Samanth Subramanian
NEW DELHI // A cabinet minister's blunt criticism of the work of the faculty at India's most prestigious educational institutions has set off a storm of controversy, and also brought into debate the quality of scientific innovation and research in India, particularly in the government-funded Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
Last week, Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister, told reporters: "There is hardly any worthwhile research from our IITs. The faculty is not world-class; it is the students in IITs who are world-class. So the IITs are excellent because of the quality of students, not because of quality of research or faculty."
There are now 15 IITs, universities focused on science and engineering, in India; Mr Ramesh graduated from the IIT in Mumbai in 1975 with an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering.
Ever since the IITs' establishment, they have been synonymous with India's ambitions. In 1956, the then Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, speaking at the convocation of the first IIT, saw the institute as "representing India's urges, India's future in the making. [It] seems to me symbolical of the changes that are coming to India".
Of the 400,000-plus candidates who take the IIT entrance examinations every year, only the top 13,000 or so are selected. The IITs have acquired a reputation for academic rigor and for producing intelligent, well-trained undergraduates. Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, once called India's IITs "an incredible institution".
This close association of the IITs with India's stature has been augmented over the past decade, as the graduates of these institutes have started to power the intellectual economy.
Mr Ramesh's criticism thus drew a sharp response from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "The BJP wants to say categorically that it is proud of our IITs," said Rajiv Pratap Rudy, a party spokesman. "There is hardly a Fortune 500 Company which is not headed by or has somebody in a senior position who is a former IITian or an IIM (Indian Institute of Management) pass-out."
Such was the unpopularity of Mr Ramesh's remarks that, three days later, his own cabinet colleague, the human resources minister, Kapil Sibal, issued a rebuttal and an explanation.
"The discourses on these premier institutes should be based on evidence and not on perceptions," Mr Sibal said, adding that he had "complete trust in the creative potential of the faculty of IITs. While the US spends $250 billion [Dh918bn] on research, India spends around $8 billion. Is this the fault of the faculty?"
But commentators have also used this occasion to point out that Mr Ramesh's opinion on the quality of the original research conducted by faculty at these institutes was fairly accurate.
Writing in the Hindustan Times, Sandipan Deb, an IIT alumnus and the author of the book The IITians, pointed out that Mr Ramesh was "merely articulating Indian higher education's worst-kept secret".
Recalling working with a government committee trying to improve the IIT system, Mr Deb wrote: "There was not much interaction — one committee member was repeatedly dozing off — and the same problems were discussed: faculty, faculty and faculty."
According to a survey in 2009 by Thomson Reuters, the number of research publications out of India increased from 16,500 in 1998 to 30,000 in 2007.
But in comparison to China, India's quality and quantity of research appear weak. Last year's Science and Engineering Indicators report, published by the National Science Foundation in the United States, ranked India 11th and China second in terms of publication output. In 1995, India was ranked 12th and China 14th.
"Funding has a lot to do with it," said T A Abinandanan, a professor at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and the author of Nanopolitan, a popular blog focused on higher education. He pointed out that Johns Hopkins University in the United States gets close to $2bn of funding for its research, whereas the IITs share a pool of about $160 million.
"In addition to this funding," Mr Abinandanan said, "the IITs can apply for further research grants from the government." But the total of such available grants works out to an annual $450m; the remainder, out of Mr Sibal's figure of $8bn, is allocated to government research organisations in atomic energy, space, agriculture and defence. Next page
c029888080c40310VgnVCM100000e56411acRCRDIndia¿s environment minister says 'there is hardly any worthwhile research from our IITs', sparking row with opposition party but bringing agreement from many academics.
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