Why IITs Have Failed to Produce Nobel Laureates

NDTV | Updated On: March 11, 2015 08:44 (IST)

The Indian Institute of Technology, the country's most famous and prestigious engineering school, has failed to produce a single Nobel laureate despite the government pouring "thousands of millions of rupees", noted a joint study of industry body Assocham and Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

"While the much touted IITs have an annual enrollment of 10,000-15,000, focused only on the brightest of the bright, not a single great worldwide patent has emerged, nor have they produced a single Nobel Laureate," the study says.

IITs have failed to create a mark when it comes to research and innovation because 90 per cent of funding earmarked for the education sector is used for payment of salaries and creating physical infrastructure, the study found.

"We still do not have a single equivalent of a Google, Facebook, Microsoft or Walmart or a Nike. Even a small country like Italy or Finland does better!" said DS Rawat of Assocham.

The skewed funding plagues not only the IITs, but the entire higher education sector, resulting in "sub-standard" quality, the study revealed. As a result, Indian students spend $7 billion or around Rs. 45,000 crore per year on foreign education, the study found.

"Indians spend about $6-7 billion every year in sending their children abroad for higher education. It is not just the elite who spend generously on a good education and credentials but the middle class families also spend their life time savings to educating their children abroad," the study noted with concern.

Interestingly, the money spent on foreign education is nearly 60 per cent of the funds Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has allocated to the education sector for next fiscal.

Indian universities have little money for research and innovation, the biggest reason why India ranks lowly when it comes to new patents and start-ups in technology and innovation, the study says.

Brain drain is another factor that hampers world class innovation in the country. According to the study, many IITians who go abroad for research do not return home after obtaining their doctoral programmes.

Rabindranath Tagore, CV Raman, Mother Teresa, Amartya Sen and Kailash Satyarthi are the five Indians who have won a Nobel.

‘Unfair’ education

Delhi, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have been ranked as India’s best states in terms of gender-related education indicators, according to new data from the Ministry of Human Resource Development and UNICEF.

Utilizing the district-level indicators of girls’ education and health disadvantages, the government also aims to gauge the most backward pockets of the country that require the most attention. The two southern States, along with Delhi and Himachal Pradesh, are the best performers here, with Gujarat, Rajasthan and the central and northern states among the worst.

While the atlas uses data assimilated by other government agencies, it also creates a new composite index bringing into use 21 specific indicators to do with girls’ education, along with four axes – infrastructure, teachers, access, and outcomes. Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Delhi and Punjab are in the top 25 per cent of the index range for elementary education, the two southern states and Delhi make the top quarter of the index for secondary education as well. Central and northern States, including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, are among the worst performers.

Although the data shows that the pockets of backwardness exist in better-off states too, Bangalore’s urban and rural districts do as well as Mumbai or Pune, the neighbouring district of Tumkur is among India’s worst off districts.

Ramanathapuram, Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri districts in Tamil Nadu do as badly on the composite girls’ education indicator as Barabanki, Bahraich and Shrawasti in Uttar Pradesh. The atlas also creates a vulnerability index of factors related with the girls’ education, including the likelihood of joining the workforce early and getting married off early.

The Human Resource Development ministry has launched a web-based digital gender atlas, a tool designed to map the progress on girl education throughout the country. School education secretary Vrinda Sarup released the gender atlas on March 9, saying, “it is a tool used for education planning and administration and helps us target a plan of action for effective implementation of programmes.”

Gender Atlas visualizes the vulnerability status of an area based on composite index of parameters such as rural female literacy and percentage of boys and girls with disabilities, particularly girls. Performance status of the individual indicators can be visualized at the state and district level, differentiated by colour coding.

The Human Resource Development ministry mentioned in a statement, “the atlas provides comparative analysis of individual gender-related indicators over three years and that enables a visual assessment of the change and an understanding of whether some intervention introduced in a geography at a particular point of time has worked or not and can be used by states, districts, block education administrators or any other interested group including NGOs.”

While India has achieved high enrollment for girls at primary and upper primary levels, the enrollment levels, however, remain low at the secondary level. Representation of girls in total enrollment is 48.66% at the upper primary level and 47.29% at the secondary level. The map has been formulated with data collected from the unified district information system for education data, census 2011 and the district-level health survey.

