is, should one even worry about these "rankings"? Why not generate India-based World Rankings? PRC has done it, Japan probably has such rankings. Evidently, the Indian model for a Top School is very different from the US or Oiropean model for a Top School. Why not refuse flat out to provide data for such 'fixed' surveys?

Several Oiropean 'Universities' (maybe like Lie-Pigz) refuse to accept American MS degrees, and maybe American PeeEchDees, as being too inferior to their own fine products. For one thing, they ask students to get a certificate that they were in the Top 10% of Their Class, to have a course grade translated to the equivalent of an A.
I have my own views on this (I heard that one yak-herder in a Yoo Ess Top Ten/Top 5 school, when asked for this by a student, sent a response cc the (German) School asking why s(he) should certify anything of the sort. Asked them why they were not found listed in the Top 20 percent among schools, to ask a question of that sort to a student who got a grade from a real Top 10 school).

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 27 Mar 2015 20:27

I agree with you on the "ranking" bizness as kind of fixed, if not entirely. That being said, the taxpayer is going to ask then what is the difference between an NIT and an IIT if they are doing the same job onlee, only slightly better. Why pay hazaar crores to setup IIT in each state when there are already NITs in every state. Why not just upgrade them to current level of old IITs and keep up the quality of UG factory. Valid question IMO.

So IITs have realized that they have to distinguish themselves in some way going forward, as even the UGs are staying back for industry jobs (80% is the number I heard) and even fewer are going abroad for higher education. Which ends ups with no pool of students to PhDs to recruit as faculty later. Major issue going forward. So they are looking for solutions from inside the system and a push towards transition to full fledged research universities, so that they can also feed the NIT faculty shortfalls. In essence move from a UG/PG focused one to also generate enough PhDs to meet the needs of the country.

Now comes the question of money from endowments, alumni funds, industry etc to address these new issues, as GoI will give only so much for daily operational existence.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 27 Mar 2015 23:03

Here, the IITs are ignoring 1st Law and 2nd Law (of thermodynamics and economics). Yes, the question to be posed is:

What is the super value of 30 IITs as opposed to 50 or 100 NITs? From what I hear, the 'newer' IITs except for Gandhinagar and maybe Rajasthan, are not really able to get people from the top 10,000 in the JEE to finally accept.

So "superlative research and facilities" HAS to be the competitive advantage.

To get that, you have to get world-class faculty - i.e., ppl who can get their papers published in Taap Jarnails, hajaar-hajaar of them, not just one once in 10 years. And who will generate 10 proposals per year with winning ideas. And who will guide ishudants to actually EXECUTE these proposals and solve previously unsolved problems, and move technology along. And develop new knowledge, not just cruise on their PhD theses and consume chai-biscoot-bonda.

And WHERE are they going to get these ppl? From recent IIT PhDs? Why? Are they the best in the world? Why would you think that?

Herein is the problem. If you want the best in the world, you must pay them wages and benefits and working conditions and living conditions that beat the best that they can get anywhere in the world. India pays Corporate Executives world-class wages. Read the papers, and you see about

5-Year-Old Wunderkind Gets Eye-Eye-Em EmBeeYaa, offered 100 crores starting offer by Dawood Ibrahim Enterprises.

Why do they think world-class PhDs in engineering must agree to come and work like slaves in a salt-mine, 140 hours/week for 4/5 years to get Promotion and Tenure (like yak-herders have to do in Ulan Bator) at Eye Eye Tee for $1200/mo, when a PIGS these days gets over $2000/mo?

Oh, I know.

To Serve The Bharat-MAta. To Give Back To The Nation.

While the bottom of the same Eye Eye Tea class, who moved to an EmBeeYay drives a Bee Em Dubya and marries an EmDee and lives in a lakeside mansion in Oklahoma and shops for $9,000 purses.

The days are gone when that would be a good argument. There is no reason why those who worked their tails off for 9 years getting a PhD in engg from a world-class institution, being the best in the class, should expect anything but the best in treatment. In return for devoting one's life to taking one's employer to excellence.

And this is where the whole IIT model for a Research University completely falls down. And it is mostly because of local petty jealosy.

In world-class institutions (and corporations) they pay executives what they can command - and based on the expectation of what they will produce. With no security until they are shown to be meeting and exceeding expectations, at which point they will get a raise and promotion.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 28 Mar 2015 00:40

Who would want to live in Oklahoma?

