 The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), are a group of fifteen autonomous engineeringand technology-oriented institutes of higher education established and declared asInstitutes of National Importance by the Parliament of India. The IITs were created to trainscientists and engineers, with the aim of developing a skilled workforce to support theeconomic and social development of India after independence in 1947. In order of establishment, they are located in Kharagpur (1950; as IIT 1951[1]), Mumbai(1958), Chennai (1959), Kanpur (1959), Delhi (1961; as IIT 1963), Guwahati (1994), Roorkee(1847; as IIT 2001), Bhubaneswar (2008), Gandhinagar (2008), Hyderabad (2008), Patna(2008), Punjab (2008) and Rajasthan (2008). The Government of India has announced plans to add three more IITs, to be established at Indore, Mandi and Varanasi (via conversion of the IT BHU). Some IITs were established with financial assistance and technical expertise from UNESCO, Germany, the United States, and Soviet Union. Each IIT is an autonomous university, linked to the others through a common IIT Council, which oversees their administration. They have a common admission process for undergraduate admissions, using the Joint Entrance Examination (popularly known as IIT-JEE) to select around 4,000 undergraduate candidates a year. Postgraduate Admissions are done on the basis of theGATE, JMET, JAM and CEED. About 15,500 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students study in the IITs, in addition to research scholars. IIT alumni have achieved success in a variety of professions.[2] Owing to the autonomy of the IITs, these institutes are among those few institutes (the other institutes being National Institutes of Technology or the NITs) in India that offer degrees in technology (B. Tech.) at the undergraduate level as opposed to the Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degrees awarded by most other Indian universities. Most of the IITs were created in early 1950s and 1960s as the Institutes of National Importance through special acts of Indian Parliament. The success of the IITs led to the creation of the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT) in the late 1990s and in the 2000s. |
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The history of the IIT system dates back to 1946 when Sir Jogendra Singh of the Viceroy's Executive Council set up a committee whose task was to consider the creation of Higher Technical Institutions for post-war industrial development in India. The 22-member committee, headed by Nalini Ranjan Sarkar, recommended the establishment of these institutions in various parts of India, with affiliated secondary institutions. The first Indian Institute of Technology was founded in May 1950 at the site of the Hijli Detention Camp in Kharagpur. On September 15, 1956, the Parliament of India passed the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) Act, declaring it as an Institute of National Importance. Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India, in the first convocation address of IIT Kharagpur in 1956 said: On the recommendations of the Sarkar Committee, four campuses were established at Mumbai (1958), Chennai (1959), Kanpur (1959), andDelhi (1961). The location of these campuses was chosen to be scattered throughout India to prevent regional imbalance. The Indian Institutes of Technology Act was amended to reflect the addition of new IITs. Student agitations in the state of Assam made Prime MinisterRajiv Gandhi promise the creation of a new IIT in Assam. This led to a sixth campus at Guwahati under the Assam Accord in 1994. TheUniversity of Roorkee, India's oldest engineering college, was conferred IIT status in 2001. Over the past few years, there have been a number of developments toward establishing new IITs. On October 1, 2003, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced plans to create more IITs "by upgrading existing academic institutions that have the necessary promise and potential". Subsequent developments led to the formation of the S K Joshi Committee in November 2003 to guide the selection of the five institutions which would become the five new IITs. Based on the initial recommendations of the Sarkar Committee, it was decided that further IITs should be spread throughout the country. When the government expressed its willingness to correct this regional imbalance, 16 states demanded IITs. Since the S K Joshi Committee prescribed strict guidelines for institutions aspiring to be IITs, only seven colleges were selected for final consideration. Plans are also reported to open IITs outside India, though not enough progress has been made in this regard. Eventually in the 11th Five year plan, eight states were identified for establishment of new IITs, and IT-BHU was recommended to be converted in to IIT.
