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Again we misspend on "higher education". People who graduate out of IITs and IIMs can well afford to pay for their education by taking student loans.

There should be no subsidies to higher education. Imagine, it takes Rs. 20 lakhs per candidate for a good medical education. Once these candidates get virtually free government seats, they escape upon graduation.

The Karnataka Government was thinking of reviving the yesteryears's LMP (Licensed Medical Practitioner) program. 

Privatising or Private management of ITIs is a much better option than going in for IITs.

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I have not studied at an IIT and so don't know personally how good they are.  But having seen the boys and girls who come out of them, they must be doing a pretty good job. 

I also think that it is not just the professors or the labs that make a difference.  The quality of your peers makes a big difference and the competitiveness forces one to also raise his/her standards.  In Bangalore Univ e.g., it was enough to "study" the syllabus and the last 5 years question papers.  Questions rarely made you think too hard - what was important was to know which formula was to be applied.

 It is also important to remember that the IITs were set up in 1961 (almost 50 years back).  The population of India was closer to 350 million.  The number of IITs has to increase given that increase in population and more importantly the composition of the population.   If IITs are not scaleable (I hate to use that word :), then something is wrong.  A lot of people think that setting up 5 more IITs will "dilute" the standard.  I don't blame them - the committment to excellence in our country is rare and so why spoil a good institution. 

I personally think that the number of bright boys and girls of the 17-19 age group far exceeds 3000 or 4000 and we need more IITs.  But given the resources and time, etc IITs can take say 10000 or even 15000 a year.  (I will not get into the debate of why a student actually goes to an IIT and whether he is really suited to a career in engg).

The other lakhs of students have to enter NITs and other engineering colleges.  We absolutely have to make them 7/10 if not the 9.5/10 that IITs are.  Better faculty *means better pay), better labs, better workshops.  It is in "industry"'s benefit to take some interest as most of them depend on mass employment.  Need to spread them out - at least 1 KIT in every city with more than 200,000 population - Mysore, Mangalore, Shimoga, Hubli, Tumkur.  That will also provide incentive to industry to move there over the next 3-4 years as they know skilled employees will be available there.

Hope for some "vision" here.

Srivathsa

 

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SB, Srivathsa - Could'nt agree with you more.

IITs are not the only way forward. The bigger industrial houses & academic institutions must be given much more favorable conditions by the govt/s concerned to come up with quality educational institutions with good facilities at remote areas. Unfortunately, so far, most of them have viewed education solely as buisness opportunities. Just as for privatization of bus operations, this needs a lot of reform & regulation with mechanisms to ensure that it works as intended. Such monitoring exercises at present have only led to extraction of bribes & misuse by the inspectors. So, we are left with only the IITs, IIMs & a few others that stand out.

All efforts have so far been to put these 'branded' institutions only in the larger cities, with the justification that 60% of our GDP is contributed by the 30% who live in urban areas.

Take North Karnataka - the area has been ignored & neglected for too long. Despite SWR headquartered now at Hubli, it has not much benefited the area & the proposed Mumbai-Bangalore-Chennai super-fast train is being planned without a stop at Hubli, & is stiffly being opposed by SWR & the people of Hubli !

Similarly, if institutions continue to sprout within or just outside the cities, it's of no use & will not help in leveraging the talents that might be available at these remote areas. This is what leads to the severe congestion in all of our cities, too.

I am glad that Infosys located their training center at Mysore, rather than at Bangalore - at least, it's a start.

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With some genuine liberalisation, our private colleges can become as good. Check:

http://bangalore.praja.in/blog/murali772/2008/06/07/private-colleges

Muralidhar Rao

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Silkboard,

I must acknowledge, your thoughts on this are good.

My simple answer to your quesions (in the first part of your blog) is YES and NO.

NO: We need not depend upon any central govt. to build an IIT inside our state. But then, so should be the case for any/every Indian state! But since IITs are being built by the center all this while, it needs to change for good.

YES: Yes, Karnataka can do with an IIT like KIT, and we dont care! But the question is, will the IITs in other states be called similar fashion too? Will there be equity in education in India at all? Will people of all states have equal opportunity to education?

What about medium of education, and thereby the quality of education imparted at various levels? Lets include those as well here. Something that *has* to be there on education roadmap discussions.

-Nijavaada

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