----

I am a bit skeptical of the USP of EyeEyeTeas that gets touted esp among EyeEyeTea alumni circles including here in the Bay Area. Everybody and their father (including my own) will point to how successful EyeEyeTea undergrads have been in YouEss, Oirope ityadi as proof that the uber tough JEE kamandu course followed by 4 years of merciless le-education is what made such success happen. However, after interacting/hiring/firing/bonda-sharing with a lot of EyeEyeTea and SDRE NIT educated injineers in industry and academia I really don't see what sets EyeEyeTeas apart from the NITs except perhaps better PR and hype? My theory is that the standout successes of EyeEyeTeans abroad was not becoz they were magically better or the JEE cheerharan followed by vigorous GUBO over 4 years made their mushes tight and strong but becoz in License Raj India traveling abroad for MS/pee-chaddi was something only a few were given the privilege of attempting and even fewer had a clue how to go about it in order to present themselves in the best light and land some scholarships. The EyeEyeTeas with the elite gobermint status and exposure to foreign funding/profs ityadi naturally had more preference and were given much better connections and clue on how to get their students to go abroad for MS/pee-chaddi on scholarships. So a lot more EyeEyeTeans landed up in massa etc vs NIT/REC phata abduls back in the days. And naturally a subset of them became uber successful and became poster children of the top dog status of EyeEyeTeas. But now that is no longer the case. Now any chunnu munnu can get the opportunity to go to a good school in massa or Oirope with full scholarship even if they are from some NIT and not from an elite EyeEyeTea. And hence, now I no longer see EyeEyeTea grads being more successful in general than some abdul plucked from a NIT/REC. So I think it wasn't the JEE or the curriculum which made the difference, it was just preferential access to a constrained resource.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 28 Mar 2015 00:55

Am I wrong to say even in massa peecheddis in academia gets lesser pay than BA communications HTML developers?

That aside I agree with the argument that to get best minds in to academia we need to pay top rupayya.

I would like to see every prof has an option to give one seat to a favorite, four seats to rank holders and five seats based on essays/research interest/aptitude (how to measure this better than palmistry ?)

And there needs to be dedicated labs for each professor.

I think we are looking at a $2m/professor capital costs + $0.5m recurring costs?

This may sound a lot. But when we put together all Goberment labs & education institutions under one umbrella, this isn't an impossible task.

What say gurus?

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Mar 2015 01:11

About money as compensation is not enough argument, again though valid will get you only so far. When people sacrifice with their lives on low pay in the defense forces, be it in Yindia or even in uber-capitalist Amreeka, what is so special about Univ Profs. They need to be given enough to live a good life, maybe much higher than what they are getting now, but will it ever be comparable to an NIT/IIT dropout who will mint more money with a successful startup, hiring not just non-iitians, but even non-engg degree holders, or go another step below and hire just high school grads and train them in-house. So clearly an engg degree is not necessary to mint money or be successful and wealthy in life.

Profs in sciences get low pay even at taap schools in massa, and it has not deterred them from getting good talent. Engg Depts I have no clue about, on what they pay on average higher than sciences for sure but lower than Management schools.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 28 Mar 2015 01:15

UlanBatori wrote:
To Serve The Bharat-MAta. To Give Back To The Nation.
While the bottom of the same Eye Eye Tea class, who moved to an EmBeeYay drives a Bee Em Dubya and marries an EmDee and lives in a lakeside mansion in Oklahoma and shops for $9,000 purses.

The days are gone when that would be a good argument.

Honestly I think it was never a good argument even in old days. In fact if anybody tells me the main reason they are moving back to teach at XYZ institute is "To Serve the Bharat-Mata. To Give Back To The Nation.", I immediately mark them as pompous frauds. Such hyperbole and lofty thoughts usually come crashing down when rammed by reality. One must be very clear headed and pragmatic in why they want to go back and must thoroughly understand what can be good and bad about making such a move. Lofty thoughts and ideals don't fill bellies, keep spouses happy and get kids a comfortable upbringing. When one is sitting in their 600 sq ft sarkar assigned faculty quarter with peeling paint falling in their cup of chai and water damage creeping down their bedroom wall, SHQ giving the evil eye, giving back to the nation is the last thing on the hapless abdul's mind. Next thing you know the abdul is sheepishly crawling back to massa which is even worse coz he has disrupted his life, his entire family's life and hasn't made a positive contribution to either India or massa. We had one professor like that. Tenure track fella, wife earning mid 6 figures working remotely for a Bay Area shop, kids are getting good education, life is good when he watches SRK in Swadesh, gets teary eyed and makes a declaration that he will return to India, join IISc and admonishes us for coming to massa for MS/pee-chaddi (er....he did his pee-chaddi from massa too, no?). Wings it to IISc, no contact for a year till one day I run into him at the local Walmart. Ask him what is he doing here and fella is sheepish and embarrassed. Later, he claims IISc gave him no "bhaav" even though he was US returned and he felt ill-treated. I ripped him a new hole in the mush in front of some folks at a gathering when he said this. IISc has profs with more knowledge in their mush than he has in his head. And why the expectation of being treated special when his loud claim was that he was going back to "Serve Bharat-Mata. To Give Back To The Nation.", hain??

