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Page 1 of 7 The IITs have consistently performed as institutions of world-class excellence in an otherwise mediocre higher educational system. IIT products have fared brilliantly in advanced sectors of the global economy, but has India benefited anywhere near enough? An issues focus and a look at the future.  JAWAHARLAL NEHRU could not have imagined that the `golden jubilee' of India's finest academic institution, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), which he was instrumental in founding, would be celebrated in the Silicon Valley. Through the IITs, India's first Prime Minister had hoped to create a highly educated technological force that would provide vital inputs for the massive dams, power plants and industrial ventures he wanted to build. It would help ensure that the country was self-reliant in the realm of science and technology. Nehru could not also have anticipated the tremendous global reach that `brand IIT' has come to acquire.
On January 17 and 18, 2003, IIT alumni based in different continents, including a high profile cast from the world of technology and management, converged on northern California to mark the golden jubilee of IIT Kharagpur, the first in the IIT system. Delivering the keynote speech on the first day of the event, IIT50, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates described the IITs as "an incredible institution'' with a worldwide impact. He added that "the computer industry has benefited greatly from the tradition of the IITs.'' Speaking of "outrageous dreams about how computers will improve life twenty years from now,'' he predicted that the IIT would contribute "more than its share of this.'' United States Ambassador to India, Robert D.Blackwill, Stanford University President, John Hennessy, and superstar alumni were among the other speakers at IIT50. India's Minister for Human Resource Development, Murli Manohar Joshi, scheduled to be a keynote speaker on the second day, could not come and sent a message extolling the IITs.
It is symbolic as well as ironic that the IITs' largest ever event was held in Silicon Valley, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the IIT system. Actually, the golden jubilee of the first IIT had been observed in Kharagpur in 2001-2002. The alumni in the U.S., however, decided to celebrate IIT50 in a big way, hoping the event would further leverage the reputation of the institution.
There is little doubt that the IITs have been islands of undergraduate excellence, even when measured against the highest international standards, in an otherwise mediocre higher educational system. Their rigorous standards and state-of-the-art curriculum have moulded some of the best minds in India into some of the most prominent executives, managers, entrepreneurs and inventors in the world. Few undergraduate institutions anywhere can claim such staggering success for their graduates. However, the shortcomings of the IIT system — the big migration of IIT graduates abroad, the severe under-representation of women, the Scheduled Castes (S.C.s) and the Scheduled Tribes (S.T.s), and the failure of a large number of IIT B.Tech. graduates to pursue careers in their areas of specialisation — cannot be overlooked. The coming together of the seven IITs to celebrate IIT50 is an appropriate occasion for a balanced evaluation of the role these institutions have played in independent India.
The idea of the IITs took shape in 1946, when a 22-member official committee headed by N.R. Sarkar submitted a report on the development of higher technical institutions to the government. The Sarkar Committee recommended the creation of four higher technical institutions of international standard, one each in the north, south, east and west, modelled possibly along the lines of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In May 1950, the first in the series was established in Kharagpur at the site of the Hijli Detention Camp, where the British had incarcerated political prisoners; the institution was named the "Indian Institute of Technology'' before its formal inauguration on August 18, 1951. Nehru, an enthusiast and patron of science, was clear that science and technology had a prominent role to play in modernising India and meeting the needs of its growing population. He envisioned that the IIT system would over time "provide scientists and technologists of the highest calibre who would engage in research, design and development to help building the nation towards self-reliance in her technological needs." Addressing IIT Kharagpur' s first convocation in 1956, Nehru observed: "Here in the place of that Hijli Detention Camp stands this fine monument of India, representing India's urges, India's future in the making. This picture seems to be symbolic of changes that are coming to India."
Within a decade of the launch of the first IIT, four more were set up: IIT Bombay (1958), IIT Madras (1959), IIT Kanpur (1959), and IIT Delhi (1961). Decades later, the sixth IIT was established in Guwahati (1994). India's first technical institute, set up in 1847 and known as the Thomson College of Engineering and subsequently the University of Roorkee, was ordained as the seventh IIT in September 2001. During the early years, several of the IITs benefited in varying degrees from material assistance and academic cooperation from developed countries — IIT Bombay from the Soviet Union, IIT Madras from Germany, IIT Kanpur from the United States, and IIT Delhi from the United Kingdom. A Central statute, the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) Act, 1956, declared the IIT to be "an institute of national importance.'' The Institutes of Technology Act, 1961, which created a unique framework for the funding, administration and academic development of the IITs as privileged institutions, confers a high degree of autonomy on the system and protects it from extra-academic pressures. A 1963 amendment Act has provided for the further expansion of the IIT family.The first batch at Kharagpur comprised 224 students, taught by 42 teachers. In 2002, 1,69,563 high school students appeared for the screening test of the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) and 3,878 (approximately 2.3 per cent of the candidates who appeared for the screening test) were offered admission to various undergraduate courses in the participating institutes.
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Sunday, 12 October 2008
