Indian Education System

member_28108 · Post by **member_28108** » 21 Jun 2015 20:03

The area has already been decided off Bidadi

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 21 Jun 2015 20:05

Any links ? If true not a terrible place to locate it. Water should be in plenty too.

member_28108 · Post by **member_28108** » 21 Jun 2015 20:07

Bade wrote:Any links ? If true not a terrible place to locate it. Water should be in plenty too.

This was the talk going on a few weeks back here. No direct links.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 21 Jun 2015 20:11

ok...hope they stick close enough to B'lur/Mysore. Mangalore would not be a bad choice with a lot of institutions of repute nearby and decent industrial foot print, comparable to Kochi.

The worst choice for location a new IIT made was Tirupati, it is only 100+ km from IIT Madras. The new state of AP would have been better served by putting it up near Vizag...sigh. Tirupati is already getting a IISER and a central univ.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 21 Jun 2015 20:53

Forgot to add 17 AIIMS. Both Jammu and Kashmir will get AIIMS. First medical college cum hospital to begin this year in IIT, Kharagpur. It is going to be a super-speciality hospital.

member_28108 · Post by **member_28108** » 21 Jun 2015 22:08

Supratik wrote:Forgot to add 17 AIIMS. Both Jammu and Kashmir will get AIIMS. First medical college cum hospital to begin this year in IIT, Kharagpur. It is going to be a super-speciality hospital.

Worst place for a superspeciality hospital is Hijli@IIT Kharagpur- howwill people reach a place so remote for medical treatment- is it to serve the IIT population ?

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 22 Jun 2015 07:43

I think this blind opening on IIT/AIIMS is not a good strategy...

where will you get faculty for AIIMS ?

Since AIIMS Delhi is an old inst and there is indeed some prestige attached to it , it does have some good faculty..

As far as faculty of average Govt med college is concerned , a large chunk of the faculty is borderline quack equivalent..even though gov't schools are ready to hire anyone with 4 limbs and a degree as the faculty , they still can't fill spots..so if too many new schools open , they ll not even have the token on paper faculty that most GMCs have ...because the faculty simply does not exist....You need atleast 3-4 McH/DM people of varied seniority to run a super spec. department ..for 17 AIIMs you ll need 70-80 neurosurgeons , CT surgeons etc willing to work for peanuts ...and also satisfy various silly criteria imposed by the MCI ...(competence is not one of the criteria)

other thing is that nothing is being done w.r.t standardization of practice ... we don't have governing bodies for any specialty which formulate treatment guidelines... no solid minimal standard curriculum is present... the present MCI chief is a surgeon who has rarely held a knife herself ... A congenital baboon , she is an expert on creating laal patti ...

what we desparately need is that each speciaty have its own graduate medical education body that carries out inspections and accreditation ..An all encompassing MCI is spreading its incompetence and baboon-dom ...

I am pessimistic about the general structure of health care to common Indians... We ll surely have large number of good generalists and specialist in all branches to cater for middle class , rich and medical tourists .... But they are in small proportion to the population ...

the poor and lower middle will have to go to gov't hospitals or semi competent people ..

This is unfortunately becoming like the rail ministry.. In old days in every rail budget new trains would be announced....Here they keep opening IITs/AIIMs at the drop of the hat...

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 22 Jun 2015 18:48

I can't comment on the medical or engineering side but in basic science there is significant demand for jobs from people studying/working abroad. Abroad you can get a faculty position if you have done exceptionally well or have a Godfather. Many middle rung or lower-upper rank candidates are unable to find jobs specially in US. So they are coming back in droves. IISERs have recruited many of them and most have at least one tier 1 publication - some several. IITs still can't differentiate. Facilites given are average - IISERs better than IITs - NIPER is even lower and I am not talking of the Tier 2 like NIT or central univ which have pretty bad infra. Quality needs to improve over a period of 10-20 yrs but given the demand for jobs not creating them will be a mistake.

