COACHING CLASSES ...ON NARYANA MURTHY'S IIT COMMENTS

Coaching Institutes Upset Over Murthy’s IIT Comment

Infy founder had blamed coaching classes for poor quality of students

Are coaching institutes to blame for poor quality of IIT students? Somewhat, says the industry, but blames other factors like education system too. An entry into the coveted Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) got a snub on Monday from the Infosys chairman emeritus NR Narayana Murthy. Murthy said at a ‘Pan IIT’ summit in New York that the quality of students entering IITs has deteriorated over the years due to the coaching classes that prepare engineering aspirants. The quality of students and their employability has been a cause of concern for the industry. Says Manjunath SR, senior director, human resources, NetApp India, “There has not been any change in the quality of students either for the better or worse. The same hiring and selection process is applied for all engineering colleges and the IIT students do not need any lesser time for training compared to a non-IITian and, after training, their productivity is same as others.” The company takes 50-60 students from IITs every year and has been doing this for the past four years. Ganesh Shermon, people practice head for KPMG, has seen a drop in the quality because now students are tested for admissions only on 2-3 subjects and on questions that can be cracked through sheer practice. Som Mittal, an IITian and Nasscom president, says, “Murthy’s issue is perhaps about expectations. Even today IITs will probably be producing best in class, but are they at the same level as earlier?” Over the years, both in terms of size and volume, IITs have expanded. The standards at IITs are very high. JEE was a great filter, but it is dominated by students trained at the coaching classes. “This is not criticism, but a time to look at what we need to do to maintain the standards in the future,” Mittal adds. Some, like Dhananjay Bansod, chief people officer of Deloitte, blame the education system. “I empathise with Murthy on the coaching bit, but the fault lies with the entire education system. Our education system is far slower to change compared to changing industry needs,” says Bansod. Deloitte visits all top IITs, including Delhi, Kanpur, Bombay and Madras for campus recruitment. The fault, according to him, lies in the selection process that tests quantitative skills. “You need both quantitative and qualitative skills to make it work at the workplace,” he says. Every year more than half-amillion students sit for joint entrance examination for admission to IITs and only 10,000 get through. IIT Kanpur director Sanjay Dhande agrees things are amiss. “The IIT education model has to get more liberalised and the curriculum needs to get revised, but the changes are slow to come. The core courses have to be far more liberal than what we are doing right now, and it has to be more broad-based like a major and a minor subject all together,” he says. The need to overhaul the admission process has already been announced and there is a task force that will be looking to include the consistency in school boards examinations and add an aptitude test as well, says IIT Madras director Bhaskar Ramamurthi. There has been a tendency to ignore school board results that includes languages which will be changed. S Sadagopan, founder director of IIIT, Bangalore, vouches for lack of enthusiasm among the students. “Coaching starts when students are in class 9. By the time students make it to the IIT, their enthusiasm goes down. There has to be more imaginative scheme for admission than just a score.” Coaching institutes, for their part, are upset with Murthy’s statement. Says Satya Narayanan R, founder chairman of Delhi-based coaching institute Career Launcher, “I find the statement a little disappointing. Mr Narayana Murthy is simplifying the problem of employability. Coaching institutes are doing their job. If someone wants to get into an IIT, somebody has to train them.” According to him, the problem is multifarious. “We need to make the education system more student-centric. The school is focused on finishing the curriculum,” he says. Defending coaching methods, Pramod Kumar Bansal, CEO of Bansal Classes, says, “We teach the students keeping in mind the vast IIT syllabus. Coaching centres help students understand the routine and give them a systematic approach to crack the exams.” The institute is training 14,000 students for JEE in Kota and Jaipur. Anand Kumar, founder member of Super 30, an institute in Bihar that has had a success rate of 80% to 100% in terms of its students clearing the exam, blames professors. “Our students are capable enough. Those who set the questions should be questioned as to why they did not set a paper that will bring in the best. IIT professors should then be blamed and not coaching institutes,” says Kumar.
(ET5Oct11)