UlanBatori wrote: There is no reason why those who worked their tails off for 9 years getting a PhD in engg from a world-class institution, being the best in the class, should expect anything but the best in treatment.

9 years for pee-chaddi in engg?

I thought only math pee-chaddis were on the 10 year plan.

My engg pee-chaddi advisor was nice...he laid out milestones and said achieve those and you can get outta here. And he kept his word. If I had gone to UB ji's univ (almost did, except fate intervened in a funny way) I would have still been slogging for another 17-18 years under the main tyrant there.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Mar 2015 01:17

RB, the only USP of IIT that I can vouch for is a clean administration in the Indian context and politics free atmosphere when compared to state univs. That is a biggie in itself, where a regular semester system is defined and held on to, come what may and results declared in time and student's careers are not shafted where a 4 yr degree becomes a 5 or 6 yr course for no fault of the student. That is a good enough reason to replicate the IIT model with a hundred campuses. I have given up on other institutions in India, to deliver this minimum requirement.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 28 Mar 2015 02:11

Bade wrote:About money as compensation is not enough argument, again though valid will get you only so far. When people sacrifice with their lives on low pay in the defense forces, be it in Yindia or even in uber-capitalist Amreeka, what is so special about Univ Profs. They need to be given enough to live a good life, maybe much higher than what they are getting now, but will it ever be comparable to an NIT/IIT dropout who will mint more money with a successful startup, hiring not just non-iitians, but even non-engg degree holders, or go another step below and hire just high school grads and train them in-house. So clearly an engg degree is not necessary to mint money or be successful and wealthy in life.

Profs in sciences get low pay even at taap schools in massa, and it has not deterred them from getting good talent. Engg Depts I have no clue about, on what they pay on average higher than sciences for sure but lower than Management schools.

Bade mian, I think what UBji might be saying is that paying low wages expecting top talent to come flocking in and when they don't, going

about Wai Yu No Wok Pho Lo Pei won't do the trick. How many NIT/IIT dropouts are out there minting money with a successful startup? 100, 1000, 10000? Its a drop in the ocean and is an outlier. Here what is being referred to is comparison within a peer group.

Do you think the average jawan would wish to remain as a jawan if he got a safer, higher paying job where he could stay comfortably with his family. In most cases the answer will be no. Especially if he has a wife and kids. We cannot just arbitrarily ask a group of people to take one for the team/country and slog it out. If one wants to do it oneself voluntarily that's fine. But it cannot be made into an expectation from others. In the end, every individual is human. Expecting them to be self-less self-sacrificing yogis just makes the problem worse.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Mar 2015 02:22

Since the genesis of NIT model was kinda similar to IITs, why is it that there is so much disparity amongst NITs in quality of education or quality of life on campus. Someone with some inside view can enlighten us on this. I am told some campuses even had politics like in state univs. or even violent movements. In my time only Trichy had a somewhat clean chit.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Mar 2015 02:26

The starting pay at some state univs in Physics is $45-55k for an Asst Prof a decade ago, I think it is not any different now. That is much lower than even a Physics PhD would get fresh out of grad school in industry in the US. I still know of many who would quit their $100k jobs in industry if a tenure-track option were open to them. So what gives for Engg TFTAs

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 28 Mar 2015 03:02

Bade wrote:Since the genesis of NIT model was kinda similar to IITs, why is it that there is so much disparity amongst NITs in quality of education or quality of life on campus. Someone with some inside view can enlighten us on this. I am told some campuses even had politics like in state univs. or even violent movements. In my time only Trichy had a somewhat clean chit.

From what I hear the politics is EyeEyeTeas is not better now. Is there really a disparity in quality of education between the top EyeEyeTeas and good NITs today?

At least on the ground, I don't see much difference between the products of both those institutions now.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 28 Mar 2015 03:06

Bade wrote:The starting pay at some state univs in Physics is $45-55k for an Asst Prof a decade ago, I think it is not any different now. That is much lower than even a Physics PhD would get fresh out of grad school in industry in the US. I still know of many who would quit their $100k jobs in industry if a tenure-track option were open to them. So what gives for Engg TFTAs

As you know, there's a huge difference between saying and doing.

How many would take such a big income hit (assuming similar cost of living), not to mention tolerate the insane slogging for the next 5-8 years? Not many I suspect and certainly not 50%. There are kids to feed, mortgages to pay, Kunals to entertain...