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 22 Jun 2015 19:05

Value of 'basic science' research is very dubious. Most of them churn out masses of papers and nothing else.
Good news is nowadays trend is all for applied stuff that will be useful for technology development. Maths is increasingly being adapted into computer science ( data science/machine learning/etc. ) , phy/chem are doing optical engineering, solid state electronics, material science, etc.
Bad news is even in the applied science it is still leading mainly to papers and not to actual product..

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 22 Jun 2015 19:23

I used the term "basic science" as generic. Research today is too mixed up to categorize but it means Phy, Chem, Bio, Math.

panduranghari · Post by **panduranghari** » 23 Jun 2015 00:18

Final year undergrad medical students in UQ do not know what Krebbs cycle is. They do not know what ATP is. They do not know renal tubules. What the f*** do these buffoons know? They are told to learn 18 systemic conditions and they need to know everything about it. Why 18? Because on the Nash these are the most common conditions encountered in the general practice. The intent is to move towards an algorithm lead treatment planning. I am not making this shit up. How can they know everything about any conditions without knowing the basics?

Brits should start eating an apple a day hence forth for their own safety.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 23 Jun 2015 05:55

Value of 'basic science' research is very dubious. Most of them churn out masses of papers and nothing else.

With such attitudes in academia, no wonder India is nowhere at the top and will never be, not just in basic sciences, even in technology development.

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 23 Jun 2015 07:27

panduranghari wrote:Final year undergrad medical students in UQ do not know what Krebbs cycle is. They do not know what ATP is. They do not know renal tubules. What the f*** do these buffoons know? They are told to learn 18 systemic conditions and they need to know everything about it. Why 18? Because on the Nash these are the most common conditions encountered in the general practice. The intent is to move towards an algorithm lead treatment planning. I am not making this shit up. How can they know everything about any conditions without knowing the basics?

Brits should start eating an apple a day hence forth for their own safety.

its that bad ?

I did expect substandard understanding of basic sciences ...but nothing as bad as u described... One thing is that they enter medical school , straight from high school... Basic sciences in med school are getting increasingly compressed... and I hear that they teach them disease , right from 1st year MBBS ...

this is one of the reasons why I prefer , of a 3/4 year undergrad education before entering medicine...

Other scam as you pointed out is "integrated "clinical learning" .. Basic sciences are incredibly dumbed down... when medical educators themselves think "who needs biochem ? " , what will the students do.. yathaa rajaa tathaa prajaa

In massa , even though we do encounter some unbelievably dumb docs , but I have never encountered such a guy in massa or India ...

In India , we still follow an outdated curriculum ....even though we have to pass a biochemistry exam in first year , most people cram it and don't quite understand it... people who have studied in CBSE and have come through PMT will have a decent foundation , in organic chemistry , physics and math and will be able to understand biochem/pharmac/physio properly....As CBSE +2 roughly covers undergrad 2 semesters in PCMB ...

But state board waalaaas struggle badly...because they ll not have a proper perspective of functional groups , like alkyl , acyl or won't understand gibbs energy , thermodynamics or entropy...so they cram important stuff and try to pass...but a weak foundation remains just that , and they have tough time actually understanding rationale of clinical medicine ...

I think it is a snake oil that many medical educators are peddling in oirope and even in India , that you can get away by deleting large portions of the curriculum from basic sciences ... If a doc does not know biochem , he does not know Jack-Pakistan ...

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 23 Jun 2015 07:45

csaurabh wrote:Value of 'basic science' research is very dubious. Most of them churn out masses of papers and nothing else.
Good news is nowadays trend is all for applied stuff that will be useful for technology development. Maths is increasingly being adapted into computer science ( data science/machine learning/etc. ) , phy/chem are doing optical engineering, solid state electronics, material science, etc.
Bad news is even in the applied science it is still leading mainly to papers and not to actual product..

I disagree..

first thing is that you cannot divorce basic from applied..

why is material sciences not chemistry ? sure it is interdisciplinary .. but it is chemistry too...

in medicine supposing I want to come up with a drug for a type of blood caner...this is how I would probably go about--( obviously oversimplified outline onlee )

Finding target:

I would through "flow cytometry" look at the protein expression on the cell membrane..
I might study gene expression through micro array

Lets say a Protein Ham-Iedin is over expressed in the cell membrane ...

and I find that 4 mRNA are over expressed through micro array...

