Writing an op-ed is no easy task. Apart from strict word limits and quick turn around times, by the very nature, op-ed writers comment on current events. They have to distinguish themselves in the cacophony of half-baked opinions and place the debate in the larger context without the benefit of hindsight. The best of the lot–Pratap Bhanu Mehta–do the job admirably. But it’s a tough ask and I am sympathetic to non-professionals attempting op-eds; they are liable to make mistakes.
Nevertheless, sometimes the mistakes are so egregious that it is necessary to call a foul. Sample this op-ed by Aditya Jha in the Indian Express. No doubt, it makes a couple of good points. The policy of HRD ministry of mindlessly expanding the number of IITs has the potential of destroying its brand value. If improving educational standards was only the matter of nomenclature, Americans would have simply renamed every technical institution MIT. I would also grant that brilliance is elitist by nature and one need not be apologetic about it. But what about this?
An IIT-ian friend of mine once went out for an arranged date with an air hostess in Hong Kong. As the music changed gears, the air hostess kept asking him to dance with her and my friend kept declining with a polite, “I can’t do the twist/disco/cha-cha-cha.” Finally, the air hostess lost her cool and is reported to have demanded, “What? You can’t even do the Can-Can? What can you do?”
To which, the proud IIT-ian responded, “I can do second order partial differential equations; can you?”[link]
I have no idea what ‘’second order partial differential equations” are.I assume they are extremely hard to do. However, there must be people who never had the benefit of attending IIT who can also solve these equations. No?
More importantly, surely there is more to life than the ability to solve ‘’second order partial differential equations.” There is something wrong with an education system which de-emphasizes other pleasures of life so much that the ability to solve equations becomes an appropriate response to a comment about dancing. And then is quoted approvingly in a national newspaper! Everyone of us possess certain skills which people outside that cohort may not be proficient in. No? With due respect, Mr Jha destroys his own case by making such ridiculous comparisons.
Filed under: Media/Blog watch, Views On News
Solving second-order PDEs.. ah, how I miss the little joys of life!
But why did the air hostess keep asking her date to do something that he was clearly uncomfortable with? Didn’t her education system teach her to have (or at least pretend to have) some empathy towards differently-abled people?
The IITian just played by the rules of iterated prisoner’s dilemma. Much Respect.
Dear non-IITian Lord,
Please write that much-awaited post on tigers.
Don’t be sore, I can teach you second order PDE. And frankly speaking I don’t see why you have to write about tigers, they suffer enough as it is without you adding insult to injury.
Vivek sire,
Point taken. But surely, it did not merit a mention in an op-ed which defended the IIT brand name. It just makes IITians come across as dysfunctional or differently abled. Note, my argument is not based on the guy’s inability to dance; I can’t dance to save my life but his reply.
Yes, Tiger post, Tomorrow hopefully sire.
Gaurav,
I heard you were thrown out of IIT for doping.
R
When I asked you about the much-awaited post on TIGERS, U said to me very rudely that this is not the only blog you manage….n now here I can see you nodding ur head very feverishly n scurrying around to find a Tiger to do a live interview n beam the same to the world later….why this discrimination, may I ask?
Now Now to Aditya Jha’s
he said , the core value of brand IIT: super brains….n soon after he took a nose-dive on his bottom turn and got crushed…..by pulling out the some ludicrous sounding situation…..
what’s this Can-Can duel on an arranged date? first the woman is so blindly stupid to ask an IIT-an what you can do…n that brillaint man seemed to have matched her inane wits by pulling out a feather from his abilities….as if his sense of identity stems from solving some high-order equations…I wonder how many of dear IITans use such equations at regular work….
I disagree with him …..”Brand IIT is about IIT, not about IITans.” kids want to crack the entrance exam due the sheer brilliant aura around it, the rigourous existence post crossing the test, …IIT-ans, the illustrations strewn around are the class one aspires t belong to…..
Brilliance is elitist….huh! Ambani is from which IIT? Mittal is from whch IIT?…and a few others…..what;s the use of Brilliance when it fails to address n manage the varied needs of real life?
