Why the IIT faculty is on a hunger strike

Airline employees strike.
Bank workers strike.
But IIT professors? It is a very sad day when they go on strike!

Something must be very rotten in the state of Denmark - in a manner of speaking - for these gentle souls to take such an extreme step. Certainly IIT professors deserve far better salaries but rest assured it is not merely for a few extra bucks.

I am reproducing an email put out by the Faculty Forum of IIT Bombay which lucidly explains why they took this stand.

Dear Friends:

HRD Minister Mr. Kapil Sibal has been making comments which incorrectly portrays our protest as being for salary only. This is far from the truth and a look at our memorandum dated 21/09/09 will make it clear that the IIT faculty are fighting more for autonomy, dignity and honor that the MHRD is systematically robbing the IITs of. Our main concerns are the following:

1. In the UGC system there is a percentage cap on posts (like 10% only can be Professors). This has failed them since meritorious people may not be promoted if there is no vacancy. MHRD is trying to impose something like that on IITs, where, till now, promotion is by merit only. This is direct interference in the academic autonomy of IITs.

2. IITs heavily depend on recruiting bright young people as soon as possible after PhD. MHRD has offered that a fresh PhD graduate can only be given a contractual post with a salary of about Rs 28000. Does anyone think we can recruit the large number of good people, that IITs need, with this salary? (IITs need about 6000-8000 new faculty in the next 7-8 years)

3. The Goverment of India has honored DAE and ISRO by giving them something called PRIS (O) since they are “centers of excellence”. Everyone from the sweepers to the senior scientists are getting that which is a 20% added amount to salary. They have nt given this yet to IITs. Are IITs not as “excellent” as DAE and ISRO?

This is about prestige and honor of the faculty. All these can only have one outcome: destruction of the IIT system over the next decade or two. The faculty are fighting to prevent this from happening. The minister through the media claims that it is about money. IT IS NOT ABOUT MONEY. If at all it is about money, it is for people who are not yet a faculty member here, for students still doing their PhDs (or even in earlier stages of their career, who have the potential to teach in an IIT, but may not feel that such a career is viable)

I believe that honour and prestige is the crux of the issue. Yes, IIT and IIM faculty feel they should be paid better but I don't think they would ever go on strike for money alone.

In fact, whenever I speak to faculty about whether they would jump ship as soon as some fancy foreign university sets up shop they say,"Not necessarily."

Apart from salary, professors value academic and operational freedom.
Their status as members of a respected institution.
The kick of teaching the 'best' students in the country.

If the government keeps its hands off and allows the older IITs and IIMs to chart their own destiny, they'll have a fighting chance. Else, the war will be lost... even before the battle has begun!

No more IITs, we need Indian Institute of Talent

Sorry to be cynical about it, but this whole announcement of 4 new IITS and 6 new IIMs is nothing more than an election year carrot for middle class India.

First of all, do we need more IITs and IIMs in this day and age? This is not the 1960s or 70s when the concept of management or engineering education was a new one. And hence the government played the role of catalyst, evangelist and capitalist - all in one.

Now, it's more like mere neighbouring state mein ek IIT hai, mujhe bhi chahiye. Jaise Vijay Sales mein LCD TV dekh kar aayr aur socha, ek din hamare ghar mein bhi hoga.

Today there are 1600 engineering colleges and 1000 + bschools in India. The demand for these courses is being met adequately by private enterpreneurs. You can dispute the quality of many of these institutes but the thing to do then is to institute mechanisms to improve that quality.

"Building one more quality institute' will not address the problem. Assuming you can genuinely build quality - not just affix the tag IIM onto a good looking campus and take in all the wait listed students off the existing IIMs.

Speaking of mechanisms AICTE urgently needs to a makeover. The class bully cum school monitor approach is clearly not working. We need a regulatory body, but one which is effective, impartial and recognises that excellence is not just about square feet of campus area but academic integrity and intellectual capital.

So should the government completely exit higher education? I'm not saying that. But I think its role has to be more of playing the pioneer, of entering new and virgin territories.

So a National Law School University was an excellent idea and several more such institutes have come up along the same lines. This has certainly resulted in more bright young people taking up law as a career.

Let's take education as an example of a career the government could pick up and invest in. If you set up an IIT-IIM-NID like instiute of excellence where entry is based on a prestigious national entrance exam, I am sure that within 5 years the teaching profession as a whole would become respectable.

And there would be recruiters willing to pay attractive salaries to these graduates.

But going back to the whole concept of IITs and IIMs, I think the time has come to abandon this compartmentalised approach. Let's recognise that most students who join these institutes are not doing so out of deep interest in technology or management. They are in it for the chhaapa and the placement.

The situation is especially bad in case of IITs because the students are 17-18 years old. And they've slogged so hard to get in to the institute, many have little interest in what they actually study on campus.

So if I were the government I would set up an IIT which is an Indian Institute of Talent. You come in, get exposure to a number of different subjects (engineering, science, commerce and arts) and then in your 3rd year choose a
specialisation in one or the other subject which turns you on. Basically, the American university model where undergraduate education is all about choices. Not 'the best course I could get in with my marks'.

Come to think of it, we do not have any institution in India where Arts, Commerce, Science, Engineering, Design, Music, Medicine and Management co-exist on a single campus. At best we put up techno campuses where a medical, dental and engineering may co-exist.

The IITs are in fact the only technical institutes with Humanities departments but these depts don't enjoy the same status and importance as others because an undergrad cannot major in these subjects.

Imagine how much human potential would be freed if we de-linked 'intelligence' from the study of technical subjects. Left to themselves, we would find students who choose to major in organic chemistry out of love for the subject, not JEE rank.

And maybe we wouldn't need more IIMs to escape to... after graduating in 'I never cared for this' kind of subjects!