How did these technques work ? Flow cytometry deals with suspending cells coated with antibody of target protein in a fluid suspension through a laser beam and sorting them on the type of proteins expressed .... Notice how much basic science is applied ? we need to integrate cell biology , with optics , with elcetronics , which ?fluid mechanics with computer science for making algorithms...

In DNA micro array we attach 10000s of DNA probes in a chip...now that is surface engineering + Chemistry integrated... because the DNA has to be covalently bound to the chemical matrix...

Bad news is even in the applied science it is still leading mainly to papers and not to actual product

that is perhaps not the fault of science , but people practicing the science ....I too had to generate papers for various career goals ...unfortunately that has what the system come down too...

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 23 Jun 2015 08:32

Why do you need 100% of your staff/faculty working on 'hi fi' stuff like blood cancer or whatever..

We need the simple stuff too.. technology development that can be done and product being taken to market quickly.. which really helps ppl..

Infact I recently attended a conference on 'Robotics in medicine'. They were discussing about Laproscopy machine and some other complicated stuff.. then some guys talked about prosthetics that can be developed and sold for Rs. 500-1000 and there is a big market for them.
Then one guy made a very insightful comment.. We don't have to choose between one or the other.. we need both.

The problem is that most of our 'academics' has been stuffed with hi-fi theoretical ppl both competent and incompetent. The incompetent ones generate a mass of papers to hide their incompetence. The competent ones do some good work but are unable to develop products out of it.

That is how it is in India ( Tier 1 that is, Tier2 and below is almost a complete fail ) .. I think the situation is better in West but not sure.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 23 Jun 2015 09:02

one of the infy founders atleast giving generous amts to fund domestic higher education.
long back the revered founder had also done the dharmic thing by giving money to iit kanpur for the CS dept to construct its own building...he was mtech cse from there.

read it all.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tec ... 778048.cms

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 23 Jun 2015 09:08

actually , the examples I cited are in actual clinical use and have improved the lifespan of many cancer patients... Drugs like rituximab and imatinib have altered oncology like nothing...Blood cancer is lot more common than one might imagine...And unfortunately it frequently affects young adults and kids...

As far as robotics in surgery is concerned , I agree with you...that baring some complex procedures where it may be useful , as of today it is just a waste of money .... when you can easily remove an appendix or gall bladder laparoscopically , why use Da Vinci robot ? prasannasimha /Shiv might be able to provide better insight as they are surgeons..

niran · Post by **niran** » 23 Jun 2015 09:42

gakakkad wrote:(competence is not one of the criteria)

sigh! last year was in India during LS election, one of my driver had Pulmonary TB, he displayed symptoms since 4 months had been to 2 sarkari doctor one private doctor (England return) first diagnosis was URI, then to Allergic rhinitis for his persistent cough
no one bothered to auscultate the chest or palpate the lymph nodes or even proper history. i cannot imagine the amount of mycobacteria the chap spread all along the 4-5 months and the quality of medical education these docs get. my eldest would be eligible for a med study next year have given her 2 options either my Alma mater or one local institute. i don't want her to be an idiot of a hakeem who does not know of the basics.

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 23 Jun 2015 10:53

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/w ... 322623.ece

That only a third of IIT students go on to pursue technology is symptomatic of the deep crisis in engineering education today, and could be solved if practice is preferred to theory in the institutions.

A crisis, pundits on American television often say, is a terrible thing to waste. The recent unpleasantness following the de-recognition of the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle by the Indian Institute of Technology administration is a case in point. That the administration found a graceful way to put an end to the impasse and come to some reconciliation with the small group of students involved is, of course, important. But it also gives us occasion to ponder over some bigger questions involving higher education in India.

The issues concerning greater inclusivity for long-marginalised groups and of freedom of speech on campus are important but most university administrators have found effective ways to resolve these problems through models such as affirmative action and diversity policies, gender and ethnic sensitivity training, modular learning programmes, remedial education and so on. Indian universities could adapt these to the local context. Periodic workshops and meetings of senior academic administrators could also help.