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 28 Mar 2015 04:03

Beloveds: I yam about to Reveal Great Secret: Pay cited for Asst Profs is 9-month pay. Eeeph you don't find contracts that pay 4 ur summer 3 months (plus the Overhead Baksheesh going to madarssa) u will be out on ur musharraf inside 3 saal.

Also, $45K for 9 months is not what asst prof in engg makes in a research univ. Try twice that. No, I don't know of any industry jobs at least in Majik Carbet Industry that pays nearly as much to ishtarting PeecheeDee as good universities pay. Of course universities don't have stock options... Some other industries advertise various fancy packages, but truth is that the top ones always try to get back in a university - unless they form their own companies and go for the $$B. Or claw and bite and mush-kiss their way into Executive Mgmt. So that 'mystery' is a non-mystery onlee.

Now mostly undergrad universities don't pay that much, because pay must come out of fees minus the cut for the Admin etc. In research universities, if u pay Prof X, $$M, then s(he) is going to bust musharraf getting about $$3M of sponsored research $$ per year, of which $1.2M goes as overhead back to university. So! clear profit of 0.2M at least. Hence it is better for university to increase M. "cost-cutting" is stupid, IOW.
These days Asst Prof passes $100K/yr very fast - or is out. It eej that last part that desis in desh don't comprehend: the sheer stress of being an Asst Prof in Massastan or Ulan Bator. Peecheedee. Usually MS+Peecheedee takes at least 5 saal, maybe 6, hopefully not 7. It eej not wise to get PeecheeDee in less time because then one would be cast out into the Duniya with not enough experience to survive. In some hot-shot universities (Stanford, CalTech as I hear) PeeCheeDee candidates are forgotten in the dungeons for 7 saal before one day Brophejar wakes up and decides he needs the cubicle to store books.

But not so in more decent colleges.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Mar 2015 05:00

Knew it these pseudo-TFTA engg had it nice. No competition as a large fraction of freshly minted PhDs would make a beeline to industry for the pay, leaving the tenure-track field and athletic marathon asking for takers. OK, in the You-ess it gets a bit more competitive as the bhooka-nanga world is also applying to get a foothold in the first world. I do not think this over-rated TFTA folks has seen real competition that people in sciences have to endure. Nine years is lollipop. Avg time to just get a PhD is like 7 yrs..and it does not stop there as there is couple of post-docs to follow at 3 years each at least. So it is more like 14-15 years before you see the portal to tenure-track unless you are from hardvard the real school or one of the top 10...though even that is no guarantee. You are a 23+14 yr old, single bachelor looking for a faculty position to put your mush in and claim preliminary success. Then they wait for 5-7 yrs to decide to give tenure. So you can be sure of a day job onlee at age 42-45 or on your way out. Hard life and little money. If you are insane you may be married and with kids while doing all this. Most sensible folks stay single till mid 40s. Only deshis get married early, knowing that even desi men have a sell by date beyond which it cannot be redeemed in the Yindian market. So many end up with gori wives mostly.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 28 Mar 2015 05:36

UlanBatori wrote:Usually MS+Peecheedee takes at least 5 saal, maybe 6, hopefully not 7. It eej not wise to get PeecheeDee in less time because then one would be cast out into the Duniya with not enough experience to survive.

Tell me about it.

Ebil ebil advisor cast me out in the ebil ebil world after ~1.5 years of pee-chaddi that too when Khan dekho-no-money was minutely resembling the condition of Bakistan Railgaddi Inc.

On top of that I onlee decided on pee-chaddi after MS and that too on a different topic so another waste of time. On top of that I didn't realize till I was out in front getting slow roasted during dissertation defence that I had inadvertently proven a committee member's dissertation wrong (and bugger was coming up for tenure). Fella GUBOed me mercilessly for 3+ hours, as if I had just had an affair with his mistress and had told his wife. I out dimmed Im the Dim on that one, for sure.

Thank Allah I didn't go to the post-doc and tenure track dungeons of academia despite exhortations of jee-hard from advisor. Wouldn't have survived one day in that swamp. Only 1 poor fella from my 12th class in school ended up in tenure track as a goat herder in crashed shuttle univ (JEE topper fella he is, quiet humble guy) that too after post-docs and he is still slogging it out in the badlands with no light in sight.

member_22733 · Post by **member_22733** » 28 Mar 2015 05:38

I always repent not doing a peechaddi, despite having 2 brofessars willing to take me in. Had tasted corporate money by the time they decided to extend their hand.

After reading the above, I think I have done quite well...... but there is still that itch.....

