There is a need to overhaul the selection criteria to the prestigious technical
institutions.
Lamenting the quality of engineers who pass out of IITs,
Infosys chairman emeritus N. R. Narayana Murthy has said there is a need to overhaul
the selection criteria to the prestigious technical institutions.
Addressing a gathering of former IITians at a ‘Pan IIT’ summit in New York, Murthy
said the quality of students entering IITs had deteriorated due to coaching classes
that prepare engineering aspirants. "Thanks to coaching classes, the quality of
students entering IITs has gone lower and lower," Murthy said, to a thundering applause
from his audience. He said save the top 20% who crack the tough IIT entrance exam
and can "stand among the best anywhere in the world", the quality of the remaining
80% of students leaves much to be desired. "They somehow get through the JEE. But
their performance in IITs, at jobs or when they come for higher education in institutes
in the US is not as good as it used to be. This has to be corrected. A new method
of selection of students to IITs has to be arrived at," Murthy said.
According to Murthy, for IITs to be counted among the best in the world, they must
"transcend from being just teaching institutions to reasonably good research institutes",
at par with Harvard and the MIT, in 10-20 years. "Few IITs have done well in producing
PhDs, but when we compare ourselves to institutions in the US, we have a long way
to go," he said, adding that the emphasis must be on research at the undergraduate
level. He also said exams should test the independent thinking of students rather
than their ability to solve problems.
Besides, Murthy lamented the poor English-speaking and social skills of IIT students,
saying with politicians "rooting against English", the task of getting good students
was getting difficult. "An IITian has to be a global citizen and must understand
where the globe is going," he observed.
Courtesy: Times of India
