The Hon'ble Enviromental (pollution) minister Mr. Jairam Ramesh, alumni of IIT Bombay had commented that "IIT students are brilliant, it is the IIT faculty that is not up to par to premier institutions of the world as there is little research done here". See this link to get a thread about the affair.
Many would feel that Jairam Ramesh is 'eligible' comment on the issue as he is a minister and he is also an alumni of an IIT. If one accepts this argument, one should also accept that every student who passes out of school is automatically eligible to comment on how a school should be run and every former employee of Microsoft (even if he were a janitor) automatically has the know how to comment on the research done on Windows 7. Stupidity, isn't it?
Anyway, as one of the 'affected' group, I felt like recording my views ....
I do agree to the point that the extent of quality research done in IITs has been on the decline in the recent years. But, this does not mean that there is no quality research. Nor does it imply that the faculty is insincere, incompetent or anything below the best in the country. One has to look into the ratio of number of faculty
applicants and faculty recruited by the IITs to get the picture. It is the uncompromising attitude of the IITs and IIMs towards faculty quality that has been one of the factors in causing the 'faculty crunch' in these institutions.
In addition to this, the government had unilaterally decided (obviously for their own primary interest) in increasing the student capacity of the IITs and IIMs without giving a proper thought on infrastructure development before capacity enhancement. Mere granting of crores of rupees cannot make a classroom with a capacity of 100 students hold 200 students OR suddenly enable a faculty who can personally interact with 20 students (in a tutorial session) start to interact personally with 40 students at a time. Let me clarify this
point further, in my experience, I have come to the conclusion that it is only in the IITs and IIMs that the faculty both teaches and clears the queries personally. They do not delegate the work to teaching
assistants (In fact, they are not supposed to do that here) as is the practice in other reputed institutions worldwide. This almost destroys the faculty productivity. There entire work-time is consumed in teaching now. Thus leaving little time, if any, for research(confirmed by Kapil Sibal). Please note that the faulty is not averse to teaching. They do like to each and explain concepts in their own manner, different from the reference texts. It is just that the size of the load saps the fun out of teaching. The thing being expected from the faculty is like being fed Rasogollas for breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday just because I said I liked sweets.
There lies the contradiction. On one hand, the faculty is expected to not only teach the students well AND interact with them personally AND carry out research AND execute administrative responsibilities. I do
not think that all these jobs are expected to be performed efficiently by a single human being in any other institution. There has to be a compromise. As teachers, the faculty put the student before research.
Hence, research suffers.
Many would feel that Jairam Ramesh is 'eligible' comment on the issue as he is a minister and he is also an alumni of an IIT. If one accepts this argument, one should also accept that every student who passes out of school is automatically eligible to comment on how a school should be run and every former employee of Microsoft (even if he were a janitor) automatically has the know how to comment on the research done on Windows 7. Stupidity, isn't it?
Anyway, as one of the 'affected' group, I felt like recording my views ....
I do agree to the point that the extent of quality research done in IITs has been on the decline in the recent years. But, this does not mean that there is no quality research. Nor does it imply that the faculty is insincere, incompetent or anything below the best in the country. One has to look into the ratio of number of faculty
applicants and faculty recruited by the IITs to get the picture. It is the uncompromising attitude of the IITs and IIMs towards faculty quality that has been one of the factors in causing the 'faculty crunch' in these institutions.
In addition to this, the government had unilaterally decided (obviously for their own primary interest) in increasing the student capacity of the IITs and IIMs without giving a proper thought on infrastructure development before capacity enhancement. Mere granting of crores of rupees cannot make a classroom with a capacity of 100 students hold 200 students OR suddenly enable a faculty who can personally interact with 20 students (in a tutorial session) start to interact personally with 40 students at a time. Let me clarify this
point further, in my experience, I have come to the conclusion that it is only in the IITs and IIMs that the faculty both teaches and clears the queries personally. They do not delegate the work to teaching
assistants (In fact, they are not supposed to do that here) as is the practice in other reputed institutions worldwide. This almost destroys the faculty productivity. There entire work-time is consumed in teaching now. Thus leaving little time, if any, for research(confirmed by Kapil Sibal). Please note that the faulty is not averse to teaching. They do like to each and explain concepts in their own manner, different from the reference texts. It is just that the size of the load saps the fun out of teaching. The thing being expected from the faculty is like being fed Rasogollas for breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday just because I said I liked sweets.
There lies the contradiction. On one hand, the faculty is expected to not only teach the students well AND interact with them personally AND carry out research AND execute administrative responsibilities. I do
not think that all these jobs are expected to be performed efficiently by a single human being in any other institution. There has to be a compromise. As teachers, the faculty put the student before research.
Hence, research suffers.
I agree Jana ... nicely put! I think IITs should offer the choice of 'Teaching track' or 'Research track' when they hire new faculties and balance the load based on which track the faculty wants to go.
ReplyDeleteWell said, teaching comes first. As per the claim of IIT faculties being not world class, I wonder how atleast one IIT finds place (first 50) in the recent QS world ranking by subject (though personally I dont fancy these rankings). In case if you had missed this info, IITD ranks 41 in Electrical and 4 other IITs find place in the first 100 list. And these rankings are based on employer criteria, academic & citation aspect - Attributing the employment % totally to students' skills & capability, academic aspect on a raw basis giving 50-50 to students & faculty, citation totally to faculty, I would say faculty scores min of 50% to gain this ranking. So their comment leads to contradictions.
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