The Hindu Business Line : Cross-branding or piggy-backing?

It becomes necessary to seriously consider the possibility that the B. Techs add more value to the IITs than the IITs add to them. Indeed, that B. Techs `push up' the IITs, even as the latter pull them down.

About 4,000 of the two lakh applicants for the IIT first-step screening exam (i.e about two per cent) get admitted. Only the very best make it. The rest have to settle for what they can get. The question, then, is `do IIT's produce the best only because they take in the best?' The `don't quote me' answer given by a wide spectrum of top-ranking faculty members at IIT Kharagpur was a resounding yes. Most added, of their own volition, that though students did indeed acquire skills in their field of specialisation, in terms of sheer competence and the will to win, almost all were better and brighter when they came in than when they graduated.

Various reasons were cited for this. Though quality of labs and faculty were mentioned, the smug, self-congratulatory attitude of those who had made it in led the field by a large margin.

This group, comprising more than three of every five students admitted to IIT Kharagpur to begin with (and perhaps four by the time they left), had slogged day and night to get in, but slacked off noticeably after that.

The reason being a general, not always justified, perception that to lead the `good life,' at or near the top of the income distribution in the country they chose to reside (rather than keep slogging day in and day out to achieve high standards of competence in their chosen field), an IIT degree was pretty much all that was needed for assured success. Since, once they had got into an IIT, they were assured of this, from that point on, they strove merely to `satisfice' not maximise.

This is not necessarily a perverse attitude to take. They had made it through the JEE, and this gave them a decided edge over those who had not. No matter how much the latter outdistanced the former in the quantity and quality of their subsequent efforts, they were forever denied entry into this select, well-networked club.

This is important. One cannot become air borne simply by running faster and faster with one's arms outstretched. Those who got in would automatically graduate with the IIT brand. Others would not.

Despite this handicap, a quick visit to leading American universities like Princeton and Michigan, leaves one amazed at the huge number of M. Tech. and Ph.D students there who came from India armed with only a degree from one of the NIITs, or even from the humble

Banaras Hindu University. And one finds one scratching one's head a bit on discovering that a large number of IITians had been able to find a berth only in back-of-beyond universities like the University of New Orleans or the University of Texas at Austin.

Still, all said and done, IIT's are a reputed, world class brand. Other things constant, this gives their B.Techs (though not their M.Techs and Ph.Ds), even relatively mediocre ones, an edge over others; for admissions to universities abroad, admissions to IIMs, and, for those without a `track record', in the form of prior work experience, job appointments.

It therefore becomes necessary to seriously consider the possibility that the B. Techs add more value to the IITs than the IITs add to them. Indeed, that B. Techs `push up' the IITs, even as the latter pull them down.

One way to test this is the number and size of project grants that IITs or their faculty members are able to attract, not so much from the Indian government and its subsidiaries, but from world class majors like General Electric, Ford and Schlumberger.

But since these grants are bagged by only a small proportion of IIT faculty members, a better, surer, test is: what proportion of faculty members continue to advance professionally after they have been in the IIT system for seven to 10 years.

Scanning IIT Web sites for profiles of faculty members leaves one with a sinking feeling that though, if given the best they contribute to turning out the best, the large majority of them, like their `peers' at the IIMs, and in the IAS, gradually, imperceptibly, become themselves pretty much unemployable.