Why IITs Have Lost Sheen.
IITs still retain aura about them. With so many of young minds aspiring for the illustrious courses in the islands of excellence, it is difficult to believe that IITs have lost in the race to become number academic institutions in the world. Mr Narayan Murthy, Infosys Mentor spoke yesterday that IITs of sixties and seventies were better compared to present times. IITs have always been known from the quality of education they have provided. And to extract the best from IITs’ faculties, one has to be really sharp as well. Present day students who get selected to IITians may not be so sharp as compared to IITians of yesteryears.
Coaching industry started coming in to its own in eighties and had perfected the art of getting a student selected in late nineties. The winning formula of giving as much practice to the students from vast question banks often results in students scoring very high in the entrance examinations. These IITians may not be having the best of brains but would have got selected based on adopting the winning formulations of these coaching centres.
The drop in IITians going in for research work leading to award of PhDs is a cause of worry. With so little R&D being done in India, it’s high time the planners find out novel ways to weed out not so sharp minds from the guys with raw intelligence and untamed mind power. This would also pose a challenge to the IIT faculties who would be setting up the entrance exam paper.
Those who have qualified in early seventies and eighties do know how difficult it was to get in to IITs. But coaching centres have hit upon some sort of formula though which they are confident of churning out IITian after IITians.
Image courtesy dipankar_das005
