After the IIMs hiking tuition fees, IITs, too, are planning to double their fees. Is the proposed fee hike justified? Will it lead to better quality of education, at par with world standards? Or will it make higher education unaffordable for many? Former IIT-Madras director Prof P V Indiresan answered these and many other questions.
Raghav: Is the fee hike the reason because only few IITs are there in India? The government should think of adding more IITs since the talent pool is increasing.
PV Indiresan: Talent pool is increasing but the demand for R&D - where IITs ought to be supplying - is not there. Frankly, I suspect that most people want the IIT brand and not the IIT education. That is why old colleges are being renamed as IITs.
Ashutosh Kumar Singh: Sir are there similar plans to pump in more money into R&D? The grant, which M. Tech students get are very nominal. Won't it be good for a country like ours to pump in more money in R&D sector?
PV Indiresan: R&D definitely needs more money but it needs industrial demand even more. Only when industry poses real life problems will R&D flower. That is not happening because most Indian industries buy technology; they do not innovate. Our problem is less with money than with demand from industry
Nandan Dasgupta: Sir, is it not possible for all professional colleges including medical colleges to follow the Singapore pattern - say, make the fees for MBBS in Lady Hardinge to Rs 5 lakh a year, but give a 99 per cent grant subject to signing a three-year bond for working at a post designated by the government. I'm sure refinement suitable to Indian conditions and for IITs and IIMs can be worked out. That way, the rich can pay and go off abroad or take cushy jobs but the less financially able but capable students need not be deprived of an education. Also, the system becomes self sustaining. I'm sure this must have been considered by the authorities at some stage. If so, do you know what happened?
PV Indiresan: Ideally, fees should be low the way they are in Europe. However, that is possible only when there is no proliferation of colleges. If the government had learnt to "cut its coat according to cloth" and kept student enrollment within the limits it could subsidise this problem would not have arisen. The issue is: do we want more and bigger IITs or low fees?
IK: Do you have plans to increase your students strength or having a different big campus for IIT-M ?
PV Indiresan: The government has announced several new IITs; IIT Madras will be involved in the Hyderabad one.
Bharathiraja: Dear sir, applying for IIT entrance and admission itself is very costly so how come a poor boy can get into IIT? Is IIT/IIMS only for upper middle class?
PV Indiresan: You have raised an important issue. IITs should change their admission system so that students need not go to expensive coaching institutions. That happens in many other countries. We need to consider how admissions are managed without the intervention of coaching institutions in other countries.
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Prasad: Sir, don't you think Rs 50,000 is affordable now a days when students are willing to spend almost half of it per annum for intermediate courses?
PV Indiresan: It depends on what your parents have!
Mukesh Bharti: Fee hike is justified. In the era of talent shortage to retain quality faculty member it is need of the hour but at the same time we should think about some alternatives how to enable any underprivileged meritorious students. Can we think of government guarantee for the education loan to IIT students or some interest subvention in the education loan availed by IIT students unlike a practice in US educational system?
PV Indiresan: You are right. IITs and IIMs should bring in adequate measures to help needy students.
Bony De Kumar: Dear sir, after being in IIT system for so long I hope you will agree me that IIT is just an engineering college and involved in engineering and technology education. If we compare research output, it is far behind all top technology institution like CALTECH, MIT, AT &M and many others. As being associate with this system is it possible for you to pin point any big technological breakthrough that came from IIT? I hope your answer will be definitely a big 'No'. Entrance examination system provides best student and hence they get best jobs. So in this scenario do you really feel that a ordinary engineering college like IIT should charge extra ordinary fees from student?
PV Indiresan: If you are correct and IITs are no better than just any other engineering college, why are you bothered by the fee hike? Why don't you go to "any other engineering college" that charges less? IITs are not good at publicity but they have contributed quite a lot - otherwise industry will not be paying consultancy fees of several crores every year. I myself pioneered a couple of innovations in defence electronics and in railways. This is not the time to talk about it but please do not be contemptuous.
Dinesh Bhatia: What impact would the fee hike have on the students coming from lower middle class families?
PV Indiresan: Unless they are given sufficient scholarships or affordable loan assistance they will truly suffer. The flaw in the announcement is that the institutions have not made clear how they will help good but needy students.
Ankit Bhatla: The government is planning to setup new IITs (around eight more). Is this justified given the financial crunch being faced by the IITs. Shouldn't the government improve the already existing IITs infrastructure wise and bring them on par with the institutions in US, UK etc? Much less money would be spent on increasing the seats rather than creating new IITs. The saved money can be used to help the needy pay the fees.
PV Indiresan: I could not agree with you more. Please tell Mr Arjun Singh.
Namit Jain: I am totally in favour of the fee hike but I would like to know will this money go into faculty salaries only? What about improving R&D in these institutes?
PV Indiresan: You are correct. We are not doing well on the R&D front. Unfortunately, fee hike will not help in that direction. R&D needs massive - 10-100 times larger inputs and that should come from industry and from government agencies too the way they are in other countries including China
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Prashant: Respected sir, why do you feel its necessary to hike the fees when the IIMs have sufficient funds to bear the expenses? Why students have to bear the brunt?
PV Indiresan: IIMs are still dependent on the government - they cannot pay market salaries for the faculty. The issue is not the hike but what steps are taken to help the needy students. We need a two-part system: one, admission on merit and two, fees according to capacity to pay, including loan assistance where desirable.
Sagar Madgi: IITs will turn into institutes only for 'elite' people, who have access to financial resources. This was not the original goal of the institute when it was set up. Then towards what end the hike is directed when IITs receive large funds from the government? Won't it set out a barrier for large number of people?
PV Indiresan: Please do not be averse to "elite" institutions. If the IITs and IIMs had not been elite and had been like any other college, the country would not have progressed as well as it has. However, education should be affordable for poor but competent students by suitably providing the assistance they need.
Anjali Khandelwal: What are the plans of giving scholarship to poor students to get into IIT's?
PV Indiresan: This I do not know. So far, scholarships have been available only for SCs and STs but not for others. That problem needs rectification
Anand: 1.Are IITs and IIMs truly autonomous to fix their fees? 2. Isn't it time IITs like any other world-class universities (say like US ones) charge 'real rates' for fees and offer scholarships/loans/internship opportunities for students to pay their way through the course?
PV Indiresan: IITsand IIMs are not autonomous. That is why the problem has escalated the way it has. The government has been discouraging private donors to contribute to IITs and IIMs. If they had been more cooperative, these institutions could have by now built up a fund to help competent but needy students.
Arvind Singh Dotiyal: Hi sir. Considering the fact that IITs get hefty grants from government, alumni and research projects are they justified in raising the fee just to make few more crore rupees? Will it not have an adverse affect on the students of humble background who appear for JEE?
PV Indiresan: The issue is IITs do not get hefty grants from the government - by international standards. IIT resources are not even a tenth of what leading universities not only in the US get, not even a tenth of what Chinese provide. Students from humble background should be given due concessions. The flaw in our system is the fees are the same for everybody; it should match what a student can pay. My suggestion is that it should be linked to the fees the students paid in their schools. There could be other formula but this is about the best I can think of
Sneha: How is the fee hike going to help the quality of education or change the quality of students coming into the institute? Would it not be better to improve the quality and then the fees?
PV Indiresan: You assume that IITs or IIMs are not providing quality education. That is not fair. The issue is the difficulty we have in maintaining the quality that is already there. The government cannot limit faculty salaries and at the same time insist that the institutions should not generate additional funds of their own.
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