Edu-leaders

Prof T.S.Chandra Mon, 2011-05-23 19:45

It was very shocking and painful to hear the derogatory comments of the Honorable Minister who it appears is an alumni of IIT to the public media. One percent cream of the student population of India enter the IITS, no doubt. This is a population of youngsters who know how to study ,who are capable of hard work and academic excellence and have a sharp understanding and intellect .As they are so clever and intelligent ,the task of teaching such bright students is an equally challenging task.When a IIT faculty goes to teach a class of such bright students the teacher must have a very good grasp of the subject and also awareness of the hot topics of the field in order to answer the umpteen questions raised by these youngsters , enthuse them and pull them up to greater heights . Therefore if the faculty of IITs and IIMS are attracting such brightest students of India to join IITs or IIMs , one can understand what a high level of intellectual capacity these faculty must be possessing to manage such students. In other words it needs a very clever person to manage some very clever trainees under him.The intellectual strength and capacity of the IIT faculty must therefore by simple logic be much higher than that of the students the faculty teaches or guides for research. Alas ! because of the meager pay scales provided by the Ministry to these faculty and the quiet academic nature of their duties confined to labs and class rooms , the public does not come to know of their talents.While the faculty earn a parsley maximum pay of 79000 per month that too after many years of service and with very few perks ,the students trained by them straightaway earn not less then 2-3 lakhs per month in the outside job market within 2-3 years.Because of such cushy jobs and money power , I think some of these alumni like the minister in the present case are high headedly kicking the ladder that enabled them to climb to the positions they hold today . While the diamond (student ) shines, the diamond cutter (faculty ) has to bear such insults from the honorable ministers.If the IITS are closed than the society will know whether they missed the diamond in their hands. Why is it that these bright students do not want to join other Institutions if the faculty is better than IITs or IIMs? Why is it that these private institutions drive their student very pathetically to do projects outside their institute and especially are sending them to IITs for their research projects . Is there no place better than IIT ? All these facts speak for themselves that the IITs and IIMs are the very best that one can aspire for in this country flooded with corrupt government ministers. The idea of starting institutions on public -private basis like marine diversity etc without involving institutions like IITs in such research already is a forerunner of events like another 2G scam. It is better that the government administrators do not heap insults on the already injured IIT faculty who hold the torch of knowledge. If IITs are demoralized by such unkind remarks and loose talk , they are undoing the work of such great respected leaders like Pandit Nehru. One cannot put together these institutions and it will be the end like Humpty -Dumpty could not be put together again. Bigger scams in education and academics is being instigated by these politicians , after the IT and 2G scams .