Quality is Suffering at the IITs, but not Because of Reservation

Raju Saroj’s and Brijesh Saroj’s road to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), India’s premier engineering college has not been an easy one.

Their father is a Dalit daily wage worker from Pratapgarh in Uttar Pradesh and could not afford the one lakh per annum fee, even after his sons managed to clear the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE).

Then HRD Minister Smriti Irani stepped in and waived the fee for the boys so they could go to IIT.

Now that Raju and Brijesh have finally made it to their dream college, what can they expect? Do the IITs have a mechanism to help students from less privileged backgrounds?

A Coping Problem

The IITs, for their part do attempt to make sure all students, regardless of their background are up to speed when they begin. Extended quota students are given the option of a ‘preparation course’ which is a year long. At the end of the year, depending on their performance, they are given courses in different IITs.

However, sometimes even this isn’t enough. Anirudh Patir, a quota student himself, has completed both an undergraduate Engineering degree and a Master’s from IIT Delhi. In his batch of the preparation course, a whopping 22 out of 30 students failed to clear the qualifiers in their first attempt.

“People think that anyone who gets into IIT must be brilliant, but that’s not the case. You have students who are smart and students who are dumb, just like anywhere else,” says Anirudh.

But Anirudh doesn’t think his peers struggled because of their social and economic circumstances.

It’s about passion, motivation and rigour. So many people come here [IIT] because of parental pressure, or because they think it’s the best career move. But once you’re in, it’s hard to do well unless you are really passionate about engineering and science.

Competition, Ruthlessness, Excellence

IIT is an incredibly competitive place. And it is not kind to weakness. Now, that weakness can be academic, social or financial. If you’re seen as inadequate, people will try to push you down.
— Charu Kasturi, IIT Alumnus and Media Professional

However, Charu who also attended St. Stephen’s College, thinks the IIT is egalitarian in a way that many other ‘elite’ institutions are not.

As long as you’re bright and capable, no one cares which school you went to or whether you’re ‘polished’ or not. Your background isn’t as important as it in other places.

IIT, a Stepping Stone

Another challenge for IIT students from less-privileged backgrounds is being seen as lacking ‘merit’. There are several people who believe that social justice measures in the IITs have adversely affected the quality of the institution.

“SC and ST reservations have been a part of our admission procedures since our inception. It’s not a new phenomenon,” says a senior professor from IIT - Delhi who did not wish to be named.

However, it is not as though there hasn’t been a decline in quality. But it is because, as Anirudh Patir said, the students’ passion lies elsewhere.

Students see engineering as a stepping stone to a corporate career or even the civil services. The interest in the sciences has declined.
— IIT Professor

Bottomline: quality at the IITs may be suffering because the institution has been hyphenated with IIMs. The IIT-IIM double degree has for long been mythologised as the ultimate route to corporate glory. In all this though, the focus on pure science has been lost.