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The Narendra Modi government’s promise to set up IITs and IIMs in every state has left educationists and experts wondering how the government plans to execute the seemingly ambitious proposal.
The decision to increase the number of IITs and IIMs was first taken by Arjun Singh, who was the human resource development minister under the United Progressive Alliance government. Today, India has 13 IIMs offering 3,335 seats and 16 IITs and an Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, having 9,784 seats. But government wants to extends the number of IIT’s to 23. The problem is not the number and neighter the seats, the questions which is ringing in our heads is how the government will manage with the teachers and other facilities. Will the government be able to maintain the same standards in each IIT.
As per the recent news, there are several newly launched IIT’s which can’t be started as the seats are still vacant in them.
Quality of education is dependent on some of the following factors which others IITs might not be able to provide
• Infrastructure like labs, etc. A bad infrastructure can degrade the qualit of IITians.
• Syllabus - So if new IITs are formed, other colleges would suddenly wake up from their dreams and update their syllabus? Nope! Other colleges can learn from the established IITs now too - but only if they choose to.
• Professors - This is the main point. A good institute is known because of its teachers and the increasing number of IIT may lead to bad quality of teachers.
• Quality of students entering - As there are already ample number of seats which are vacant so, if the government try to fill them, they will choose the non-deserving candidates.
College Dekho ask an alum of IIT his point of view and a pass out from IIT B gave shared his point of view on the condition of anonymity. He said, “While it sounds fair and essential that more IITs should be set up in the country, the hypothesis that it would lead to an improvement in the quality of education is definitely unfounded. An institute like the IIT should be planned properly before its conception. It's like a baby which you will bring in this world when you are fully prepared.
The government opened the new IITs in a haste to increase their vote bank. Afters 4/5 years of their conception, some of them are still struggling to find their mark. They were unplanned. Professor CNR Rao, who is the Scientific adviser to the Prime Minister, admitted that nobody knew what was happening when the announcement came. It wasn't even discussed properly.”