The Human Resource Development ministry has also launched a web-based digital gender atlas, a tool with which to map the progress on girl education throughout the country.
Releasing the gender atlas, school education secretary Vrinda Sarup said, “It is a tool used for education planning and administration and helps us target a plan of action for effective implementation of programmes.”
“The atlas provides a comparative analysis of individual gender-related indicators over three years and that enables a visual assessment of the change and an understanding of whether some intervention introduced in a geography at a particular point of time has worked or not,” HRD ministry said.
Gender Atlas visualizes the vulnerability status of an area based on composite index of three parameters such as rural female literacy and percentage of boys and girls with disabilities, particularly girls. Performance status of the individual indicators can be visualized at the state and district level, differentiated by colour coding. For instance, the level of vulnerability of districts and blocks in Bihar or remote areas of Gujarat or Telangana can be measured with the digital atlas.
The atlas can be used by the states, the districts, the block education administrators or any other interested group including NGOs, ministry officials said. “It has been developed as a hands-on management tool to enable critical decisions and actions in pockets where gaps are to be met,” Sarup said.
The map has been prepared with data collated from the Unified District Information System for Education Data, Census 2011 and District-level Health Survey. While India has achieved high enrollment for girls at primary and upper primary levels, enrollment, however, remains low at the secondary level. At the upper primary level, the representation of girls in total enrollment is 48.66 % and at the secondary level at 47.29 %.

“Depoliticize education”

Pleading for depoliticizing the education sector, Private Schools United Front of Jammu and Kashmir rapped the previous government for fiddling with the educational careers of thousands of students for its ulterior political motives.

“The recent government decision to grant mass promotion to the students of Class I-IX and XI is a welcome step, but it was too late and too little. It is also a classic example of how our governments first torture and then give relief,” Private Schools United Front (PSUF) office-bearers said in a press conference.

They said the announcement about mass promotion “came after an agonizing period of six months for our students in which some of them even developed psychological problems due to uncertainty over session, examination and so on.”

“Now, when the government has set few things right, we demand answers as to who should be held accountable for the loss of the precious time,” they asked, adding “We demand an impartial inquiry into the entire affair. “Who sabotaged mass promotion in October? On what basis did then government shift annual exams to March 2015 only to be taken back now? Who were experts, educationists (if any) involved in drafting this policy?”

Besides PSUF, the press conference was also addressed by Coordination Committee of Private Schools Association (CCPSA), and Kashmir Economic Alliance (KEA). They lambasted the previous government for politicizing the education sector in Kashmir and appealed the new government to depoliticize education in Kashmir and adopt a professional approach in this regard.

“Previous government fiddled with the academic session because of personal gains to their families, which were the only party that benefitted by the decision” presidents of PSUF G N Var said. He said it was due to the terrible decision making by previous government that some of the flood-affected children were forced to purchase new books after floods and they will now have to purchase once again another set for new classes.

“After proper consultations with experts we had announced mass promotion on 26 October 2014, but the government at that time rejected it without even discussing the matter. They even raided our schools and harassed the staff. Now as the government has announced mass promotion, our stand is vindicated,” Var said.

He also said the government has extended winter vacations only due to the inclement weather while it “hardly cares” about the H1N1 (Swine Flu) scare, which can take the shape of pandemic if on emergency basis the vaccines are not procured by the state government to vaccinate the children. He also accused the state’s bureaucracy of “misusing the already procured flu vaccines” saying, “The already procured vaccines have been consumed by the ‘babus’ and their family members while the people in need of these vaccines have been left high and dry.”

President CCPSA Mushtaq Ahmad castigated the government for directing the educational institutes to waive off fee for two months saying, the floods destroyed not only houses but private schools as well and these schools too suffered heavy losses and had to pay rentals besides salaries to the employees.

“We propose that government sponsors five months fee of these students if it is really sincere for their education,” he said while alleging that the government lacks policy for rehabilitation of flood-affected students as no scholarship or monetary assistance has been given to them.

