Should IITs be expanded?

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IITs to introduce medical and law courses

Kapil Sibal’s recent announcements as the HRD minister have evoked a lot of response, especially from the student community. First of all, I would like to say that compared to Arjun Singh, he seems a lot better and for once I think we will see more of people-centric decisions than caste or vote bank appeasing ones.
Coming to the announcement of IITs to become universities offering medical, law and other courses, I feel that it is unnecessary more than useful/harmful. I mean, it won’t do any harm, but it won’t do any good either. Just associating with the IIT doesn’t mean that the quality of the courses will by default be good. Besides, it’s an Indian Institute of Technology and if the above move takes place, we would have to rename it. (though that is of least concern possible)

The logic behind this move seems that since IIT is a premier institute when it comes to engineering, people will automatically think that a law (purely for the sake of example) course from an IIT is also good and hence we can go on creating top-level courses for each discipline by just offering it in an IIT. This is flawed according to me, and I can give an example for that. IIT Madras offers a 5-year MA course, through the entrance exam HSE. Currently, only a small fraction of the students studying humanities (students mainly studying in South India) write this exam, even though I am sure that this course is pretty good. The reason that it is not popular is because it will take some time for its reputation to build. Its first batch is yet to pass out. The same applies to what the HRD Minister is suggesting – even though it will be offered from a premier institution, any course will take some time to become popular among students as one of the best in the country. If this is the case, then you need not club it with IIT as a university – you can as well start a new college or like IITs, a number of colleges for, say medicine or law (for which you can increase the number of National Law Schools, which are to law as IITs are to engineering). The reason for saying that IIT should offer courses is pretty much bunk, is what I am trying to say. Instead of starting new IITs all over, the government can do a favour to students by starting medical colleges on the lines of IITs, because I remember even when I was in 10th, people intending to go to the medicine field were meticulously told by family and friends, that the number of colleges in the country is low, but on the other hand engineering students are always told –“kahin pe to ho hi jaayega” (which translates to – “you will get into some college or the other”) because of the surplus engineering colleges in the country. That is the reason why engineering has become the foremost option in any parent’s mind when it comes to their child’s career.

When I was discussing this with my friend, he argued that this decision was good because slowly people will start treating humanities and commerce students on par with science students. This is pretty baseless according to me because of two reasons. One, this consequence is based upon the assumption (rather fact) that parents of students today are crazy just about the brand IIT, whatever the course may be. And two, I agree commerce and humanities are treated with disdain and there is an urgent need to remove this bias, but I feel this is not the right way. For example, would you compare a literature or economics student from Oxford or Cambridge with an engineering graduate from MIT or CalTech? You simply cannot, because they are just different, as different as apples and oranges. We should aim for a similar educational structure with world-class institutions established for all fields. Does MIT have a bachelor’s course in literature? If it has, would you be as awed as you would be of an engineering graduate from MIT? So instead of offering other courses in IITs, let us create new premier institutes for these courses. In fact, this should have been done long ago. If they are anyway planning to open new IITs, they can instead open IIMSs (Indian Institute of Medical Sciences, for example) instead.

Even in terms of infrastructure, the present IITs are almost exploding with students, struggling to cope with the increase in intake of students every year. I have the privilege of living in the campus of an IIT myself, and I have seen and appreciated the flora and fauna of the campus. In most of the cities where IITs are situated, the IIT is located in one of the greenest areas of the city. Expanding an IIT would mean that a lot of trees would have to be cut down, as a result of which an IIT loses one of its charms.

Bottom line is, instead of exploiting the people’s love for the word IIT by opening a lot of them, why don’t you try diverting it to IIMS or NLS? This will do good to a lot of students who would have otherwise ruined their life taking up engineering simply because there aren’t enough opportunities for them to pursue their higher studies in the field of their choice in a premier institute.

P.S. I have never intended to discriminate between students of any stream/discipline or treat a law/commerce/humanities student with contempt. Please don’t treat this as the high-handed rant of an IITian, just treat this as a commoners viewpoint on such a move. If this has caused offence to anyone, I apologize.