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Mar 2015 07:04

There is no greater itch to scratch than dabbling in unanswered questions, which only academia allows. No amount of money can compensate that need, moreover industry will leave you dry of any remaining intellect... so all those swearing by a fistful of dollars need not be taken seriously.

The tenure system is not all that great as it is made out to be either, and not the sole reason for American creativity, may be just productivity in the paper mill bizness. Lots of European institutes are doing just fine without the American tenure system. Yes even places like Italy, where the horror stories of academia and its politics will make Indian univs come out as lily whites.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Mar 2015 07:21

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 720223.cms

"Selection of the director of such institutes should be more serious. You can't just talk to 36 people in one day and make a decision. I do not want to get into this now, it (MHRD) is the nodal ministry for this, but I personally feel that things should be done in a better way." When asked if he approved of the candidates selected as directors of the IITs at Patna, Ropar and Bhubaneshwar, he said there was never a problem with individuals, but the process.

Kakodkar had resigned from the posts on March 12 after his run-in with the ministry over the appointment of the IIT directors. Although he later decided to continue, Kakodkar did not attend the search-cum-selection committee meeting.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 28 Mar 2015 07:40

Badeji, what eej habbening with eyeeyetee malloostan?

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Mar 2015 07:57

I cannot find any public newj on the matter. The only known is the name of the Diro who seem to be someone from Natural sciences oddly enough and very young, but no depts are announced for sciences...except the ubiquitous half-breed called combuter science...and the regular bread and butter, Mech, EE, Civil etc.

I did not want to sound political, but the 36 chambers of shaolin rapid selection test for Diro-ship of new institutes made me think of screen tests of extras for a movie shoot.

Or maybe the HRD ministry decided to give pop-quizzes to aspiring ones in the traditions of the esteemed institute.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 28 Mar 2015 08:06

Maybe all potential diros need to submit to an elevator pitch contest.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 28 Mar 2015 18:03

RajaBose:

I am a bit skeptical of the USP of EyeEyeTeas that gets touted esp among EyeEyeTea alumni circles including here in the Bay Area. Everybody and their father (including my own) will point to how successful EyeEyeTea undergrads have been in YouEss, Oirope ityadi as proof that the uber tough JEE kamandu course followed by 4 years of merciless le-education is what made such success happen. However, after interacting/hiring/firing/bonda-sharing with a lot of EyeEyeTea and SDRE NIT educated injineers in industry and academia I really don't see what sets EyeEyeTeas apart from the NITs except perhaps better PR and hype? My theory is that the standout successes of EyeEyeTeans abroad was not becoz they were magically better or the JEE cheerharan followed by vigorous GUBO over 4 years made their mushes tight and strong but becoz in License Raj India traveling abroad for MS/pee-chaddi was something only a few were given the privilege of attempting and even fewer had a clue how to go about it in order to present themselves in the best light and land some scholarships. The EyeEyeTeas with the elite gobermint status and exposure to foreign funding/profs ityadi naturally had more preference and were given much better connections and clue on how to get their students to go abroad for MS/pee-chaddi on scholarships. So a lot more EyeEyeTeans landed up in massa etc vs NIT/REC phata abduls back in the days. And naturally a subset of them became uber successful and became poster children of the top dog status of EyeEyeTeas. But now that is no longer the case. Now any chunnu munnu can get the opportunity to go to a good school in massa or Oirope with full scholarship even if they are from some NIT and not from an elite EyeEyeTea. And hence, now I no longer see EyeEyeTea grads being more successful in general than some abdul plucked from a NIT/REC. So I think it wasn't the JEE or the curriculum which made the difference, it was just preferential access to a constrained resource.

Fact remains that JEE was open to everyone. And this bijnej of

uber tough JEE kamandu course

is actually a killer in many respects. Long time ago, EyeEyeTeas had plenty of ishtudantz hu had only 1 shirt &chaddi and maybe one pair of slippers, maybe not even that. Fees were Rs. 25 per semester but they found that hard despite a huge and Prestigious National Merit Scholarship of Rs. 100 per year.

But they also got a chance to succeed, and they made brilliant use of it. Nowadin, only parents hu can send baccha/beti to Prilliant Tyootorials since Age 3 can hope to get them into Taap 10000 of JEE.

This hit me in the face when I suggested to the Taap Mgmt of a very good non-EyeEyeTea, non-NIT, how to improve their rankings and overall quality. They were stuck around Rank 20 Nationally because ... only ishutdantz with rank lower than (I mean bigger number than) 20,000 would apply or accept them. No way around it.