A broken engineering education
The bigger and perhaps far more serious predicament is that engineering education is completely broken. Ironically, this is because of the very success of the IITs and engineering colleges. One problem is that economic and public policy interpretations of the problem are inadequate to characterise it fully. Well-worn neo-Benthamite frameworks of interpretation, a resource efficiency study, for instance, might reveal poor teachers or infrastructure, but would miss fundamental insights from fields like culture studies and sociology.

Calling something a societal problem means that more is at stake than just an aggregate of individual ‘interests’ or ‘utilities’. Social scientists recognise that broad patterns of human interaction tend to coalesce into structured routines and maybe even have rules of their own, but that these are always situated in broader historically and spatially defined contexts. In engineering education, we see this in the mad rush for seats in the milieu of rising aspirations cutting across caste and class.

The race for a career
In the past two decades, young men (and rarely women) have been drawn in large numbers towards elite engineering colleges but they cannot simply be understood as autonomous souls drawn towards engineering as an academic discipline. Rather, there is a large set of other social influences pushing them — parents, peers and teachers but also the image of IIT graduates as smart, young, well-dressed professionals in high-paying careers. Most important, this rush has taken place in the context of great churning and economic opportunity, even as more than 95 per cent of the population struggles to find true forms of mobility. In my own case, my father, who had a degree in English literature and became a journalist and later a civil servant, was convinced that I, his only son, had to be educated in an IIT, which he termed a ‘passport’ to the good life. I did actually benefit from my IIT degree in aeronautical engineering, by using it to get advanced degrees in science and environmental policy, which again helped me gain entry into the humanities and social sciences.

For tens of thousands of IIT alumni, similar success stories are evident. But let us look at what happens to the entrants to the system. I categorise three broad sets of attitudes that students develop in IITs. First, there are those who are motivated by the prospect of the passport, largely having come from modest economic and social backgrounds. Earlier they used to have an eye on postgraduate education, primarily abroad, with the hope of securing corporate or academic positions. Today, with the global corporate market demanding IIT talent, students often skip further education. Indeed, the proportion of undergraduates from IITs doing their PhDs has diminished dramatically in recent decades.

The second group is characterised by a deep despondency of some sort, even with outstanding job prospects. Many turn towards non-engineering vocations, ranging from the arts to politics and entrepreneurship, as Chetan Bhagat, Arvind Kejriwal and Mansur Khan have famously done.

It is the third group that is the real motivation for the IITs. This group has a direct interest in solving challenges of technology. They could be experimenters or entrepreneurs but are mostly trying to engage with the material sense in which the transformation of human society is an undertaking in itself. Examples here range from Vinod Khosla and Subra Suresh to numerous other technology leaders across the world.

In all groups, however, students seem to experience many forms of alienation that could spiral into crises where one is forced to take a position unexpectedly. To the extent that IITs are also prone, like every other institution today in India, to asking socially relevant questions around gender, caste, and elite privilege and corruption, politics is always already within its midst. If it has been muted, it was only because of a self-fashioning by its members that the discourse could be ‘apolitical’, itself a doomed venture.

What’s the solution?
The fact that only a third of graduating IIT students fulfil the original vision of IITs to create ‘temples’ or true workshops of technology should give us pause. What does it mean that most of the engineering students today do not seek to work on real-world engineering problems?

Several of my colleagues in the Humanities and Social Sciences, increasingly seen as an oasis for engineering students but also as a threat by many, are routinely solicited for advice, to find options to exit their pre-organised trajectories. Most students are like unwilling recruits in the army, forced to do time, but seeking space to explore other interests. That the APSC issue was read by many as reinforcing the institute’s disciplinary authority, as if it were an extension of cheating, for instance, raised tensions and voices. What, then, should be done about IITs?

