Shiksha Opinion: Is brand IIT getting diluted?

Most engineering aspirants in India have sometime or the other, lived with the dream of studying in the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). Around 14 lakh candidates took the JEE in 2013, which was nearly 2.8 lakh more than the number of students who sat for the exam in 2012. Yes, I agree that the craze for joining the IITs is definitely there in the country but here it is important to understand why students live with this ambition to join these institutes?

After talking to some engineering students, I came to the conclusion that the criteria on which over the years, people have branded the IITs to be the best institutions is – their faculty, placement record and above all, the IITian tag that they can proudly flaunt in the society.

Now we have 16 IITs and out of these, nine were added to the list in or around the year 2008 alone. Some experts in the education domain revealed that the response these new IITs received from students, educators as well as companies has been lukewarm. Some people even went on to say on record that there is a clear distinction between the old IITs (IIT Kharagpur, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur and IIT Delhi), the intermediate IITs (IIT Roorkee and IIT Guwahati) and the “new” IITs (the ones located at Mandi, Indore, Patna, Ropar, Jodhpur, Varanasi, Hyderabad, Gandhinagar and Bhubaneshwar).

In fact, even companies who head for campus placements mark a line of differentiation between the old IITs and the new ones. They very clearly state that they do not know what to expect from the new IITs.

Earlier, getting into an IIT meant everything, but currently, it’s the location of your institute which is gaining precedence. So, is there still a point in slogging it out only to get into just any one of the IITs when at the end of the day you are going to be evaluated and tagged on the basis of the city in which your IIT lies?

An article published in the Times of India last year also focused on this, it went on to elaborate the problems faced by the new IITs and the reason why even after five years of being established, they are not a preferred choice. The article listed the main reasons behind this to be the inadequate infrastructure facilities, no permanent campuses and the lack of faculty members. I am also listing a table which the article included regarding the performance of the new IITs.

Seeing these numbers, it’s apparent enough the IIT brand is losing its sheen and value. Expansion for the sake of it is not a good idea. Institutes like the IITs are premier institutes and they should remain that way.

I understand when the concerned authorities say that they want to try and reach out to more students and educate them in a better manner. But this should not lead to creating such a situation wherein the institute loses its stature and value.

IITs for ages have been considered a premier institute that catered to and nurtured high caliber students and being in an IIT, automatically recognized you as one. They were “the” places to study for this aspiration value they brought in. Now it is a problem of plenty. If there are IITs in every nook of the country, they are no longer exclusive and you, a student there, are no longer the crème de la crème of our education system.  In turn, the rapid expansion in numbers is just diluting the reputation they have earned in the minds of people over the years.

I hope the people concerned understand this and save the future of students and the brand by curbing this expansion. They should rather focus their efforts on providing quality education to students as it is the quality and not the quantity that matters in the field of education.

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