So I said: Get the JEE list. Send letters to the top 1000 saying: Come 2 us, v will give you full free ride + room and board for 4 years if you maintain a B average or more. You will get the most hungry and excellent students who cannot afford an engg education. Just the presence of these ppl in the class will drive the standards up, inspire some of the rest to excellence. Use these ppl to lead a few Signature Projects, send them to competitions, support them to rise. Brag about the achievements. Within 5 years the news will spread, and your rankings will rise, ATM willing.

They laughed.

No one makes it to the Top 1000 in JEE unless they have gone to Tyootorials for dus saal or more. And only wealthy parents can afford that. They are not going to send their munna to a less-than-Top-10 institution.

IMO, the JEE needs to change big-time to something that Prilliant Tyootorials cannot 'train' for - or that hajaar other schools can also train their ishudantz for.

In ancient dins, 'v' had at best one small kitab-e-pooch-kaagaz and nothing else, to "prepare" for all of 2 months among other jollies. Alone. That was what the JEE was intended for.

However, I agree that JEE is not a lifetime guarantee of success, it just indicate(d) that someone was self-disciplined and 'pright' enough to solve problems out of interest and common sense.
4-5 saal of putting all such ppl together in a gulag, resulted in everyone at least having an idea of how smart others could be, regardless of how they looked or talked, what part of desh they came from etc. This was an advantage, in a country where most ppl were more or less stuck in remote parts. Still in those days, the Big City/ Central School kids had a very strong advantage, except that they also had too many distractions. The dirt-poor ones had only their courses and books to keep them occupied.
Not any more. Too many Brilliant Tyootorial clones who are excellent at - guess what - taking tests, but quite 404 when it comes to solving real problems. Very few with ANY hands-on skills. All want SeeEffDee etc.
So now it IS actually the NIT grads that are attractive - these are people who succeed despite growing up surrounded by NOT all as motivated or smart ppl.

So the burpas of my chai-biskoot break here from the rigors of herding yaks in Mongolia, is to stir up some riots on the following simple pooch:

What should the next-gen IIT be/do?

So I can toss the occasional ied-mubarak into discussions at other levels on same pooch. Already done some of that, thanks to excellent articles posted above on this dhaga. Like the ones insisting that an International Airport is what makes an excellent university. Presumably the writers had traveled to Baastan and Myoonik and Bilayat.

By that criterion, U. Texas(Austin), Missouri, PSU, UVA, Virgnia Tech, Florida State, Iowa, UIUC, pretty-much all the big State U's, should be defunct. Also probably Gottingen, Delft, Oxford, Cambridge.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 28 Mar 2015 18:21

Also: Military argument re: pay is a compelling one in many respects, but the bottom line is that military is military, engg profs are engg profs. If you only recruit Rshis who disdain the $$ and are in Purely 4 da Gyan, u will usually end up with a whole tribe of commies who likewise teach ishtudantz to be commies. Real Rshis were uber-competitive in outdoing each other with tapas achievements - and were simply too busy to care about wealth. AND, everyone else was supposed to do saashtaang-pranaam and sweep their aashram grounds and bring them food and gifts. All prohibited by Ishtudant Pill of Lights and Conflict of Interest rules.

That is maybe not the need for future Bharat, as much as it may have been in 1950.

Also, u may not be aware of the real Benefits of a military career, provided one survives the wars and the bureaucracy. The Jarnails retire as RICH ppl, not as middle class. Even in India, officers who retire after 13 years service get lifetime pensions, hain? (At least that's what they told us when we were yaklings).

Point is that in 1950 India needed ppl who could learn from outside and build things to bootstrap the economy and infrastructure and most of all, defense. In cricket terms, if you avoided innings defeat it was very Honourable Martyrdom. Eeph Gora Shaib said

U r a better man than me, Gunga Din!

one was supposed to Die For The Empyah With a Smile On the Stiff Upper Lip.

Phoeey to that. Today if you don't win the World Cup you are a loser. You don't win that without greed being a big part of the equation. Look at how India came up once the EyePeeEll started paying Indians on par with phoreners.

EyeEyeTeas likewise, to be Duniya-Class, need to be open and attractive, but should lead the way, far beyond what Yoo Ess or Deutsche or Bilayatis can do. What do you think will happen to Faculty Recruiting (and to research budgets and expectations, u can't do one without the other) if IIT faculty pay were allowed to float up with global merit being the only criterion? The Dhoni level would be over $300K/yr. Look at what Amartya Sen was paid by Nalanda U. It was quite low, if anything - no wonder they failed. The best assistant he could get was some yakini from JNU.

IITs should NOT be stuck at NIT levels. IOW, IMO, they have got stuck there as NITs and all sorts of private institutions moved up steadily and rapidly for the past 30 years.

So how to do this is the pooch.