First, phase out the undergraduate BTech programme and replace it with a five-year engineering curriculum, but with roughly 50 per cent of time devoted to technology development as an end in itself. The reasons for doing so are many. Primarily, IIT education reinforces elite engineering status by emphasising theory and equations over practice. I learnt a lot of high-level mathematics before I came face-to-face with a real aircraft, where the equations I had studied seemed distant. But what one really needs to build skills and understanding is a greater emphasis on real-world technologies and their operations in relation to economy and society. This is not happening, except in some excellent initiatives such as the Centre for Innovation in IIT Madras. By preferring mathematical puzzle-solving over manual skills, the present system subtly reproduces prejudices in many Indian communities and accentuates certain routines of privilege, both within the student community and occasionally in faculty hiring and promotions. Even the entry into IITs should be based on problem-solving ability as well as demonstrated aptitude for materially engaging with tools and technologies.

Second, turn IITs into nodes that actively foster ‘living laboratories’ across India. If this were a part of a new national mission, each IIT would be expected to build communities of practice within its neighbourhood by drawing on all existing segments of local entrepreneurship, and India has outstanding models. Such relationships should be open-ended and truly experimental if even a few are to succeed.

Third, the Ministry of Human Resource Development should continue to stay at arm’s length from the IITs and indeed all higher education institutions in general. This does not imply privatising them, which would increase fees and further stratify education. Rather, such institutions should be encouraged to experiment with forms of curricula that are expansive rather than particular, and require them to take responsibility for building a collective, inclusive platform for higher education, while providing the resources, both economic and otherwise.

The bottled-up tensions that emerged in the recent IIT Madras crisis are symptoms of a larger, deeper crisis in which all of us are implicated. It is time to recognise these signs and find sustainable solutions.

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 23 Jun 2015 11:49

while I don't disagree with stuff written in the chindu article , the author is a suspect/closet jholawala/antinational....

http://www.beingcynical.com/2015/06/the ... adras.html

he is a faculty in IIT-M department of sociology (in spite of having a degree in aerospace) ..and is reputed have been in relationship with a faculty member of the same department who happens to be a fulbright scholar or something of that sort...He also fomented trouble during Ambedkar periyar study circle...he is a member of the circle...

The head of this course Mr. Sudhir Chella Rajan and his live-in partner/wife Sujatha Byravan have made sure that absolute garbage gets flushed into IIT through this backdoor. Why I took the names of these two astute human beings here? Search for Sudhir Chella Rajan and his frequent globetrotting to deliver goodies about commies and socialism. In fact, this man was a simple associate professor at IIT prior to his sudden elevation as HoD.

he sacked Ashley Tellis ostensibly for being gay...one might recall his proactive role in Indo-US nuclear deal and in exposing pakistan...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 034644.cms

are not these students oppressed by brahmanism supposed to be liberal enough to not oppose homsexuality ?

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 23 Jun 2015 12:31

IITs are not immune to jholawallahs and macaulayism. Infact there is a pretty strong amount of it.
This comes as a result of all the 'internationalism' ( read Milind Sohoni's analysis that I posted few pages back ).

Couple years ago I had a chat with a Portuguese artist who had come to paint stuff for IITB's cultural fest. The chap was pretty decent, but at the same time I was left wondering.. are Indian artists not good enough for IITB? Or is it that the Indian artists paint 'communal' themes ( Mahabharata is communal. Star wars is secular. Duh )

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 23 Jun 2015 12:41

the guy is more than a jholawaalaa...google his pics and the company he keeps....he might be an plant of foreign intel ...

panduranghari · Post by **panduranghari** » 23 Jun 2015 14:04

gakakkad wrote: I think it is a snake oil that many medical educators are peddling in oirope and even in India , that you can get away by deleting large portions of the curriculum from basic sciences ... If a doc does not know biochem , he does not know Jack-Pakistan ...

Exactly saar. The building blocks for medicine are built in the year 1. My wife teaches students and she cannot proceed unless concepts are clear. And to clear concepts she has to start from scratch.

Indian system is based on old English system. And though it has problems, you would agree it is a reasonable system. It could be bettered with some tweaks.

Producing doctors with broad based knowledge which becomes more focussed as they specialise and then super specialise is what is desirable.

But producing doctors to run a state system which is decrepit is borderline scamming. I would take Indian system anyday over the British one as it is today.

I am sure you did dissection when you were in your first year. The students do not do dissection at all.

