Mumbai: The announcement of plans for new IITs in every state including Seemandhra has spread little cheer.
Senior IITians apprehend dilution of the brand with the whittling down of standards, already evident in the 8 new IITs started since 2008, bureaucrats worry about logistics, skeptics wonder why this government could not escape the lure of playing to the political gallery while aspirants wait to see if they have found a place in the first five IITs or the next two. A world given to ranking will be happy to see one within the same institutional system. One newspaper report (The Telegraph, 10 May 2014) underlines the trend. 26,000 students comprising 17% of the 1.54 lakh who passed the preliminary JEE have opted out of the main examination this year, preferring to join other institutions than walk the whole nine yard for what seemingly are underperforming IITs. There are 30 National Institutes of Technology spread across the country, all of which are generously funded by the government and can claim to achieve comparable standards in scientific and technological studies, not to mention 500 state engineering colleges, few among them very well rated. Students have chosen well to opt for better run institutes over IITs without faculty or facilities.
The critical question is if the scheme of setting new IITs at a huge cost to tax payers’ money, addresses the need of Indian education. Should this be a priority for a nation that has an abysmally low GER (gross enrollment ratio) of 19.4% which effectively means that only a small percentage of the population within the age group of 18 and 23 have access to higher education? The figure sadly includes glaring but predictable discrepancies.
Girls, members of the Scheduled Tribes and Castes, Muslims and those in rural areas have even less representations in higher education. It is shameful that in India that flaunts its economic growth rate to the world, there are close to 200 districts with fewer than 8 Colleges per 1 lakh students. With a manufacturing sector accounting for less than 20% of the GDP, India’s obsession with technological studies seems somewhat misplaced. Students’ choice also belies this fixation.
A recent survey (Deloitte report, ASHE 2013) of enrollment in undergraduate courses shows 37.09% of students chose Arts, 17.6% chose Commerce, 16.1 Technology and 18.7 % joined Science.
Taken together, Science and Technology still falls short of Arts as preferred streams for higher studies. The choice may reflect a more complex reality. Any random study of government run schools in relatively backward districts would show that most don’t offer Science for want of funds to set up laboratories or some - which is worse-offer Science without laboratories for the same reason. Lack of access to higher education thus is also because poor schooling, low marks and absurdly stringent system of selection to government run institutions that put them beyond the reach of ordinary students, often too poor to afford private education.
What plagues the Indian education system is deep rooted, manifold and complicated. Some studies initiated in the last two years are very instructive. Whatever the symptoms of ailments are (as there are many), less number of IITs is certainly not one. It comes as a surprise, therefore, that the newly appointed minister of Human Resource should announce the setting up of 7 new IITs as the first priority of her ministry. It can be argued that the BJP government sworn in recently under Narendra Modi’s leadership has promised to hit the ground running. One fears that Ms. Smriti Irani may have started the jog from the wrong end.