Entrance competitionThe highly competitive examination in the form of IIT-JEE has led to establishment of a large number of coaching institutes throughout the country that provide intensive, and specific preparation for the IIT-JEE for substantial fees. It is argued that this favours students from specific regions and richer backgrounds. Some coaching institutes say that they have individually coached nearly 800 successful candidates year after year.[64] According to some estimates, nearly 95% of all students who clear the IIT-JEE had joined coaching classes.[65] The psychological stress and emotional trauma faced by candidates not able to pass the examination and their families is considered to be a serious problem. This has led to criticism of the way the examinations are conducted. The IIT-JEE format was restructured in 2006 following these complaints.[66] After the change to the objective pattern of questioning, even the students who initially considered themselves not fit for subjective pattern of IIT-JEE decided to take the examination. Though the restructuring was meant to reduce the dependence of students on coaching classes, it led to an increase in students registering for coaching classes.[27] Some people (mostly IITians) have criticised the changed pattern of the IIT-JEE. Their reasoning is that while IIT-JEE traditionally used to test students understanding of fundamentals and ability to apply them to solve large unseen problems, the current pattern does not stress much on the application part.[67] |
Undergraduate educationThe B.Tech. degree is the most common undergraduate degree in the IITs in terms of student enrollment, although Dual Degrees, Integrated (five-year) Master of Technology, Master of Science and Master of Arts degrees are also offered. The B. Tech course is based on a 4-year program with eight semesters,[39] while the Dual Degree course is a 5-year program with ten semesters. In all IITs, the first year of B.Tech. and Dual Degree courses are marked by a common course structure for all the students,[40] though in some IITs, a single department introduction related course is also included.[41] The common courses include the basics from most of the departments like Electronics, Mechanics, Chemistry, and Physics. At the end of first year (the end of first semester at IIT Madras), an option to change departments is given to meritorious students on the basis of their performance in the first two semesters.[42] Few such changes ultimately take place as the criteria for them are usually strict,[42] limited to the most meritorious students. From the second year onwards, the students study subjects exclusively from their respective departments.[43] In addition to these, the students have to take compulsory advanced courses from other departments in order to broaden their education. Separate compulsory courses fromhumanities and social sciences department, and sometimes management courses are also enforced.[44] At the end of third year, the undergraduate students have to undertake a summer project at an industry or reputed academic institute as part of the curriculum. In the last year of their studies, most of the students are placed into industries and organisations via the placement process of the respective IIT, though some students opt out of this either when going for higher studies or when they take up jobs by applying to the companies directly.
Culture and student life Student life and culture in IITsAll the IITs provide on-campus residential facilities to the students, research scholars and faculty. The students live in hostels (sometimes referred to as halls) throughout their stay in the IIT. Students in all IITs must choose between National Cadet Corps (NCC), National Service Scheme (NSS) and National Sports Organisation (NSO) in their first years.[49] All the IITs have sports grounds for cricket, football (soccer),hockey, volleyball, lawn tennis, badminton, and athletics; and swimming pools for aquatic events. Usually the hostels also have their own sports grounds.
AlumniMain article: List of Indian Institutes of Technology alumni As of 2008, the alumni of IIT number more than 170,000. [68] The IITians are known for their loyalty to their alma mater and many IIT Alumni Associations are active in India and abroad. The IIT alumni either help their alma mater in the form of donations, or by preferential job opportunities extended to students from the IITs. The Vinod Gupta School of Management at IIT Kharagpur and Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management at IIT Bombay are management schools within IITs that have been established largely by alumni donations; these schools were named after their benefactors. Many IIT alumni have become entrepreneurs, including N.R. Narayana Murthy (co-founder and chairman of Infosys), Vinod Khosla (co-founder, Sun Microsystems), Anurag Dikshit (co-founder ofPartyGaming) and Suhas S. Patil (founder and Chairman Emeritus Cirrus Logic Inc.). Other alumni have achieved leading positions in corporations, such as Rajat Gupta (former Managing Director, McKinsey), Arun Sarin (former CEO,Vodafone), Victor Menezes (Senior Vice Chairman, Citigroup), and Kanwal Rekhi (CTO, Novell) . IIT alumni have also pursued careers in politics; for example, Manohar Parrikar became the Chief Minister of Goa. Many alumni have gained national and international recognition:Sushantha Kumar Bhattacharyya was awarded the CBE, a knighthood, and Padma Bhushan; and V. C. Kulandaiswamy was awardedPadma Shri and Padma Bhushan. Narendra Karmarkar is also world-renowned for his work in applied mathematics. IITians have contributed a great deal in science in technology of the world :Mani Lal Bhaumik (co-inventor of LASIK eye surgery). They have authored many books and hold many patents. |
