“Of the 1,400 research papers produced in India annually, 1,000 are produced by the IITs. And this has happened only in the past 5 to 6 years.” This is what Mr Sibal says defending the IITians. India has around 200 plus research institutes and do they annually produce only 1400 papers ? IIT, he says was never meant to be a research institute and basic agenda of the institute is to produce world class engineers.
It is no wonder what we churn out, fewer scientists, patents and research papers. In my school alone I know of only one boy out of so many IITians and engineers doing some valuable research. What exactly is the reason we have so few researchers.
For any child, the most important aspect (he is told) is securing a high earning job as soon as he graduates. Engineering has been tried and tested funda of being a winner in this rat race. Perhaps because of our vision being set in socialists times when any one wid engineering degree was given a job. And they were paid good, had a flat in one of the sectors of those township and had a different lifestyle, much better than the commoners. It was (and perhaps is) the best and easiest ways of living a life. Secured and well paid. What interest did a child has had nothing to do when he was to chose a career or his favorite subjects he wanted to excel in. As a result around 60 percent of engineers we churn out have no or little interest in engineering, leave aside the research. Research would depend on the interest of student. But in India when can studies be related to interest ?
The rigorous curriculum leaves no scope for teachers to develop the potential research students. The job of teachers is limited to churn the raw brilliance into marketable commodity . And they quite often than not do it.
Questions has been raised now about the credibility of faculty. Well why should not we know how do these guys teaching in the best institutes are selected. Promotion of teachers or his career graph can be decided not be seniority but by the research he submits or gets submitted. Besides research can be encouraged by monetary incentives.
We as a nation tend to live in past and fail to introspect. Will it not be nice to have a fact finding mission to assess the academic standards of our universities?
It is no wonder what we churn out, fewer scientists, patents and research papers. In my school alone I know of only one boy out of so many IITians and engineers doing some valuable research. What exactly is the reason we have so few researchers.
For any child, the most important aspect (he is told) is securing a high earning job as soon as he graduates. Engineering has been tried and tested funda of being a winner in this rat race. Perhaps because of our vision being set in socialists times when any one wid engineering degree was given a job. And they were paid good, had a flat in one of the sectors of those township and had a different lifestyle, much better than the commoners. It was (and perhaps is) the best and easiest ways of living a life. Secured and well paid. What interest did a child has had nothing to do when he was to chose a career or his favorite subjects he wanted to excel in. As a result around 60 percent of engineers we churn out have no or little interest in engineering, leave aside the research. Research would depend on the interest of student. But in India when can studies be related to interest ?
The rigorous curriculum leaves no scope for teachers to develop the potential research students. The job of teachers is limited to churn the raw brilliance into marketable commodity . And they quite often than not do it.
Questions has been raised now about the credibility of faculty. Well why should not we know how do these guys teaching in the best institutes are selected. Promotion of teachers or his career graph can be decided not be seniority but by the research he submits or gets submitted. Besides research can be encouraged by monetary incentives.
We as a nation tend to live in past and fail to introspect. Will it not be nice to have a fact finding mission to assess the academic standards of our universities?
WELL...
ReplyDeleteThe education system of India is stale and rotten. And the mindset of people too. Just a few movies or nice talk shows about changes in education system are not reflecting this rotten stage appropriately. I have seen and known closely what University researches have been. There are good researchers but then if we think of only IIT or IIM its not enough. I think millions of researches happen at various places in Indian Universities but they are not valued and thus a thought process has led to the research departments getting confined to library, seminars and conferences.
IIT and IIMs are world class or not doesnt matter. what has been the socio-economic contribution matters...
Today research is considered very academic though there are exceptions but finally if i say i want to do an MpHil i have to add that i dont want to be an academician but a real researcher contributing to development. You see the mindset is that a researcher will be limited to four walls...
And yes of course money, job etc are such huge social symbols..they shadow most of the talents.
The other aspect which can be thought is lack of support to people looking for entrepreneurship... If you have an idea and yu want to research that idea practically by having your own set up, their is no support. And then snail pace bureaucratic set up discourages the most. We have examples around.
ReplyDeleteAs you said IITs were never intended for research but IISc was and from what i gather they have approx 50-70 odd patents in all which is not much; may not mean much if they have no commercial application as usually is the case.
ReplyDeleteWe do not have socio-economic conditions ready for research yet.