http://www.indiaenews.com/education/20070311/42534.htm
Excerpts from the article:
“At a recent event organized at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chennai, Tata Steel managing director B. Muthuraman expressed disenchantment with its graduates. 'We are not likely to recruit them any longer,' he said, adding his company preferred students from other colleges, who, though less endowed, were more amenable to company training. IIT guys tend to think too much of themselves.
Reality is that brand IIT thrives on its past reputation.
The Tata Steel chief, recalling his recent interaction with some final-year students of IIT Chennai, observed they could not even name the authors of the subject books they were supposed to have studied. He later found out that the students were able to clear the tests without having to read books. He was in for further shock on discovering that their teachers were no more knowledgeable about the subjects they were supposed to teach.”
Chronicle adds:
This is indeed a bold article written by Bhamy V. Shenoy, an alumnus of IIT-Madras (Mechanical 1965). Based in Texas, he frequently visits India for social work under different NGOs (Non-Government Organizations) such as Asha and Pratham. He is also an editor of the magazine-Catalyst (www.afhd.org), .the first ever magazine brought out by social service organizations in India. The managing director of Tata Steel is also an IIT-Madras alumnus. The same article with slightly different headlines has also appeared in other newspapers.
The reason for including it in chronicle is to show that the same situation also applies to other colleges, and it is a learning lesson for all-students, alumni and faculty of engineering colleges across India. Despite the above comments, IITs are among the best teaching institutes in the world.
The article has some minor statistical errors, which may be corrected as follows:
- A total of 299,000 students appeared for IIT-JEE last year, out of which about 5,000 were selected for 7 IITs.
- Amount of money spent on coaching classes each year is about Rs. 500 crores.
- Govt. spends about 800 crores each year on IITs.