Doctors who have never seen the inside of an human body is expected to go to a ward and start learning how to treat disease and that too from year 1?

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 23 Jun 2015 14:14

yeah...people told me that about british system...that they are mainly looking for people to take care of pre-defined roles in NHS...

svenkat · Post by **svenkat** » 23 Jun 2015 15:03

OT

http://www.beingcynical.com/2015/06/the-morons-of-iit-madras.html

The head of this course Mr. Sudhir Chella Rajan and his live-in partner/wife Sujatha Byravan have made sure that absolute garbage gets flushed into IIT through this backdoor. Why I took the names of these two astute human beings here? Search for Sudhir Chella Rajan and his frequent globetrotting to deliver goodies about commies and socialism. In fact, this man was a simple associate professor at IIT prior to his sudden elevation as HoD.

Here are the wrapped facts. The then UPA government, presumably after adequate arm-twisting by CPI(M) agreed to this new course in 2006. Since DMK are equal offenders when it comes to Hindus, the implementation was never objected at state level. Surprisingly, ignoring everything including seniority and caliber, Sudhir Chella Rajan was catapulted to the HoD post of this new department. The most experienced among the lot Mr. Milind Brahme is still (last I checked three weeks back) an associate professor while Chella Rajan was first promoted to Professor and then the HoD, even though he joined IIT far later than Mr. Brahme. Masters paying the slave for his good work? I am not taking names here; at least two IIT board/advisory members left their posts in disgust post the introduction of this course and Chella Rajan’s appointment. You can search for the same again. If that is not enough, all faculty members of these two departments are handpicked by Chella Rajan and almost all of them are Christians, Marxists or the routine Feminists that we see loitering around Lutyens Delhi scotch circuit.Systematically, in about a decade, Chella Rajan and his masters with patronage from UPA destroyed everything including whatever was left Hindu in IIT Madras. Remember the ‘Kiss And Love’ protest in November 2014? Each one in that protesting group was from this worthless and useless department of IIT Madras. ...The once vibrant technical institute has now become a hotbed for political maneuvers with these clowns getting down to their worst of political affiliation. People who are not even worth to look at the campus are today merrymaking and creating ruckus inside and that too officially. Why such goons should be tolerated and on what logic?

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 23 Jun 2015 15:28

Csaurabh: can you post a short definition of what you consider to be basic science?

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 23 Jun 2015 17:16

vayu tuvan wrote:Csaurabh: can you post a short definition of what you consider to be basic science?

well hard to define exactly, broadly Physics, Chemistry, Math. I don't have any problem with the subjects per se, but just see the amount of useless and undirected research that generates masses of papers but leads to nothing useful as far as I can tell. The subject titles are usually incomprehensible if one is not in the field and there is also no product coming out of it.

Do some experiment, publish result. Tweak some parameters, publish again. One guy got 12 papers in a year out of it ( chemistry ).
Theoretical- simulation with n number of assumptions that are simply made up.

Engineering is susceptible to this but not to that extent.

I suspect academia in general has this issue, not just in India. This page gives some insights:
http://info.cognitomentoring.org/wiki/S ... f_academia

member_28108 · Post by **member_28108** » 23 Jun 2015 19:23

But state board waalaaas struggle badly ... cine ...

There is no difference in the syllabus between CBSE and state boards currently(not was there asignificant difference in many states). All sttaes have common PCM syllabus(NCERT) currently

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 23 Jun 2015 20:24

I think it past time that someone shut the IIT’s down or at least cut them off the government teat. Start with IIT-M and I live in Chennai! The money should be diverted to a grant system that all technical institutes can compete for. Even back in my day IIT-M was irrelevant to Chennai. Other than that sign by the tiny entrance there was no evidence the place even existed and I studied across the street! Not a single one of the manufacturing revolutions Chennai has been through was incubated by IIT-M. The fact that these prof’s have time for these games is baffling. Too much time on their hands….

BTW, shouldn't this be IIT-C now. Its been 20 years since the name change.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 23 Jun 2015 20:57

Unless you introduce a system of reward and rebuke Profs will treat this as any other permanent govt job.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 24 Jun 2015 02:30

IIT-M it shall remain just as IIT-B. Something to do with brands, why would one change a well known brand for no good reason.