- See more at: http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2015/03/depoliticize-education/#sthash.VCxzWW3T.dpuf

Vedanta - Storm Ends in Peace

ARUP MITRA





For some people, offence is the best defence. The Gita says one who remains unmoved by praise and criticism is called sthita-pragya, one who is stable and steady . In econometrics, we talk about outliers, the observations that lie beyond certain acceptable ranges. Their existence introduces distortion to a relationship one is expecting.If we allow the praise and adverse remarks to influence us, we will tend to deviate from what we are supposed to pursue. On being asked why he did not respond to someone who criticised him, Buddha replied that silence means non-acceptance. When a person abuses you, it only reflects his disturbed mental state.Therefore, he may need your kindness; not wrath.
It is a unique rule of the nature that one who tries to harass another unnecessarily falls into the trap he has created for others. It is only a matter of time. We are always bothered about finite time horizon and, therefore, cannot afford to wait for the phenomenon to take place and, in the process, we get disturbed and try to give up what we thought to be right.
That is the reason there is the need to forget and move on.Let nature do its own course of action while we pursue our own efforts without bothering to know what happened to the one who tried to harm us.
The best way to let the mind avoid the volatility is to remember the vastness within.Within my limited sphere, there lies the unbound universe. All storms end ultimately in peace, irrespective of their intensity .

the speaking tree - Knowledge For Common Benefit Drives Evolution

Anil K Rajvanshi





One of the basic tenets of evolutionary theory is the transfer of information. This happens when information encoded in genes of the male and the female combine to form an offspring. During the lifetime of the offspring, genes could get further modified ­ either via mutation or through the forces of environment ­ as per the laws of epigenetics and are further transferred to the next generation.Thus there is a continuous flow and transfer of information and knowledge.Information transfer is also aided by the increase of population and species. It is as if through procreation the Universal Consciousness tries to express itself and it could be the basis by which dark matter or dark energy is converted into visible matter and ultimately to life.
Human beings endowed with brain power and technology can also transfer information to future generations via their inventions, oral or written word, or in electronic format. This is in addition to what is transferred genetically, via biology.
As we advance technologically , the generation and transfer of knowledge will increase manifold. This follows the Second Law of Thermodynamics which says that entropy or disorder of the system increases. A huge amount of information generated by humans and other advanced civilisations ­ if they do exist somewhere ­ is equivalent to entropy increase of the universe.
Most of the information generated in terms of profound ideas, great thought and strong emotions goes into Knowledge Space (KS). This is almost like cyber-library and is a space which may contain knowledge developed by us or any advanced civilisation. Very powerful and prepared minds can pluck the knowledge from KS and also contribute to it. This is the basis of all our great discoveries and inventions.
Also, as our brains are the product of the same timeframe as the Universe, we cannot think up more than what is there in the Universe. At best we can discover the already existing truths. Our thoughts and even our wildest imaginations are therefore constrained by the information available in the universe. However, as we make our brains more powerful, we can start adding our own knowledge to the existing KS and hence aid in the evolutionary process.
I feel that the purpose of life is to freely communicate the knowledge that one has obtained and add it to KS. This can be done in any form and gives us maximum satisfaction. As Comrade Peter Kapitsa, the Russian Nobel Laureate in Physics, used to say , “Scientists are like birds; not only do they like to sing but also want others to hear their singing!“ I think all of us have an urge to tell the world all about what we have discovered. This is the driving force for us to chat, talk and communicate and transfer any knowledge gained.
As a society we are evolving more and more as a knowledge-based entity .The rate of knowledge increase is proportionate to existing knowledge and hence it is our duty to help in this process in whatever way we can.
Too often, as human beings, we are focussed on having children, since we believe that our `vansh' or information that we perceive as heritage can only be transferred via genes. However, if we focus more on knowledge transfer, then the world will be a better place to live in with less population, more knowledge, and a sustainable and emotionally satisfying lifestyle. After all, what matters is our contribution to everyone's progress and common benefit.

Sub-standard higher education forcing Indian students to foreign universities at USD 7 billion dollar annual load: ASSOCHAM-TISS study

New Delhi: In the absence of quality higher education and none of the IITs making to world’s top research institutions, Indian students spend USD 6-7 billion (approx. Rs 45,000 crore) annually in seeking greener pastures in foreign universities with a miniscule number of them choosing to return home, said an ASSOCHAM-Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) joint study on ‘Realigning Skilling towards Make in India’. 

“Indians spend about USD 6-7 billion everyyear in sending their children abroad for higher education. It is not just the elite who spend generously on a good education and credentials but the middle class families also spend their life time savings to educating their children abroad”, the study noted with concern. 

