Monday, December 3, 2007

A reality Check for IITs -An expert's Views/Still, Miles to go!!!!!!!!!!!

He Bhagwan! When we Indians learn to be modest! I am a post graduate from IIT:Kharagpur; a Masters in Aluminium Technology from Volgograd: Russia and an MBA from Leeds :UK and a very senior PSU working executive for 35 years who has travelled the length and width of the world and have been interacting with Delhi and Mumbai IITs regarding industrial research over last 5 years. How many noble lauriates teach in our IITs or have received guest lectures from them over last deacde? What is the volume strength of the reference library? How confortable and hygenic are the working and living conditions of students and research scholors at our IITs? In PG studies- what is the ratio of students to sq ft area? Do the corridors of Worton have 'paan' stained corridors and dingy teachers' rooms and smelly canteens and dining halls? Yes- the students are 'creame-da-la- creame' and our IITs are great basically for the quality of students it gets- but teachers- infrastructure and reasearch quality would take centuries and not just decades to catch up with an average western universities, what to talk of Worton, Harvard, Princetan, California, Pardue, Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester,Leeds, Yorks, Edinburg, Shefield, Moscow, Beijing, Shanghai, Sydney, Christchurch, Toranto, Waterloo, Amesterdam, geneve, Lion, Paris, Rio etc.etc. etc. (Yes- I have visited most of them! There are three places I always make it a point to visit in every city and country - the fish market, the acheological meuseum and the university campus!). For heavens sake - stop singing in parise of our self proclaimed great institutions. We have a long way to go to catch up with the best! As for salaries- Engineers are needed in Finance depts of banks and financial institutions as project analysts and venture caapital evaluatore. All our Indian banks also recruit Engineers for such job. There is no competition to pure engineering graduates from CAs or MBAs for such jobs. Engineer MBAs with project finance and operations research specialisations and relevant work experience are ver expensive and command 2-3 times the salararies you have quoted. In USA- a simple fresh graduate, from any art, humanities or science backgroung, without any brilliant academic achievementw ould expect a salary of $35 to 60,000 PA when placed in a smaller and a less expensive location. At the high end of placement, say New York, Chicago, California etc, the salary range would be $50,000 to 75,000 for the same job. Atop achiever or a student with graduate degrees or a product from the top 5-10 schools in USA, can expect double of these annual wages. All in all- the wage structure in the west is drived from a complicated formula covering mnay factors. Top Indian brains comming out of IITs are excellent raw material fro retraining for any enterprise anywhere in the world. Thats all and no More!!!!!!!!! I know it since my only son- s super brain - has been out of India with full scholorships since he was 14 yrs old and is currently working in the USA after a triple major graduation with 'Mortor Award"! So this mental block that 'we are the graetest' is doing nothing but only making us Indians vunerable to flattery and international

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