Has the MIT in Chennai changed its name ?

Let IITs be, they are doing a better job at providing a decent education than most of the other politics and cash ridden places in TN/KA. Why blame the institute if the real blame lies in the local culture and expectations.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 24 Jun 2015 02:38

Supratik, the tenure system has its own deficiencies. The highest productivity happens before tenure, and it happily coincides with when humans on average are the most product in their life. So this is used to write paens about tenure. I have seen less deserving ones too get tenure. In reality there is no fool proof system. If people do not have the drive, then nothing will come out of making random changes. Most European univs do not have a comparable tenure system like in the USA. That has not stopped them from being productive and noticed. From what I have heard, the Italian bureaucracy in the univs there are much worse and rampant favoritism is at play and back scratching. Still they do very good physics from what I know. The real problems of India are elsewhere, it is the nature of its people sadly including the elites.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 24 Jun 2015 07:05

Concidentally watching a program on my local tv channel a talk give by Dr CKN Patel from UCLA on quantum cascade lasers...technology to product development. He is the inventor of the CO2 laser and owns Pranalytica. In some niche areas it will work like a charm. Another example is the inventor of the blue LED who has won the Nobel. All result of work in basic sciences leading to direct products within a lifetime.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 24 Jun 2015 18:35

Bade, I don't support the US tenure system. It puts enormous stress on the entire system right down to the graduate student. At the same time I am not in favor of the Indian system where output and quality are pathetic. I am not talking specifically about IITs, but in my alma mater in India many Profs don't work in the lab (graduate students spending 8 or more years to get a Ph.D.) and are lousy teachers. If you continue with this system India will continue to make slow, staggering progress. We have to device our own system which promotes those who want to go ahead and not those who don't want to work. It doesn't have to be an exact copy of the US.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 24 Jun 2015 21:15

Theo: The money should be diverted to a grant system that all technical institutes can compete for.

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/RVJ9Rb ... ng-co.html

The government allowed IITs to increase fees from Rs.50,000 a year to Rs.90,000 a year at the undergraduate level in January 2013. But tuition fees meet less than 30% of the recurring expenditure at IITs.

To make IITs even nominally independent of GoI grants one will need to increase the tuition by 4-5 fold. IIT-M yearly expenses are the order of ~ Rs 150-200 crores I think, with a total student strength of 8000 including UG/PG/PhD. As an average the tuition income at the current rate each year will be only ~ Rs 80 crores. To fill the gap, tuition will have to be jacked up to Rs 5Lakh or so per year at a minimum. There will be some cross-subsidy of PG tuitions required from this source.

Are the middle class in India willing to pay at least $50k for a 4yr UG degree in India to make this happen ?

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 24 Jun 2015 21:58

Bade wrote:Are the middle class in India willing to pay at least $50k for a 4yr UG degree in India to make this happen ?

I'm pretty sure the middle class that go to IIT can afford this. They spend many times this on coaching classes to get in. There can be need based grants.

panduranghari · Post by **panduranghari** » 24 Jun 2015 22:13

Are you sure Theo saar, 32 lacs for a 4 year UG degree in India. Its a prohibitive amount for most middle class families unless there is a lot of undeclared income.

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 25 Jun 2015 02:39

Fat pay cheques: Here is why IIT coaches are better of than Duncan Fletcher.

The number of teachers drawing Rs 1 croreplus salaries at institutes offering coaching for entrance exams to Indian Institutes of Technology is growing at a fast clip as these centres fight a fierce war for top talent. "We have six crorepati faculty members," says Modali Venkat Hari Kishan, manager, Bansal Classes, a training institute based in Kota, Rajasthan.

"But every staffer is here with us only till they get the next best offer. Poaching is rampant," he adds, underlying the furious competition for good teachers in hubs such as Kota and Delhi.

Even two years ago, only a handful of teachers were in the one crore-plus salary bracket. "Today, there are at least 15-20 people getting one crore-plus salaries in Kota alone. Then, there are other hubs such as Mumbai, Delhi, Kanpur and Patna, where the faculty would be getting even more," says Sonal Rajora, a faculty member at Allen Career institute.

