A trend seen the world over
T. RAMACHANDRAN
THESE REMARKS are prompted by the comments of Seshadri Akella on `premier' engineering institutes. The writer is quite right in scoffing at the preposterous suggestion of an MP in the Lok Sabha that there should be 1,500 IITs in India. This is, of course, neither feasible nor necessary. But he is wrong in questioning the necessity of acquiring qualifications from such institutes.
I taught at an IIT for four years before moving over to a `lesser' institute, which was nevertheless a top-class engineering college. From among 80 or so graduates of the IIT, whom I taught in the pre-final and final years, one rose to become the first civilian Chairman and MD of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., Bangalore, and distinguished himself in that post.
Another is heading Tata Steel Ltd. with distinction. A third, after joining the technical department of a leading nationalised bank, rose to become its executive director. These are examples from a small sample, limited by my short tenure at the IIT, and from just one branch of engineering. There must be countless others from other branches, who have contributed significantly to Indian engineering.
That apart, what I see as a very important contribution of the IITs is in the upgradation of standards of engineering education in India. Until the 1950s, engineering education was stagnating, with outmoded curricula and obsolete laboratories. It is the advent of the IITs that brought dynamism to engineering education and awakened the old engineering colleges from their stupor.
Pace-setters
There is no doubt that it was the vibrant foreign presence at the initial stages of all IITs that inculcated a different academic culture from that existing in old engineering colleges. And this culture has fortunately caught on at the IITs, and has also, slowly but surely, spread to a good number of other institutes, by constant academic exchanges made possible by far-sighted schemes such as the Quality Improvement Programme. In this sense IITs have indeed been pace-setters.
The writer seems to be sore that many IIT graduates opt for a management education subsequently for `lucre', which he seems to consider a bad word! This is no loss as good managers are also essential for the progress of the country. And it is the better training of minds at good engineering institutes that leads in the first instance to large numbers of them getting admission to prestigious management institutes. And this is a trend the world over!
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