Knowledge Economy and technical Education

Part II - R and D and PG Education

M. A. Pai *
University of Illinois  

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Background

In the previous article it was pointed out how high quality of students in large numbers can be produced by existing as well as by expanding the IIT system. As for PG education as well as R and D in Industry, no nation has succeeded without such a large pool of high quality undergraduates. Until now most of the IIT graduates have gone abroad leaving only a few to cater to the PG institutions. Fortunately in sciences, since so many B. Sc and M. Sc students were produced since 1947 that many of them ultimately went to do Ph.D and then into academia and Industry. Today we produce about 7,000 Ph.D’s in Science including Agricultural Sciences and a paltry 700 plus in Engineering per year.  It is not going to be easy for Engineering to do what has been done in Science. But if India has to be technologically strong, it is a MUST. It will take time and patience do this instead of blaming on the poor quality of students from non IITs. The question is how we go about it. Not by appointing more committees. We have statistics from Thacker, Nayudama and Rama Rao Committees .Unfortunately most of them have stressed things like what courses to start, stipends, GATE etc. These are now minor issues as well as irrelevant. The British system of starting new programs in order to get more funding/buildings must be done away with. As for stipends one cannot attract students for PG work by stipends alone. An Institution has to show that quality work is being done at those places in order to attract students as I.I.Sc has shown. As for GATE it is high time it is done away with and replaced by something simpler and similar to GRE or the new JEE type exam. From the Ramarao committee report, it was shocking to read that so many seats went unfilled at the PG level. One hopes the situation is better now. In all these, the silver lining has been the QIP program which needs to be strengthened in a great measure. If we have had good Tier II institutions of IIT quality today, one can thank the QIP program initiated many years ago by the Ministry of Education. There was no GATE exam for those teachers!

Let us look at some of the options now:

1. Since the quality between a UG from an IIT and tier 2 institutions is rapidly decreasing, the first step must be to have PG programs in these institutions without the present restrictions after elevating them to an IIT status. This upgrading must be strictly on a merit basis and not on geographical or any affirmative action basis. Just as IITs helped country-wide integration, such a step will accelerate the process since IITs have maintained the highest level of impartiality and indeed is the envy of many countries.

2. Currently each IIT perhaps produces on an average about 400 M.Tech’s and about 50 Ph.D’s per year in 5-6 engineering disciplines. The number of Ph.D’s is low. Good students must be able to finish the M.Tech program in one calendar year and move over to the PhD stream quickly thus having a seamless PG education leading to Ph.D degree. Those who wish to have M.Tech terminal degree can do so. In fact there is every reason to scale back the M.Tech duration and define it in terms of courses and thesis instead of fixed period of 2 years.

3. The current method of giving stipends directly to students needs to be looked at. Several practices exist such as allowing students to choose a faculty member, or dividing students in some way among various faculties.  In addition, sponsored research projects will attract more students and this should be encouraged.

4. The performance of new IITs must be carefully monitored. Some of them of course already have an IIT type curriculum but may not have the same funding. The tendency to start new programs must be discouraged for the time being unless there is clear competent faculty. The emphasis must be on more Ph.D’s in established places and in other places more M.Tech's.

5. Finally, the Industry has a great responsibility in attracting Ph.D’s. It is a tragedy that unlike in Sciences, the Engineering Industry hardly goes after the Ph.D’s. This outdated attitude must change. Perhaps the industry can advertise this by creating R and D cells instead of foreign collaboration all the time.

6. Finally many of the Institutions in large metropolitan places such as Banagalore, Chennai, etc. must have an aggressive evening M.Tech program for relevant industries. The students are hungry for knowledge to move up the economic ladder. Some do have Distance education program, but its usefulness is not known as yet. A start can easily be made for the IT industry and the IT industry must demand such a program.

It is no an easy road to develop a good PG education program to meet he fast changing needs of India academia and Industry with particular emphasis on training a good number of competent Ph.D students.IITs and IIsc must take an aggressive role in this regard to produce larger number of Ph.D;s because of their infrastructure and funding level  It is hoped that this discussion would provide a frame work to do that beginning as early as August 2006.    

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^{*The author is Professor Emeritus at University of Illinois and was formerly at IIT Kanpur (1963 - '81)}