IITs: Quality of students deteriorating, says Murthy

New York, Oct 3: Infosys chairman N R Narayana Murthy said that the prestigious technology institutions are hiring students of poor quality.

He said that the coaching institutes which teach the aspirants show them limited sets of problems, out of which a few are asked in the examinations. So, the aspirants somehow manage to crack the joint examination but later they face problems.

The quality of students has deteriorated over the last few years, maximum students are performing poorly in their work place and in the global institutions of higher education, Murthy said.

Narayan Murthy was quoted as saying, "Thanks to the coaching classes today, the quality of students entering IITs has gone lower and lower. They somehow get through the joint entrance examination, but their performance in IITs, at jobs or when they come for higher education in institutes in the US is not as good as it used to be. This has to be corrected. A new method of selection of students to IITs has to be arrived at."

He further added that few IITs have done well in producing PhDs, but in reality when we compare ourselves to institutions in this country, we have a long way to go. More emphasis has to be given to research at the undergraduate level and examinations should test independent thinking of students rather than their ability to solve problems, Murthy said.

20 percent students who crack the tough entrance exams can stand among the best anywhere in the world, whereas the quality of the remaining 80 percent students has deteriorated, he said.

Murthy said that "An IITian has to be a global citizen and must understand where the globe is going. Nobody is bothered about an institution more than its alumni. We must somehow persuade the government of India to let go of its control and make sure majority of the council members is the IIT alumni."

"On the research performance, the Independent committee should annually evaluate the faculty and the faculty should be assigned on a five year contractual basis," he said before pointing out that majority of the students are poor in English speaking and even in social skills.

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