While the much touted IITs have an annual enrolment of 10,000-15,000, focused only the brightest of the bright, not a single great worldwide patent has emerged, nor have they produced a single Nobel Laureate. This is despite the government pouring thousands of millions of rupees into their establishment and upkeep. 

It said India is amongst the worst for rankings in patents and for new start-ups in technology and innovation. “We still do not have a single equivalent of a Google, Facebook, Microsoft or Walmart or a Nike”. Even a small country like Italy or Finland does better!

While most of the IITians choose to go abroad for research, they do not return home after obtaining their doctoral programmes.

Another reason for low commitment and resources for the research in the institutions of higher learning is that 90 percent of the state and central funding goes into payment of salaries and overhead costs and building of new physical infrastructure. This leaves almost no money for research and innovation, the ASSOCHAM study said. 

There is a problem of political interference. “Political interference and using universities as hubs for political activities only compounds the problems. Outdated curriculums, teachers and student unions ensure that status quo is preserved”. 

It said UGC and AICTE and other such councils have virtually had an archival stranglehold over policy and have stifled any possible innovation and new ways of thinking. “Our education system is just living in ancient history even in subjects like sciences and engineering”, adds the ASSOCHAM- TISS study.

The paper suggested setting up of a National Higher Education Commission (NHEC), an independent regulator on the lines of SEBI or CVC (Central Vigilance Commission).  The proposed NHEC must ensure mandatory quality rating of all universities and institutions of higher learning, be they government, state, autonomous or private. 

The proposed body must also create under it a think tank of enlightened persons from different walks even from those with rural background to assess the need, demand and changing technology for use in education. 

The ASSOCHAM paper also suggested stopping direct funding of central and state universities which should be allowed to charge rational fees to cover their costs and provide funds for research and development. 

“Though Indian higher education system is the largest in the world in terms of institutions and third largest in terms of enrolment, we lack in innovation and making our youth employable”, ASSOCHAM Secretary General Mr D S Rawat said while releasing the paper.    

Experience of world’s top institutions like the MIT should be used for promoting successful entrepreneurs while skilling should be made part of the university education. Also skilling should be delinked from labour and be mainstreamed into education. 

Government’s spending must be refocused on higher education directly towards the needy students among the SC/ST, minorities and OBCs and other under-privileged sections. “For all other aspiring students provide a sovereign guarantee to assess a bank loan without collateral…” the paper said.

A.P. will become educational capital: Ganta

Andhra Pradesh Government’s Vision 2020 document is aimed at making the State the educational capital of India by establishing 15 unique educational institutions through affiliation to premier universities across the world, HRD Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao has said.

In a prepared speech readout at the four-day national seminar on Gandhi’s concepts on rural development and education, which began here at GITAM University on Wednesday, he spelt out efforts being made to reform higher education in the State.

He said that they were trying to promote centres of excellence mainly in the areas of IT, medicine, construction, horticulture, management education, biotechnology and pharmaceutical research.

Disclosing that they were contemplating amending Andhra Pradesh Act of 1982 to grant greater autonomy to universities, encourage private participation in higher education and render the managements of universities and colleges entirely accountable for their financial and other lapses.

Mr. Rao said that an expert committee would be set up explore different options to have model institutions, adding they would undertake administrative reforms in university administration to ensure their total accountability without encroaching their autonomy.

During next five years, he said that they would follow a curriculum model in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi. “This would be two-pronged. First, it involves emphasis on skill development dovetailing learning and doing. Second it emphasises the intrinsic connection between classrooms and community,” he stated.

The Minister said that they would have a professional body for employment-oriented education and manpower research and planning. It was proposed to set up administrative standards for educational institutions and to create accreditation and other education systems within the State to ensure quality education.

He said that the State would play a proactive role in identifying emerging areas of economic importance and in upgrading curricula and improving teacher training. They would make private sector a partner in promoting higher education.

National Council of Rural Institutes chairman P. Durga Prasad, GITAM University Chancellor K. Ramakrishna Rao, Vice-Chancellor G. Subrahmanyam and others spoke.

Keywords: Andhra Pradesh State the educational capital of India, GITAM University seminar, Education HRD Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao