How 'engineers' get to screw the nation and notes on IIT degree as an 'investment'

It is 3:15 AM. I just got back from an energetic and engaging discussion with a bunch of friends. That discussion has prompted me to write about the most-favourite topic of mine. The IITs. The discussion was more general in nature, talking about the education system as a whole.

Let me start with a brief incident that I encountered on a Sleeper Class coach when I was travelling from Pune to Bangalore.

Two railway employees were talking about their kids. One of them mentioned that both his sons got into IITs this year. The younger one ("woh bade wale se zyada hoshiyaar tha") joined IIT Bombay and the elder one joined IIT BHU (sic). (The whole discussion on whether BHU is an IIT at all, is something I have already ranted about here). He went on to explain how much he spent on the studies of the two kids and it obviously ran into lakhs.

He seemed to extremely pleased with his 'investment'. Paraphrasing that gentleman's comment, the gist of what he said is this - "If I had invested the same amount of money in a plot of land, it would have given me certain returns after a few years. Instead of that, I have invested that in my kids and since they have gotten into IITs, my investment is worth every penny and the returns that I expect are much more than the returns I'd have gotten on the plot of land."

This gentleman had just put words to the feelings of lakhs of middleclass Indians. Thinking about it, it makes perfect business sense. For a middle-class Indian, it is a gamble. 'Invest' in your kid's JEE coaching and hope to reap benefits of the investment. It is, without doubt, a high-risk-high-return game. 2% of investors get the desired returns. 98% are forced to write-off the investment as non-performing asset(s).

Well, strictly speaking, of the 2% who ultimately make it to the IITs, a considerable fraction don't end up being 'high performing assets'. Indeed, of the 98% too, a considerable fraction turn out to be 'high performing assets'. That's their good fortune and hard work. But what irks me is the fact that an entire generation of 'Engineers' are being misled into Engineering and Technology courses, primarily driven by peer pressure and false information. The premier newspapers of the nation leave no stone unturned in this regard. The much-hyped, but utterly sub-standard Times of India comes out with articles that are factually incorrect and ones that are meant purely to capture the imagination of the populace. Many a articles distort the information in a manner that will ensure that the copies sell, compromising heavily on the fundamental spirit of journalism. This article in the Economic Times is a stand-out example. An IIM degree might fetch you a 1.5 crore job. But is that the point of the MBA degree?

To the Indian middle-class bystander, such articles fuel his desires to be rich. They force him to rethink the path that he had set out for himself. In that article, he sees himself as the protagonist. He'd do a quick cost-benefit analysis - If I spend a year preparing for CAT and then another two years at IIM, at the end of it, I'll be earning 1.5 crores an annum. Tax deducted, I will still be able to earn about 8-9 Lakhs a month. Oh, that is sweet. Let me chuck whatever I am doing, let me prepare for CAT!

There! thanks to some masala-journalism, you have a miserable victim. Now, multiply that by about 3 Lakh people, and you have the state of today's management aspirants. Please be careful to note that nowhere in his thought process did the bystander include anything about becoming a good manager, which is what the MBA is supposed to do, I think.

As it turns out, that front-page news article on ET was false as per this blog post by IIM Ahmedabad.

Pan across to the undergraduate engineering scenario: You have 9 Lakh such engineering-aspirants, who are being misled into pursuing engineering degrees (as opposed to becoming 'Engineers') simply because at the end of the dark tunnel, after enduring 4 years of whatever they throw at you, you will land a job in an MNC. Oh, and congratulations, you are an engineer too!

When I take a step back, I realise that an entire generation of people has no idea of why they are doing what they are doing. 9 Lakh people X 4 years = 36 Lakh man years. Discount that by about 10% - I'd like to believe that atleast 10% of the people are doing what they are doing because they WANT to do it - you still have about 32 Lakh man years being utilised sub-optimally, that translates to 8 Lakh man years being utilised sub-optimally every year in a country like India, that prides itself on being young and resourceful. You do not need to be Paul Krugman to identify that should these 8 Lakh man years be put to 'better' use, the overall efficiency would drastically increase and the country can actually benefit immensely from being 'young'.