For instance, is it appropriate any more, to have the same 'discipline classifications' such as Pissiks vs. Injineering?
Shouldn't Basic Mgmt and Baniyaism be part of the Technology curriculum? How about demanding better integration of Hyoomanities?

What is todin's equivalent of "hands-on skills" such as ancient Fitting Shop Gulag? Is it robotics/mechatronics? Bio-inspired systems? How about demanding at least one vertically-integrated project from each ishtudant?

Where do you find Brophejars to develop and instruct these? ***SURELY*** not by dragging in someone from the cafeteria, who can just read out lines from a textbook on Database and call that education?

member_26011 · Post by **member_26011** » 28 Mar 2015 19:04

I've been visiting IITD for the past several years, teaching a mix of students in summer. So TFWIW. The newer faculty hires appear to be more competitive, however the old guard is not and there is a huge problem in the 'graduate' (pg) crowd. They come very poorly prepared, take few courses/material that help them prepare, and are tied to faculty that appear to be following the one paper every 10'year model. Many students appear to park themselves for a job hunt though one can find several who are quite motivated. Although there appears to be no dearth of funds for projects, young faculty at the guest house lunches have often narrated that they can't generally maintain their labs in working order.

Here in the US, I have a research engineer on my staff from ncsu, who I only hired by chance, but he can do anything I ask; wind tunnel, pcb design, laser measurements, or program in sql. Generally competent preparation that I had not expected and was pleasantly surprised to see. He tells me he was not stellar, nor unique in this way in his class. We need, I feel, to raise the competence and confidence of the incoming research pool of students/postdocs to help turn the institutes into aggressive research machines. That could take a long time in a trickle down mode, and I wonder how it can be accelerated.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Mar 2015 19:18

As for Rishis vs Leftists vs Capitalist models argument, makes for nice reading but not conclusive which way is better. When money is in short supply, the capitalist model of You-ess will not work in India...unless some business houses enter this education bizness big time. I can provide alternate where the Russians have done excellent work in the sciences over 50+ years not using the American model, but quality of work is at par with what was done at US DOE labs and some seminal papers and more importantly new ideas can all be largely traced to labs like Dubna or Serpukhov etc. So yes, there is no one model fits all bizness of doing science or engg.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Mar 2015 19:34

If the Indian model is what it currently is, pay is not that great and you put new institutes in rural areas where there are no services to speak of, even if one pays at par with US schools in PPP terms one may not get the best talent. Paying in dollar terms to attract world talent is out of question, unless the tuition will also reflect that. A slow ramp up with time is possible to match up with the economy. One may have to wait till 2050 for that kind of pay equivalence to be feasible and hence to look attractive to people with their mush firmly fixed in some foreign Univs. Quite likely by then we may not need their services too

on their terms.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Mar 2015 21:05

UlanBatori wrote:Badeji, what eej habbening with eyeeyetee malloostan?

Here is something fairly recent, and the progress made in Land acquisition is amazing when compared to other new institutes like in Gandhinagar, which took a while despite being in capital friendly location with an able CM.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/Verifi-cation-for-IIT-Land-Completed/2015/03/18/article2719019.ece

PALAKKAD: The field verification for the land to be acquired for the IIT in Pudussery West village has been completed by the Revenue authorities. The report will be submitted to the district administration on March 20, said the special officer of the IIT project M Sheriff. The joint verification of 33 acres of forest land was jointly conducted by the Revenue and Forest department officials here on Tuesday.

There were no trees in the land but only rocks and barren land, said D Dinesh, one of the surveyors of the Revenue Department. He said that, after the verification, the government will issue a notification mentioning the survey numbers,Sub-division and classification of land which has to be acquired. Subsequently, anothernotification will be issued for acquiring the land in these survey numbers. The Forest Department was represented by the forester of the Walayar range Krishnakumar, the revenue department by surveyors D Dinesh and K S Lokanathan, Pudussery West village officer Maju and village assistant Jayan. Another 100 acres of land belonging to the government will also be acquired.

Dinesh said that currently it is proposed to acquire 400 acres of land from private individuals which will include the 33 acres of forest land. Revenue Department sources said that the Revenue Department will provide the Forest Department 33 acres of land in Pudussery central village or in some other place which will be contiguous to theforests.

Meanwhile, the temporary campus of the IIT on the Ahalia campus in Kozhipara is fast nearing completion. The academic block of 55,700 square feet has been constructed.A total of 120 students will be admitted from the all India rank list in the coming academic year. Hostel facilities will also be provided in addition to quarters for the director and the faculty.

