India's educational fads: IIT Muddenhalli, IIM Vadapalli

The state of higher education [undergraduate and above] in the country is in shambles. The govt seems to be only obsessed with creating new IITs and IIMs. Agreed that those institutions have indeed raised the quality of education in India and have put Indians on the global map [pun intended]. But obsession with only a few institutions which hardly form about 1-2% of the total student population of India doesn't serve the wider purpose of improving the overall higher education scenario. Opening new IIT's and IIM's or renaming all local colleges to IIT/IIM/AIIMS wont solve the problem. Apart from being populist measures, these only serve to dilute the quality of the student pool in those institutions. Already each state has demanded an IIT. If the govt approves this there will be nearly 28 IIT's across the country. And then each district will start their demands ! The govt's rationale behind opening new IIT's [the ones in Rajasthan and AP] is that an IIT would help imrove the economic scenario of those backward places. We have already seen how this logic has [not] worked out for the North eastern states; it has worked wonders for the Californian economy though. Opening new institutions and naming them IIT's wont solve the problem. There are various other quality instituitions throughout the country: the NIT's, University of Calcutta, Jadavpur university, JNU, DU etc. If these universities are given the same factors that have helped the IITs achieve success: more funding, support, good faculty renumeration and autonomy, then I am pretty sure that they will perform well too and attract good students. China has already opened many world class universities which has drastically hiked its research output. As a result many chinese students are now continuing on with their graduate education in China itself. Contrast this with India where most of it's students go abroad to continue their higher education. If these universities re given a chance to overhaul themselves, then Indian students can continue their education in their own backyard rather than somewhere offshore. Now this would directly impact the local economy, national economy and increase the research output. The national knowledge commision has all these and more in its higher education recommendations to the HRD ministry. One can only hope that the Govt converts these recommendations to fruitful actions with a high priority. Or we might just have to send our kids to IIT Muddenhalli and IIM Vadapalli.