The media has a major role to play in how a country shapes up. Everybody joins the IITs assuming they have hit a jackpot. At the end of four years, irrespective of what you are and what you do, you'll have a heavy wallet. If you are lucky, you will end up with that 1-crore job, about which your news daily had reported just days back. Is this not what they think?

And that has as much basis in reality as Avatar! Reality is vastly different. But reality is boring. And hence, reality doesn't sell. Consequently, reality is hard to find. As long as the Indian thought process and decision making is based on fables and wishful thinking, our populace will never take a moment to THINK. They will instead race with the other rats of their generation towards the jackpot which, I suspect, is just an illusion. Twenty five years hence, when we realise this, I can only wish it would not be too late.

Dangerous political fantasies, and the whore called education

I can't help but cry foul over the setting up of so many new IITs. Yes, again.

Check out what today's edition of Economic Times has to say under the title "Losing sheen: Over 500 students say no to IIT"

Very recently, IT-BHU was in the fray to be an IIT. If you are a supporter of that move, you would not want to check this. A few days back, I read about a new IITB that is coming up! Hold your breath, it is not an abroad campus of IIT Bombay (which could be reality in a few years time), but a new proposal for an IIT at Belgaum, Karnataka.

What could be the reason? Karnataka, as opposed to many other states in the country has no IITs. Hence, setup an IIT there! Then, there is a demand from Kerala also to setup an IIT there for a similar reason. A very deplorable situation - the fundamentals of the education system of a country are compromised for mere political mileage. I suspect, Arjun Singh can take the entire blame and Kapil Sibal can consider himself equally guilty.

So, what does the ET article say?

As many as 505 students, who got an opportunity to study in these premier technological institutes, did the unthinkable this year; they refused to study in an IIT.

The reasons varied from ‘‘not having confidence in the new IITs’ ’ to ‘‘ getting allotments in not-so-popular streams’’, IIT officials said, adding that this experience might force HRD minister Kapil Sibal to do a rethink on his expansion plans for the IITs.

Does it take anything more than common sense to foresee this situation? I will not involve myself in the same old conversation again. The most frequently used rebuttal for the argument against, and quoted by ET in the article, is:

‘‘There were several parents who were not comfortable sending their kids to an IIT without a campus currently; few realised that all the old IITs, too, started from temporary campuses,’’ the head of one of the new IITs said.

In 1950s when the IITs were setup in temporary campuses, there were hardly ANY engineering institutions in India and there definitely were not 400,000 people taking the JEE. Now, there are. In India, "engineering" has ceased to be a discipline, it has become an obsession with students and parents alike. The reason - IITs. In such a sensitive scenario, screwing around with the system will leave irrepairable scars in the fabric of education.

Two decades hence, when the "engineers" - thousands from the IITs and lakhs from other engineering institutions - take up the mantle of powering the economy, the repercussions might be severe. For, we will have a whole generation that had forayed into a career, just to live someone else's dreams and follow someone else's footsteps.

The parliament of India, meanwhile is busy creating an uproar over the body-frisking of a former President. The power of democracy. The voice of the people. Whatever.

How stoichiometry problems expose the Indian education system:

The past couple of days I've been at home and have been teaching my sister some of her class XI science and mathematics. So, while I juggle among molarity, molality, dimensional analysis, significant figures (?!) and the likes, she keeps barraging me with random questions - most of which I could answer thanks to my JEE preparation. Whether she does this out of curiosity OR whether to verify my JEE rank credentials - I don't know.

Anyway, at one point, she asked me a seemingly trivial question in chemistry and she was surprised at the ease of the solution. She later told me that her teacher told her that this is "high-level" and she cannot solve it. I am surprised because all that the question demanded was an understanding of the mole concept. A few other anecdotes from her and my own experience of the Indian education system lead me to a disturbing conclusion: The system is decaying, and it is decaying fast, and we are running out of time, and it won't fix itself, and they are not really bothered!

