The IIT Affiliate Program — Addressing the IIT Challenge

The Indian Institutes of Technology are the premier educational institutions in India, respected worldwide for the quality of the graduates they have produced. Over the last few years, although the hype surrounding the IIT system has increased, its attractiveness for the young generation as a career option has steadily declined. More and more qualified young people prefer to take up jobs in industry than to become a faculty member at one of the IITs.  One of the reasons behind this scenario is the failure of the IITs to pay the salaries comparable to those offered by the industry.  The fact that a fresh IIT graduate is hired by the Indian industry at a salary more than that of a full IIT professor provides no comfort to either existing or prospective faculty members. The situation has become so bad that some of the IIT faculty members have come out openly to protest against this disparity.

The Indian Government has announced plans to open many more IITs, but is silent about its ability to attract good faculty to these institutions. In fact, more than 30% of the current faculty positions in the IITs are vacant because of inability to hire qualified faculty without compromising the quality.  If the quality of IIT faculty is compromised in order to fill the gap, then no only the massive public investments make will be wasted, but also the brand image of IITs will be severely impacted.

For various reasons, it is not realistic to expect Government to pay IIT faculty salaries comparable to those in the Industry.  The following slides describe an idea that can not only make up for the differential in salary and make IITs more attractive career option, but also provide IIT education to many more aspiring students without much public investments.

Please provide your comments on the idea. If you like the idea, help refine it and help in convincing the decision makers. Even if you don’t like with the idea, please provide your constructive criticism so that it may be improved.

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