The 9th Sem and the protests

It's been quite a while since the last update. It is possibly because of the "9th semester syndrome."

Perhaps, it is that time of life when you reimburse your time and energy spent in the IIT system. Those who think IIT is a "necessarily evil between JEE and GRE" have started being nice to their profs to ensure a couple more adjectives in their reco letters. While the ones who use their IIT-degree as an envelope to mail their cover letter in to a company have started reading The Economist and the Economic Times. Then there is the parallel race for the IIT-IIM tag which involves sitting in a classroom and learning basics of grammar. There is also the segment which values the IIT degree at 15 crore during dowry negotiations who are beaming with a million-dollar-smile. Three million, to be precise. True or not - it makes for good blog content!

Lately, we have been in the news for reasons not particularly pleasant. Why'd you want to get up in the morning to the news of your teachers fasting in protest? On the other hand, it is pleasurable to wake up to news of mass-casual-leave protests. It is not often that your professor mails you saying "tomorrow's class stands cancelled" and wears a black band as a mark of protest. As a sidenote, the day the 9-to-9 fasting was held, the running joke in the insti was: "Aaj main apne do profs se milne gaya, dono ne bola ki lunch ke liye jaa rahe hain, baad mein aao.. ha ha".

The protesters argue that without quality pay, it is difficult to attract quality talent that is crucial for the IITs to sustain their edge. I find it a rather hollow argument because academia will never be able to match the salaries of the corporate world. Clearly, non-monetary incentives are what are needed.

A start would be to attract quality masters and doctorate students. It doesn't give me much hope when I see a PhD student googling for "how to find centre of mass of a thin plate" or when a faculty member tells me, what translates to: "In India, if you have a masters and you can write well, you are God". So, Mr. Sibal and the faculty association might want to try and address more fundamental issues than pay-hike. The faculty is also involved a plethora of consultancy projects, which from whatever little I know about consultancy, should be paying them in multiples of their salary.

Somehow, the administration (be it at the national level or the institute level) always tries to get rid of the syptoms than the disease itself. Why? Because it is far more easier: It is easier for the institute to kick people out of hostels for "ragging" than make a conscious effort to talk to the senior students, year after year. Because it is easier for the institute to increase minimum attendance requirement to 85% (which I must tell you is ridiculous and almost statistically impossible to adhere to - definitely not in the final year) than make the whole teaching experience in class better by investing in faculty training. Because it is easier to blame the poor communication skills of students than introducing compulsory "pesonality development" courses in the curriculum. Because, the administration has no freaking clue of what to do when the water reaches their nose.

What we really is need is a bunch of dedicated staff who can disentangle the threads and repair the system, which reminds me of the McKinsey partner who (in the pre-placement talk) said that they are working with IITB to improve the management of the institution. THAT is a good start. Late, yet, good.