July 14, 2012
Our IITs have a lot to catch up
V. Sethuraman
Our IITs have a lot to catch up
V. Sethuraman
None of the IITs is anywhere near world standards today. Not a single
IIT has made its mark in the Top 200 Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World
University Rankings in 2011.
The IIT system is the brainchild of the 22-member Nalini
Ranjan Sircar Committee that was constituted in 1946 for the creation
of higher technical institutions for post-War industrial development of
India. This committee recommended the establishment of such institutions
along the lines of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in
the U.S. with affiliated secondary institutions. As per the
recommendation, four IITs were set up in Kharagpur, Bombay, Kanpur and
Madras. The IIT, Delhi, was established later, in 1961.
The IIT, Kharagpur, the first in the series and started in
May 1950, was known as the Eastern Higher Technical Institute. It was
set up in collaboration with MIT. The name “Indian Institute of
Technology” was adopted before the formal inauguration of the institute
on August 18, 1951.
Planning for the IIT, Bombay,
began in 1957 with the participation of UNESCO, utilising the
contribution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). It
received substantial assistance in the form of equipment and expert
services from the USSR from 1956 to 1973. UNESCO also offered a number
of fellowships for training Indian faculty members in the USSR, which
provided additional assistance to supplement the Aid Programme.
The IIT, Kanpur, was started in December 1959 and during
the first 10 years, it benefited from the Kanpur Indo-American Programme
(KIAP), where a consortium of nine U.S. universities — MIT; the
University of California, Berkeley; the California Institute of
Technology; Princeton University; the Carnegie Institute of Technology;
the University of Michigan; Ohio State University; the Case Institute of
Technology; and Purdue University — helped set up research laboratories
and academic programmes. The IIT, Kanpur, was the first institute in
India to offer the Computer Science course in August 1963.
The IIT, Madras, was started when federal Germany signed
the first Indo-German Agreement in Bonn in 1959. This provided for the
services of German professors, training facilities for Indian faculty
members and supply of scientific and technical equipment for
establishment of the central workshop and laboratories at the IIT,
Madras. The institute was declared an ‘Institute of National Importance’
in 1961.
With the assistance of the British
Government, The College of Engineering & Technology was established
in 1961 in Delhi which was later declared an institution of national
importance and renamed the ‘Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi’ in
1963. This institute was started in collaboration with Imperial College
London, which played a pivotal role in initiating the academic
activities.
The Indian Institute of Technology,
Guwahati, was established in 1995 and the University of Roorkee was
converted into an IIT in 2001.
After six decades of
the inception of the first IIT in Kharagpur, it is pertinent to
introspect on how far these institutes have achieved the excellence
envisioned for them by the founding fathers.
Although these institutes
were expected to become world-class centres of learning, none of the
IITs is anywhere near world standards today. Not a single IIT has made
its mark in the Top 200 Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University
Rankings in 2011.
The IIT, Bombay, was the only Indian institute which
managed to find a place for itself in the Top 200 in 2010 but this year,
it too slipped 38 places and ranked 225. The same way, the Delhi and
Madras IITs, which had ranked 202 and 262 in 2010, fell to 218 and 281.
The other IITs featuring in the rankings, including that of Kanpur,
Kharagpur, Roorkee and Guwahati, do not find a place in the Top 300
World University Rankings. The QS ranking, conducted every year, is
based on employer and academic reputation and research quality.
In the recent past, attempts have been made to make
exposure of the IIT system to a larger number of candidates, Eight more
IITs have been established in Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad,
Indore, Jodhpur, Kanpur, Patna and Ropar. In an affirmative action,
concession for the weaker sections has been offered in admissions and in
recruitment of faculty.
The Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) is being
synchronised with that of other engineering colleges. The point to
ponder now is whether steps are also being taken to bring all these IITs
on a par with world-class institutions.
(The
writer is a past president of the IIT Delhi Alumni Association. Email:
sethu48@yahoo.com)