Technical and cultural festivalsAll IITs organise annual technical festivals, typically lasting three or four days. The technical festivals areCognizance (IIT Roorkee), Shaastra (IIT Madras), Techkriti (IIT Kanpur), Kshitij (IIT Kharagpur), Techfest (IIT Bombay), Tryst (IIT Delhi), and Techniche (IIT Guwahati). Most of them are organised in the months of February or March. While Kshitij is most popular in terms of participants and prize money involved, Shaastra holds the distinction of being the first student-managed event in the world to implement a formal Quality Management System, earning the ISO 9001:2000 certification.[50] Annual cultural festivals are also organised by the IITs and last three to four days. These include Rendezvous (IIT Delhi), Thomso & Rave (IIT Roorkee), Mood Indigo (IIT Bombay) (also known as Mood-I), Spring Fest (IIT Kharagpur) (also known as SF), Saarang (IIT Madras) (previouslyMardi Gras), Antaragni (IIT Kanpur), Alcheringa (IIT Guwahati). In addition to these cultural festivals, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Bombay celebrate unique festivals. IIT Kharagpur celebrates the Illumination festival on the eve of Diwali. Large bamboo structures (called chatais) as high as 6 metres (20 ft) are made and earthen lamps (diyas) are placed on them to form outlines of people, monuments, or an event.[51] Although the competition is held between hostels, it also receives entries by outside visitors. Coupled with the Illumination festival is the Rangoli festival. In Rangoli, large panels showing an event or a concept, are made on the ground by fine powder, and sometimes even by crushedbangles. Unique to IIT Bombay is the Performing Arts Festival (popularly known as PAF). Technically a drama, each PAF includes drama, literature, music, fine arts, debating, and dance. All PAFs are held in the Open Air Theater (OAT), on the main campus of IIT Bombay. Typically two or three hostels (of 14) group together by random draw for each PAF. All of the dialogues are delivered as voice overs and not by the actors, mainly due to the structure and the huge size of the
Educational rankingsSee also: College and university rankings Most IITs are consistently ranked above any other engineering colleges in India in engineering education surveys,[56] with regard to quality of faculty, teaching standards, research facilities and campus placements. In international surveys however, the IITs fail to achieve the highest rankings, though they figure in most lists of top engineering institutions[citation needed]. The Times Higher Education Supplement (2008) ranked IIT-Delhi and IIT-Bombay 157th and 174 th best overall universities respectively in their World University Rankings.[57] The THES also ranked 5 IITs in the top 100 globally for technology with IIT-Bombay ranking the highest at 36th. For Natural Sciences, IIT-Bombay ranked 77th and was the only IIT to feature in the 2008 rankings. In the Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities, only one IIT (IIT Kharagpur) was listed among the top 500 universities worldwide.[58] The IITs fall short in many parameters that are considered for educational rankings. The criteria for ranking[59] prominently include internationally recognised research output, in which the IITs do not achieve notable success.[60] Another criterion being the Social Science Citation Index, the rank of IITs suffers as they do not have large departments of liberal arts and social sciences. Since the IITs have only a few international faculty and students (except those by exchange programs), the rankings of IITs in many international surveys have suffered. Since the IITs have scored better under most educational ranking criteria than other Indian colleges and universities, they continue to achieve top positions in nationwide surveys.[61]
Brain drainAmong the criticisms of the IIT system by the media, academia and the people in general, the most prominent is that it encourages brain drain. Until the process of liberalisation started in early 1990s, India experienced large scale emigration of IITians to western countries, especially to the United States. Since 1953, nearly twenty-five thousand IITians have settled in the USA.[62] Since the USA benefited from subsidised education in IITs at the cost of Indian taxpayers' money, critics say that subsidising education in IITs is useless. Others support the emigration of graduates, arguing that the capital sent home by the IITians has been a major source of the expansion of foreign exchange reserves for India, which, until the 1990s, had a substantial trade deficit. The extent of intellectual loss has receded substantially over the past decade, with the percentage of students going abroad dropping from as high as 70% to around 30% today.[63] This is largely attributed to the liberalisation of the Indian economy and the opening of previously closed markets. Government initiatives are encouraging IIT students into entrepreneurship programs and are increasing foreign investment. Emerging scientific and manufacturing industries, and outsourcing of technical jobs from North America and Western Europe have created opportunities for aspiring graduates in India. Many undergraduates go abroad to pursue further studies, such as MS and PhD. |
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