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IIT, Kharagpur… Once poorly trained students flood the market, the institution’s brand image is liable to suffer. — A. Roy Chowdhury

My previous article, suggesting that it is folly to increase the number of IITs without enough competent teachers to teach, has started the biggest (though not the most furious) debate I have noticed so far in response to any of my articles. The debate emerged as a response to my suggestion that there is no point in admitting ill-educated students to IITs and that if only children were well educated from pre-nursery (at least from middle-school stage), children of all cas tes will have about the same chance of getting to the IITs — provided family culture imbues the children with a zest for study.

Several IIT alumni, critical of my proposition, have started a blog suggesting there is so much demand for admission to IITs that the state must meet that demand.

Extending the argument, as many more people want to become MPs, should we increase the size of our Parliament indefinitely? Similarly, is it desirable to expand the size of the Cabinet? Meeting public demand is desirable but, when that idea is carried to the extreme, it will end up like the story of the man, the son and the donkey.

Engineering education is usually assumed to be the study of nuts and bolts. It is philosophical too, an aspect missed by many engineers. Let me give three examples.

The Nyquist theorem is an elegant and very complex mathematical analysis of control systems. Not many people can comprehend that level of mathematics, but almost all IIT students can do it. However, the essence of Nyquist’s theorem is quite simple. Its philosophical import is: it is not possible to build a system that never makes mistakes; it is best to correct mistakes after they occur rather than attempt a system that never makes mistakes.

On that basis, it is acceptable to increase the number of IITs even if it is a mistake. However, the Nyquist theorem explains also that not all systems are correctable; only certain designs are stable. In the case of IITs, once poorly trained students flood the market, their brand image is liable to suffer, quite like Humpty Dumpty — not all the government’s ministers and not all their money will be able to get its reputation back again.

The Law of Thermodynamics, which economists know as “there is no free lunch”. In engineering, perpetual motion machines are the economists’ equivalent of a free lunch.

There is no bright teenager who has not got excited with his or her own design of a perpetual motion machine. However, engineering education cures them (at any rate, it should) of such false excitement in the case of physical systems.

When it comes to living life, the knowledge that there is no perpetual motion machine does not translate into the wisdom of not desiring a free lunch. The best of us want to get something for nothing.

Have you heard of anyone wanting to multiply Harvard or Oxford even though they face a heavy demand for admissions? Institutions such as Harvard, Oxford or IITs are valuable only because they are exclusive. It is an elementary principle of economics that value is proportional to scarcity; make anything easily available, and its value collapses.

That is why the American Medical Council is strict in restricting admissions to medical colleges. People are asking for an IIT quality education without paying the price of exclusivity that has made IITs or Harvard or Oxford what they are.

It is also said that those who do not learn from the lessons of history are bound to repeat it. Indian history teaches us that the University of Calcutta was once one of the finest in the world, where path-breaking discoveries were made by such scientists as Jagdish Chandra Bose, C. V. Raman and Satyen Bose.

History also teaches that once politicians started interfering with it, Calcutta University faded away. Universities cannot prosper without three kinds of freedom — the freedom to decide who will teach; what to teach and whom to teach. These are precisely the freedoms that politicians invariably destroy.

In thermodynamics, there is a concept called entropy, which is a measure of disorder. The theory says that all systems will naturally deteriorate and become less and less orderly unless they are scrupulously worked upon. We see that all the time: If you do not clean your house or clear your table regularly and meticulously, disorder gets out of hand. Likewise, slacken on maintaining IITs scrupulously, particularly the quality of students and faculty, and they will inevitably deteriorate.

Probability theory is my third precept. Its most fundamental lesson is that there is practically nothing on earth (except that we will die one day) that has a probability of one (or zero) — every expectation is more or less uncertain; every idea is only partially true.

This lesson should make us all modest enough not to assert any proposition. It would be folly for me to say that increasing the number of IITs would definitely end in disaster; it may not. Likewise, the supporters of IIT expansion should accept that there is a finite probability that it will destroy the brand that IITs are. The IIT alumni who are eager to expand IITs to meet demand are also critical of the quality of teachers that taught them. They argue: “We have done well even though most of our teachers were mediocre. So what if the new IITs do not get good teachers?”

On that criticism, they are less than accurate. What IIT teachers were like was brought home to me by a candid letter in the IIT Madras student magazine. In the previous issue, editors of the magazine had severely criticised the quality of their teachers. In response, one student wrote that he had joined IIT after one year in one of the most prestigious engineering colleges in the country. He knew from first-hand experience what bad teaching really was; IIT students do not appreciate how lucky they were to have the kind of teachers they do have.

Undeniably, alumni have contributed much to build the reputation of IITs. Even then, it would be immodest for them to claim that they alone have done so but not the faculty. They are unaware of the meticulous planning that lies behind the teaching programme in every semester. Few institutions in India enjoy the kind of self-discipline (for no reward) that IIT teachers practice.

As Gandhiji explained in his Hind Swaraj, in democratic politics, no politician can be patriotic. So, if we are wise, we should look at the gifts politicians offer us with a healthy dose of scepticism. I still feel that the move to increase the number of IITs does not stem from any wish to do good to the country but from a desire to fatten further the creamy layer of the vote-bank.

To return to the basic argument, admittedly, every government has a responsibility to provide what the public desires. At the same time, it has also a responsibility to create a niche for the exceptionally able — be it in studies, in arts, in sports, or even in politics. A government that fails to do so will sink the country in a sea of mediocrity. Earlier governments could have expanded IITs any time. Had they done so, IITs would by now have been no more sought after than any other engineering college.

(Concluded)

This is 223rd in the Vision 2020 series. The previous article was published on March 17.

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