The author, so parochial in his logic, stuck to the education behind the gates, ..forgot to dwell on the power-packed value / intelligence a super brain from IIT can bring onto the table, the super-utility factor the work places could witness if they are fortified with super brains from IITs….which woud be destroyed fif the population of IITs is increased
why didnt he take the LUXURY brand segment as an example….BEING UNREACHABLE AND DISTANT, DIFFICULT TO ACQUIRE are the values of a brand (could be IIT too) to stay aspirational to masses (average minded or fucked up minds..they have to toil n bleed with efforts to get into IITs)…IITs have to REMAIN ASPIRATIONAL, else their value dilute
*my experience (work) with IITans or interactions with IITans, anyways, is not so earth-shaking.they are pretty average, lack inter personal skills n they are uncouth.
Just finished reading the article.
Though the part of the post you pointed out, I can excuse under the name of humor albeit cheap, however the part that does irk me is how his analysis is just so random. How he just claims that the top 500 getting into IIT are the best our country has and that the guy getting 5000 or 10000 ranks ahead isn’t good enough(the guy doesn’t realise that the mark difference between 5000 and 10000 is like 15-20)
@Lord: I agree with you about the op-ed. As Rishabh said, it was just too random. Poor arguments, and no structure to the article.. it’s all over the place. And he couldn’t have picked a worse example (not that I want to challenge him on that) for a typical IITian.
The brand-dilution argument itself is a bit suspect. If Brand IIT is really so valuable.. then we might as well cut the number down. May be we should have only 4, or 3, or 2 IITs? Or perhaps just one.. like AIIMS.. and have only 100 IITians graduate per year. What is the optimum number of IITs and IITians to maximize the gains out of this brand equity? That’s a rhetorical question, of course. Nobody has tried to answer this one because it is stupid to work out the brand value of something that isn’t a brand primarily (or solely).
If the education standards at IITs fall tomorrow, all the branding in the world won’t get those champions jobs. And if the new IITs manage to become centres of excellence (as defined for the present IITs), their students would be just as valuable as those of any other current IIT. There will be a time lag, naturally. But the IITs are different from soaps and shampoos, so that’s quite okay.
@ The brand-dilution Vs Cut down the no of Institutions
The Global Head at Infosys (Aditya Jha) would ideally have addressed this issue in a far more logical manner as expected from him, the super brain..,…but there he faltered
well, downsizing or restricting the presence of Ivy / Brilliant league institutions like IITs is not the solution. The Gvt having gained a lot commendable contribution from the ex-IITans (to the economy by being the creators of the IT revolution, Mr Murthy himself is one) should play a vital role in sustaining superior quality standards across the IITs (the established n the new ones)…the increased base of IITs allows “intelligent students” to be part of the IITan culture which so far has been the domain of the crème de’ le’ crème / “the intellectuals”
there should not be any kind of relaxation about the superior quality standards, the tough challenger kind of attitude, whch IITs are known for worldwide…opening IIT in every corner of the neigbourhood may not deliver on the set expectations. but the no should be adequate enough to satisfy the increasing base of intelligent students, the increased power of education as the elevator of one’s status…to be an IIT has always been an individual’s achievement, which is held in high esteem, and is revered by everyone in the society..It’s imperative to maintain the IIT cultish image! how did Harley Davidson manage to sustain it’s Brand Image :
“Every day of your life without a Harley-Davidson is another day wasted”
[...] as Confused so brilliantly put it, how is this relevant? Seriously, how does solving PDE really make you super [...]
[...] would pit undergraduates against post-graduates within IITs. Confused is well, confused about what exactly about IIT makes the graduates proud when asked for a dance. Mind you, this is not about IIT-bashing but rather media [...]
I am sure this example has been cooked up, anyone in his right senses (even an IITian) would not want to solve second order PDEs. Hell, even after spending four years in one of them, I have absolutely no clue what a second order PDE looked like.
I wish to get on top of the institute foyer and shout to the world: The average IITian is not as smart as you think (s)he is! Most of them are like me, who consider anything beyond class 12 Maths as “higher mathematics” just the way R.K.Narayan did.
And about brand IIT, the lesser said, the better. I have always argued that brand-dilution is the stupidest arguement one can make against the opening of new IITs. The only arguement against the opening of new IITs, which I think is right, is that the money spent on that exercise is much better spent elsewhere. Where, you ask? Primary education is the answer.
Improving the state of primary schools in the country. and providing free and compulsary primary education upto class four to all citizens is a huge mountain to be scaled. When this goal is achieved, move to middle-school and provide free and compulsary education for students upto class seven. Then upto class twelve. And finally, you can then build as many centers of excellence as you like, not only in technology, but in medicine, commerce, arts, management, whatever streams you may feel like.
