While its all true that “interests” are being compromised for the sake of “falling in a line” (in the terms of article), it seems naive to assume that “other” directions of a career would bear results better than what it is right now. Trust me, i am all pro-choice and frankly i’d want my kids (when and If i have some) to grow up to be what they want to be rather than pushed, but sometimes you’ve gotta wonder; Been living in states for some time now, I have seen what happens to kids who “follow” their dreams (and believe me, most of them are those free bird believers), guess what? they end up in a restaurant doing dishes. (Well may be i am exaggerating) but hey!.

I’d rather sit in a boring job (Its fortunate that i have been passionate about programming and software in general since my wee years) which is like 8-5 which pays me well and hear all bragging about “hey i know this language or framework” from my fellow workers rather than looking @ Mirror every evening tired and sick of not doing proper groceries (meaning groceries @ an Organic Store or something and not @ Walmart) cuz i am short of money.

Regards
Vyas, Anirudh
Camp Hill, PA(U.S)

This brings us to a larger picture. When there is so much of hype and demand created about the IITs why isn’t the government making use of this opportunity and still wasting its money in providing subsidized education. I believe that right from the application fee, tuition fee to the final convocation fee should be charged as per the demand. That way the government can make use of these funds in making many other IITs. And a high tuition fee would not be a concern for any section of the society considering the fact that banks would hap[ily give them loans. People should consider this education as an investment for better returns. And believe me, the payback period won’t be more than 5 years.

Though a notable amount of money is being invested in education for children, one can not deny the fact of mostly IITians bagging large amount of salaries. B. Tech. graduates from other colleges also get respectable salaries these days. Thats the reason why parents/students are opting for engg./medical as a career. The other thing is also the unavailability of opportunities in other streams like commerce, arts etc. in India. BUT main question is where are we heading? Producing more and more no. of engineers and doctors has now just remained our numerical concern of education. What about the QUALITY of education? Current scenario of technical education in our country is concerned only with salaries or just good job profiles.

Inspite of being endowed with good infrastructure, IITs do not stand anywhere before world class institutes like MIT and others due to very poor research & development(R&D) . Although our IT industry is booming, but we should know that not even a single microprocessor chip is manufactured in India, only manufactured material is being assembled here. No doubt, IITs are accomplishing its onus of creating good engineers but lacking in research, innovation and creativity. I think IIT foundation course is not the issue here for what the topic has been posted. Mostly IITians have been through these courses. So I divereted the topic. Now the question is how to improve the quality of education in our country. Not only the technical education but also other areas (arts, commerce etc) need to be revamped. But when will the initiatives be taken?

IITans don’t have two horns and tail, if you want to test this hypothesis select 5 IITans and 5 average students from any Engineering college in India tell the IITans they should never mention they are from IIT to any of their colleagues in the company. Appoint them in same corporate level see how they do their jobs there will not be any difference.

The IIT hype/myth is the last vestige of the caste system, “superiority complex” of “inferior people” who sat on plagiarized sanskrit books for 1500 years without absolutely NO further research or improvement in the knowledge / technology!

If we want to improve Engineering Education in India then we should set the minimum criteria for becoming a lecturer in Engineering colleges as degree in Engineering + 5 years industrial work experience, then the lecturers will be able to impart real engineering knowledge to the students from their work experience. Since 5 years of industrial work experience will give the teachers industry contacts they will be in better position to collaborate with industry to do research and solve real industrial problems and hence contribute to advancement of technology.

Who says you need the smartest kid only to study at IITs? In life there is more than intelligence needed to succeed. I think this idea of being a smart kid to reach IIT is over over over hyped by IItians themselves who think that all the batches which come after them are not as “smart” as they were. I dont hear such comments by any other alumni of any other college ( HARVARD, STANFORD, OXFORD.. you name it)… coz they dont publicize themselves as “smartest”.

Pravesh

India doesn’t produce too much of doctors or Engineers for its population size. After all, we produce probably 500,000 engineers/yr for a 1.1 billion population and much less than 100,000 doctors. We definitely need to produce more doctors and core engieers to satisfy the exploding economy. What is the problem is we are not producing people trained in other fields. Once, we build enough colleges and universities to train people in other fields and salvage humanities from communists infested enclaves. Once even artist or a lawyer or a professor teaching humanities earn an income that is comparable to those earned by tech professionals, the IIT-premium would start to drop.