Anupam- The Dreamer

Come December every year and the placement bells start ringing across many engineering colleges across the country. The exuberance and the paraphernalia surrounding the placement season often creates the hype around the packages that are going to be offered this season. This gives news bytes to the media channels, in terms of evaluating the “Best college for getting the job”. But, amidst all this buzz, we miss the big picture and forget the elephant in the room- i.e. Were institutions of higher learning like the IITs, NITs etc. established with the sole purpose of providing jobs to the students?

I am afraid, but the answer is a big NO!!!! If we delve into history and try to find out the major objective of building such institutes like IITs, we will find out that Sarkar Committee in late 1940s recommended the establishment of at least four IITs, one in each of the four regions of India. The committee also recommended that the IITs be modelled after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). And please don’t say that you haven’t heard about the great MIT! MIT is considered as the epitome of engineering colleges and the dream destination of every STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) student. But, is MIT famous for getting hefty pay packages for its students? No, it is not famous because of this, and neither is it because of its location in the USA, the land of the dreamers. It is rather because of the cutting-edge research quality and the futuristic technologies that are churned out of the campus every year! (As a matter of fact, the MIT was not created to churn out jobs to its students!) And therefore, it is not astonishing that 105 Nobel laureates have come out of MIT till date!

But, what about IITs back home? IITs have come far ahead in terms of gaining prominence as institutions of academic excellence, however somewhere in this journey leaving behind their original objective of being modelled on MIT, where not only they become the institutions of higher learning and excellence, but also are a harbinger of cutting-edge research in the upcoming fields of engineering or STEM courses. As of now, the IITs have essentially become the springboard to get a high-paying job for the handful of youth who get into these institutions.

I don’t blame it much on the students, because the root cause of the problem lies in the socio-economic milieu of the Indian society. As we stand today, we as a society are still grappling with the basic needs like food, shelter and clothing. So, no wonder if the first thing that comes to our mind which can pull us out of poverty is a good JOB! The parents also want their child to get a high-paying job to pull the family out of the miseries of poverty and hunger. And what better thing is to crack engineering exams and get into a good institute, with a reputation for securing cent-percent placement. And this social expectation of a JOB leaves much to be desired from the institutes like IITs, which were not created with this aim! 

You may have heard the news that the maximum package offered this December season till date is Rs. 4.3 crore for a computer science student at IIT Madras, from a company called Jane Street, which created flutters everywhere around. And why not? Rs. 4.3 crores per annum is some kickass amount! At the same time, there will be another news that will say that about 10% students in IITs, NITs etc. didn’t get a job offer the last December season. And those who don’t get jobs, have to grill through different competitive exams to get them any JOB! No matter, how big or small, but the sole objective is to get a JOB! Even the campuses are facilitating students to get a JOB by organizing placement season, inviting companies  to the campus and even dedicating a whole “Placement Cell” for that purpose. And amidst all this job-seeking behaviour, the focus on research has been given a complete go by!

And then every year, we wonder why there is no Nobel Laureate from India from basic sciences like Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics. It is common saying that “What you shall sow is what you will reap”. When we haven’t sown the seeds of research-oriented thinking in the minds of our students, how could we even expect cutting-edge research coming out of their minds. We are just content with becoming replicators of the new research or technologies happening around the world. In simple words, we are good at copying others. But we are at the fag end of the ladder when it comes to doing new research. There are a few exceptions to this, who despite numerous challenges are making their mark in the research arena, but their numbers is like a drop in the ocean. There are challenges like the lack of adequate funding, adequate research infrastructure, good quality professors, research environment, industry-academia collaboration etc. etc., which need to be overcome to make our country stand out in terms of research-led development. The government should take the initiative for developing more institutions like the IISc, which are the flag bearer in doing the cutting-edge research. And somewhere, in some degree, the focus has to be re-centred around the research and development of new technologies, in every field like defence, AI, biotechnology, space technology, healthcare, environmental engineering etc. No nation can become a superpower without being self-sufficient in such critical technologies. And we can’t afford to be left behind in this race! 

The spark has to start from the institutions of higher learning. The earlier, the better. Period.