QUOTA QUOTA QUOTA!!!

Am back after a brief hiatus. In my last blog I discussed how the absence of a state-wise quota would affect the student mix at the NITs. Today I would like to take up the issue of the most stupid move yet to be made by the ruling government's HRD ministry. The proposed introduction of SC/ST/OBC quota for lecturers and assistant professors in the best engineering institutes in our country aka the IITs can possibly have only one effect- The standard of teaching will come down. The great professors and excellent faculty at the IITs has been their treasure. It is a matter of pride to one and all that these brilliant brains have stayed back in India or have come back to their home country instead of staying abroad in the universities where they may have attained their PHDs from.

They command a lot of respect and are able to rake in the funding required to carry forward all the research work that is going on in the IITs today. These R&D efforts have worked wonders in small and big ways. They have incubated several small but fast growing organisations from their own laboratories and are the base foundation for the way our nation's people are slowly being recognized on the global R&D platform. The cheap, intelligently made handy products are well appreciated and several other countries have started requesting for more such customized products. All this has been possible because the professors and researchers have constantly been churning out ideas with their brilliant application skills.

These esteemed members of the faculty have even turned down plum offers from new private engineering institutes and have stayed back in IITs because they realise the quality and standard of these institutes and want to enhance it further. But this stupid move to bring in 27% OBC, 15% SC and 7.5% ST will only anger these members of the faculty. And how will the administration choose which ones to send out and which ones to keep?? It is a move that is purely political in nature and will only draw flak from even the students who hail from those communities. The students will know the professors under whom they want to pursue their courses and they would always prefer that the quality of the professors is good and not that they are from a particular caste or community.

What angers one and all is the fact that the recent moves made by the government are all only going to degrade the standard of the IITs on the world stage. At a time when these premier institutes are gaining a good stead across the globe such a move is bound to only delay the same. It will take much longer now for foreign students to choose these engineering colleges as their destination to do pursue their education in. What the ministry claims is that if it finds a dearth of asst. professors and lecturers after a year then they can remove this quota system and revert back to the situation that prevails now. The thing they dont realise is that once some of them leave from there, it will be a dent in their pride and they may choose not to come back to the IITs.

The current sentiments echoed by the IIT directors council is very correct and I believe it should be taken up seriously. There should not be any such quota system introduced among the faculty. Lets just wait and see how this issue pans out.