Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has kicked up a controversy claiming that the faculty at the premier Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management is not world class.
“IITs are surviving because of their students. There is hardly any worthwhile research from our IITs. The faculty in the IIT is not world class. It is the students in IITs who are world class. So the IITs and IIMs are excellent because of the quality of students not because of quality of research or faculty,” said Ramesh in New Delhi on Monday.
Why is this a controversy? Who disagrees and why?
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I don’t agree that the students of IITs and IIMs are world class: They are the best we have at cracking systems. I wouldn’t equate that with being good students of a field.
But that’s getting into semantics.
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May 23, 2011 at 12:01 pm
naveen
Among the students interested in pursuing graduate education and pursuing careers in research a large proportion of the “good quality” students come from IIT’s. This is not to say they are not those who cracked the system. But somehow on average these systems crackers have been better than system crackers from other institutes (including the best from US). If you have not already guessed it I am one of those system crackers. In my career (graduate studies and faculty – 7 years) I have always found IIT students to perform consistently better at most US universities compared to all students.
If you are talking about students interested in business or entrepreneurship I do not have statistics to make a case. But in terms of Academia, you cannot argue against IIT students being world class. Ask faculty from any decent (Top 30) US univ. They will vouch for it!