If the high-lighted part is true and all since allocation of funds/approval less than a year ago, then all accusations of sloth in KL need to be taken less seriously. What about Goa and Tirupati, no news on those that I can find.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 28 Mar 2015 21:12

Paying in dollar terms to attract world talent is out of question, unless the tuition will also reflect that.
Lots of great things came out of Soviet Union and Third Reich - and also out of India.
Quite true, quite true.
Point is, they came **OUT** pretty-much at the first opportunity. Which is what happens, when organizations that achieve excellence become known to those who can offer a decent living to the people who made the organizations excellent.

In the Soviet Union, treatment of Academishians was on par with treatment of Jarnails, probably even more generous because Academicians were not expected to go to Siberian exercises unless they expressed their opinions too much. If you got a nice secluded villa in suburban Moscow and a vacations in a dacha in Crimea in winter, life was not too bad. Put a dollar equivalence on that, its not at all below the Yoo Ess model. Respect, ability to command armies to build grand things, above-middle-class Standard of Living... and you basically ask for money to do something, they give you.

India in the 1950s-70s did this for EyeEyeTee Profs to some extent, but then lost the way. So did the Soviet Union, BTW. The Third Reich started out with a respectable system for the brains behind the industrial/scientific development, but then figured out that a more Corporate approach would be much better: just give orders and beat the s*it out of the scientists and hold their families hostage. Then money became shorter, suspicions grew, mistrust grew, racial prejudices grew...

All the declarations about "Indian cost of living" and "perks" sound good, and "not needing expats" is even grander, but the reality in the New Duniya is that the global playing field is getting leveled. India could keep top ppl at least partly because they didn't feel like wallowing in the dung of racism and other prejudices, which would block them from doing what they wanted. Nowadays they are over those things. They can compare the idiocy around them in India, with the level of idiocy in Masastaan etc., and just decide where to spend the rest of their lives. A factor of 10 in pay does provide powerful incentives, esp when one sees that India has noooo shortage of money any more. Look at the number of zeroes on every scam that makes it into the newspapers.

You cannot fly with the eagles when u r surrounded by turkeys etc. Whereas at the top of desi organizations, there were small coteries of Insiders who listened to each other, and in those circles, one could get amazing levels of cooperation and obedience and resources.
"I called the Minister and he agreed to send dus Karod phor new lab" etc.

It was never a functioning merit-based, diversity-respecting system beyond the JEE, the admissions process, and the course grading, all of which were generally objective AFAIK.

The Indian academic journals system would not have been acceptable even in the Stone Age. The Societies, at least in Majik Carbet bijnej, seem to stuck-in-the-mud, with paper reviewing taking years and being infested with people reminescent of Yoo Ess NSF Panels. So Indian Profs HAVE to turn to phoren journals. Once again, I suspect that the paper acceptance process is heavily influenced by who knows whom (Bliss 2 note: I have no personal experience of this, I just have some peripheral knawlidj. At least the Membership Forms seem archaic and highly discouraging. )

OTOH, a rising proportion of the fly-by-nite, 4-profit, 'PayPerPaper' "International Journals" are heavily populated by desi names. That is just depressing. Imitating PRC no doubt.

The glaring effects of all these are seen very simply in the gross failure to turn out even ONE good, modern jet engine. There must be hajaar-hajaar such examples.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 28 Mar 2015 21:13

Badeji, great news. And they have their priorities right (55,000 sq ft Ad Block).

Time to go toss a gentle grenade with that.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Mar 2015 21:49

^^ that is academic block not Adminullah block, well no guarantees it will not be converted into one though.

What caught my attention was that the Ahalya campus already exists, so why the need to construct a temporary structure. Quite likely it was already being built by them and IIT-P (? or is going to Pa) just decided to lease it from them for 3-5 yrs.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Mar 2015 21:59

Regarding ex-soviet scientists/engineers around early 90s there was beeline from there to US labs, especially to the then new SSC (Super Collider) in Texas. Well that went under the axe when Newt nuked on Kilton's budget plans and shut down DC to balance the budget. They were the equivalent of the ITVity folks landing in yue-ess, and forced lot of youngsters to quit the field due to the double whammy. Uncle Sam benefited as usual from the experienced cheap labour willing to work at graduate student stipend levels on short-term visits.

The point is India should be ready to lap up such opportunities. Looking at tenure-reject PhDs willing to return as damaged maal is not the best way forward and waiting on eternally for tenured top-10 or even top-100 Profs to do an R2I. If one have tenure and a large grant at a US univ, what is the motivation to do R2I for someone in the 40-50 age group ? I see none, so trying to meet their expectations is not going to help India meet its immediate needs. Maybe, it can encourage collaborations on research with visiting stints at US univs to improve standards back in India.