"Now, there are also a handful of teachers who earn Rs 2 crore," says another industry source. There have also been instances of Rs 3-crore salaries, adds another senior faculty member with two decades of experience, requesting not to be identified.

Sources estimate there are about 2,000 faculty — 600 with IIT degrees — employed by coaching institutes of some repute. "At least 300-400 will be earning salaries in the Rs 60 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore range," estimates Ashish Arora, consultant at Allen Career Institute.

Industry sources say the salary of a good faculty can easily go past the Rs 1 crore mark in just 2-5 years.In stark contrast, salaries of IIT faculty start at Rs 10-11 lakh per annum for professors and Rs 25 lakh per annum for deans. "We have faculty members with 10+ years of experience who draw Rs 1.5-2 crore salaries," says Bansal Classes' Modali Venkat Hari Kishan.

The institute recruits teachers thrice a year. Teacher salaries often rise 3-4 times within 8-10 months of joining. "Average annual salary hikes at coaching institutes swing from 10% to 50%; exceptional performers get 100% raises," says RL Trikha, director, FIITJEE Delhi, another such institute.

"Kota is the mecca of IIT coaching. Some institutes in Kota are paying salaries of Rs 1 crore," says Pramod Maheshwari, founder director and CEO, Career Point, one of the few such coaching institutes that are listed on the stock market.

"There is always shortage of good teaching talent. Salaries have grown almost 5-7 times over the past decade," he adds. Career Point made a net profit of Rs 5.82 crore last year.

Over 13 lakh students registered for the IIT Joint Entrance Examinations (JEE) this year, of which nearly 1.3 lakh are estimated to have signed up for coaching with institutes charging upwards ofRs 1 lakh each as tuition fees alone. Institutes often cram students into classrooms with teacher-tostudent ratios vacillating between 1:40 to 1:100 or even 1:150.

Institutes want their highly paid faculty to teach as many students as possible. The industry has managed to woo new talent, but the demand for faculty is rising faster.

"Some of our top students have come back to us to teach because there are competitive salaries in teaching itself," says Maheshwari of Career Point.

New entrepreneurs also set up shop quite frequently. Two IITians in Delhi, Aditya Singhal and Nishant Sinha, for instance, have set up an online coaching class for JEE aspirants. They have a range of ex-IITians on board to help teach students.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 25 Jun 2015 03:45

New entrepreneurs also set up shop quite frequently. Two IITians in Delhi, Aditya Singhal and Nishant Sinha, for instance, have set up an online coaching class for JEE aspirants. They have a range of ex-IITians on board to help teach students.

Heading to be multi-trillionnaires. Start off on the right foot: 'coach' rich brats to beat the system so that the IITs are filled with them at the expense of the guys who can't afford two shirts, who made the IITs' name in the 1960s-80s.
Graduate to the Bihar Guided-Missile Exam Assist System (BGMEAS) where they station 20 Throwers armed with their pre-done answers to throw through the windows to their customers, with 10 more goons stationed around to frighten off any teachers, and 5 well-funded Baksheesh Financiers to keep the police away.
Go on and acquire the Lobbyists, and corner the market on bribe access to the Mantri Alayas.... Move over, Re-Lie-Antz, IIT-grads are coming!

My dream invention is an IITJEE for which no preparation does any good. Can't see anyone waiting to buy it off me for a $$B though!! Come to think of it, not for INR0.01 either.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 25 Jun 2015 04:01

DU cutoffs turn absurd, breach 100% level
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home ... 806911.cms

NEW DELHI: The steadily rising Delhi University cutoffs for undergraduate courses reached absurd levels in the first list announced on Wednesday, where the eligibility bar set for certain categories of student went beyond 100%.

For instance, a candidate without Economics in class XII would need to have scored 100.75% in the best-of-four (BO4) subjects to secure a seat in Economics at Shri Ram College of Commerce or Hans Raj. Similarly, at Lady Shri Ram College, an aspirant needs to have an aggregate score of 100.5% to get into the Psychology (H) course.