India does not have surplus resources, so every penny spent on education should be spent in a way as to ensure maximum returns.
Mr Jha didn’t finish the Hong Kong story where the air hostess ended up dancing with and later marrying that other guy who could not do second order PDEs but had the distinct advantage of not being lame.
Hi,
The prescription that Govt should step out of higher and technical education and concentrate in primary education is okay, but then private operators have left nothing to chance to make the technical education expensive. So, should we remain content making poor and rural fellows just primary passed and rich and urbanites technically educated?
So the argument spiral may be something like this: Private operators will do better than govt; private operators with foreign collaboration will do better than purely Indian private operators; foreign operators will do better than this type of foreign-Indian operators… So everything foreign is good; we need foreigners in the companies’ board-room to look contemporary and efficient…and if the argument spiral is not stopped, it will conclude that foreigners should rule us.
Arey Bhai, Good things are even produced in govt enterprises. Take for instance, the metro.
So, India will ever remain a country of golden mean, the mixed economy. Even in the sphere of technical and higher education.
Thanks.
Nanda
http://ramblingnanda.blogspot.com
http://remixoforchid.blogspot.com
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Lets do some simple math and not some 2nd order partial differential equations. let’s assume that there are 20000 iit graduates per year (going by wikipedia numbers), what is the concentration of iit graduates in india (assuming total engineering graduates in india =464,743) is 20000/464,743 = 0.043. (4.3%)
Now, if the number of IITs are doubled and assuming the number of iit grads are also doubled, now, the concentration is 40000/464743 = 0.086 (8.6%) I don’t see why this ‘dilution’ is alarming. And why is it even called ‘dilution’?
“I would also grant that brilliance is elitist by nature and one need not be apologetic about it. ” I totally disagree with the remark in this context. The IITs are not imparting brilliance, they are imparting education. And, no way will the ‘brand’ be diluted if it imparts good education uniformly across all IITs.
Further, there is more to life than dancing ‘cha-cha’ or doing ‘partial differential equations’. But, it is not our call to say who should live life in whichever way. It’s up to the individual.
theres another IIT praising post! uuff!!
no wonder..IIT hate camps are propping up!
Mekhala,
The point is that resources are valuable. The education ministry has very limited resources (say INR 10,000 crores per year, a part of which is allocated to starting new IITs). Is it better to spend these resources on creating more IITs which will churn out another 20,000 graduates, most of whom, will leave for foreign shores, or is it better to spend this money to finance the primary education of 20 million students in the rural areas? The return on investment is higher when this money is spent on primary education.
Let all Indians be educated first (literacy rates are a farce, education atleast upto primary level, i.e. class 4 for all Indians should be the aim).
After having achieved this, we can think of newer institutes!
@ Mayuresh
when the majority of the lowest strata of the Indian society is still struggling for a sight of at least 2 full fledged meals or is scrambling over every morsel of food, do you think Education feature as one of the priorities? Ï have to survive for one more day” kind of situation can be seen around…
Why is child labor so prevalent in India? after 4th class what happens to those blissful children…. n masses?
Let’s assume that need “I want to send my kid to school, I want to see him or hed as a learned person” exists, how long do you think it would be sustained? do you really think our super brains – Poiliticians (who fail so miserably, see what happened to the first ever lady president who is on some Latin American Trip, where she has been tripping all over…) would allow Grassroot level education to the masses at the lower strata? this population, the vote bank on which these fools are surviving….
***after achieving Primary education for all….- itself is such a mammoth task, u r demanding quite a huge thing frm Super Brains – the Political leaders and the sloppy administration, and the indifferent society which is maddeningly running after pots of gold and Conspicuous consumption…..
R
You may be interested in writing about OLD TIGERS – LIKE Nicolas Sarkozy & his highly public & publicised love affair with Carla Bruni, or that someone who looks like a very macho tough-guy, posed for fighter jets, firing weapons, and does fishing bare-chested in the Siberian wilderness……lost balance over the most flexible young body, Alina Kabayeva.
your post on saving the Majestic animal from extinction can walk around the corner for sometime…
why do you think OLD TIGERS vie for YOUNG TROPHIES..IS IT TO REINFORCE THE CHASE INSTINCT OR TO REINFORCE THEIR highly cherishable MASCULINITY?