Narayana Murthy questions 'quality' of IITians

New York: Voicing his displeasure over the quality of engineers that pass out of the IITs, Infosys chairman emeritus NR Narayana Murthy has said there is a need to overhaul the selection criteria for students seeking admission to the prestigious technology institutions.

Addressing a gathering of hundreds of former IITians at a 'Pan IIT' summit here, Murthy said the quality of students entering Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) has deteriorated over the years due to the coaching classes that prepare engineering aspirants.

He said the majority of the students fare poorly at jobs and global institutions of higher education.

"Thanks to the coaching classes today, the quality of students entering IITs has gone lower and lower," Murthy said, receiving a thundering applause from his audience.

He said apart from the top 20% of students who crack the tough IIT entrance examination and can "stand among the best anywhere in the world," quality of the remaining 80 per cent of students leave much to be desired.

Coaching classes teach aspirants limited sets of problems, out of which a few are asked in the examinations.

"They somehow get through the joint entrance examination. But their performance in IITs, at jobs or when they come for higher education in institutes in the US is not as good as it used to be.

"This has to be corrected. A new method of selection of students to IITs has to be arrived at."

Drawing a road map to put IITs among the top engineering institutes in the world, Murthy said it has to be ensured that IITs "transcend from being just teaching institutions to reasonably good research institutes" at par with Harvard and MIT in the next 10-20 years.

"Few IITs have done well in producing PhDs but in reality when we compare ourselves to institutions in this country, we have a long way to go," he said.

More emphasis has to be given to research at the undergraduate level and examinations should test independent thinking of students rather than their ability to solve problems.

Murthy said in order to produce good research at IITs, the Indian government has to be persuaded to create institutions that fund research projects.

In addition, faculty members should also be evaluated annually on their research performance by an independent committee, Murthy said adding that India must shift from the tenure system for its faculty to a five year contractual appointment system.

The Infosys mentor also lamented the poor English speaking and social skills of a majority of IIT students, saying with Indian politicians "rooting against English", the task of getting good English speaking students at IITs gets more difficult.

"An IITian has to be a global citizen and must understand where the globe is going," he added.

Murthy also stressed the need to have the governing council of IITs made up of its alumni.

The only way IITs can become better is if 80-90 per cent of members on their governing council are alumni.

"Nobody is bothered about an institution more than its alumni. We must somehow persuade the government of India to let go of its control and make sure majority of the council members is the IIT alumni."

Murthy urged IITians spread across the globe to work with their alma mater to ensure that IITs are among the top 10 engineering schools of the world.

He said while only a couple of IITs feature in the top 50, there should be at least five IITs in the top 10 engineering schools in the world in the next 10-20 years, he added.

Modi has put Gujarat on global map, made India proud: Mukesh Ambani

Gandhinagar: Gujarat is already the refining capital of the world and now the state has potential to become an automotive hub, said Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd and president of Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU) at the university's second convocation. Ambani, who is the chairman of board of governors, PDPU, also said that the world is taking note of state's development.

"If an arid land in Jamnagar can be converted into refining capital of the world, then Gujarat can also become Asia's automotive hub," said Ambani in his inaugural speech.

Praising Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, Ambani further said that Modi has made India proud by putting the state on global map. "Every citizen of the state is motivated," he said.

Around 409 students of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes of PDPU's constituent schools, School of Petroleum Technology, School of Petroleum Management and School of Nuclear Energy, were conferred degrees. Thirteen students were awarded medals for scholastic performance.

Stating that energy was the future of the world, Ambani said, "Globally, we need 17 billion tones of oil equivalent by 2030. And to fulfil this demand, India and China need to increase energy production by six times by 2030," adding that in the next 20 years, energy consumption will be much higher.

Raising concerns about energy, Ambani also said that PDPU students need to undertake a lot of research. "We need to research on solar and bio-fuels. Energy is future of the world and to win the world, we need to do research on energy and PDPU should play a leading role," he said.

Chief minister Modi, who was the chief guest on the occasion, said that the whole world was worried about the looming energy crisis. "Using technology, PDPU students should work on how to save energy and resolve world's energy crisis," said Modi, in his speech. Modi said people of Gujarat have a high risk appetite.

"After spending time in Gandhinagar, PDPU students have also raised their risk appetite. So, we hope that young students will take some risk and come up with innovations in energy in future," he said.

Other dignitaries present at the convocation ceremony were Infosys chairman KV Kamath, GSPC MD Tapan Ray, and Torrent Group CMD Sudhir Mehta.