My sister has a good theory about why the senior secondary teachers suck at their job. Let me paraphrase her:

Most of the class XI/XII syllabus is "irritating" and requires sound fundamentals to grasp the subject. Most teachers prefer to teach class X-and-below because it is "very easy" in comparison to senior classes and students hardly ask (or are encouraged to ask) "difficult" questions.

The few who actually manage to master the syllabus never return to teaching because there are greener pastures for such people. So, there is a void created and this void gets filled with sub-standard (or, as she said, "bekar") teachers.

To think of it, she makes perfect sense.

Going through her NCERT books, I realised that class XI/XII is indeed demanding (and rightly so!). To teach the thousands of these students, we need teachers of the very best calibre and it seems not forthcoming. You know that the system is rotting when your teachers advise the parents to arrange for "coaching", even for basic school syllabi; when the school lets a professional coaching institute "counsel" the students and for all their queries, there seems to only one answer - Jay E Eee. (After the counselling session, the coaching institute offered the students a discount on their JEE-coaching program.)

While Pranab Mukherjee is busy alloting thousands of crores towards education, I hope he realises that there are serious problems with the Indian education system that cannot be solved by pumping-in cash. Perhaps, we need a revamped pedagogy - one which understands the changing needs of the students while still able to deliver quality input.

The IITs face a somewhat similar crunch - 20-30% shortage of faculty. But thankfully, they are not appointing bekar professors (or so I'd like to believe). There was/is an attempt, though, to bring in reservations in the faculty, which would undoubtedly lead to a compromise of merit. Last I heard, the IITs managed to deflect the issue for the time being but Sibal was vociferous in claiming that "IITs should learn to live with faculty reservation". Pure bullshit.

So, Pranab dada giving the IITs 2000-odd crores is great news but it will hardly solve any of the fundamental problems that plague the IITs - and there are enough and more. (If you a new joinee to IIT - too bad I am squashing your dreams so soon :-) some of my other posts might offer solace!)

I leave you with a question that often bewilders me:

Why does India not have a network of world-class government high schools which attract and train the best minds in the country? And how come we have the world-class IITs and IIMs without a sound higher-edu foundation in the system?

Of the woods and deer and why monkeys don't feature

I am not a nature guy. Neither am I a photography guy. But, this post _might_ smell of those elements. Ignore such thoughts.

Of the many things that contribute in making IIT Madras "IIT Madras", one big factor is the deers deer and one relatively lesser but more prestigious is the blackbucks.

When I came here four years ago, I remember someone with the mike saying that there are 11 blackbucks on campus: 7 male and 4 female. I remember thinking then, that it pays more to be a male blackbuck in the insti than a male student. Damn you JEE! Anyway, the count of the deers deer, if I remember right was put at 40.

One fact that was said then but somehow gets lost in the woods often is that IIT Madras is the only university in the world to be in a reserved forest. (No, this post is not about IIT Madras and it's glory. Patience.)

Past month, staying here, I noticed there were many more blackbucks (and one whitebuck - too :P ) and deers deer than I had ever seen. It was a comforting sight because these animals were said to be on the brink on extinction and that insti is not a viable enough eco-sytstem for them. Armed with my phone - I did snap a few pictures. There is only as much you can shoot with a 2 MP camera embedded in your SMS-device! And while I was capturing the pictures, my friends found it to be 'amusing' and 'gay' that I, after staying here for four years, was taking pics of deers deer.

The following are the different pics I took at different times on different days. FYI, deers deer are the ones with the spots. Blackbucks are the ones without. Unfortunately, my photography has lead to spots on both.


IIT Madras has often benefitted from the legacy of the forest:

All our Shaastra, Saarang articles begin with "It is that time of the year when the woods are buzzing with [Insert Shaastra-ish or Saarang-ish word]". Most of our brochures, howsoever small the number may be, would mention "sprawling 650-acre campus set in the forests". The Director could make jokes about the monkeys - the ones living inside the room and ones on the trees. Our nature-conscious GATE-clearing students get to complain of dogs attacking deers deer in a mail addressed to all the 5000-odd people on campus.

Monkeys are not featured in this article. I am thoroughly pissed with them because they broke a wash-basin in the bog. It is a totally different issue that there has hardly been any water in the one that has managed to survive: