Inefficient Land Use by Elite Institutes of India

Recently, there was an article in ET which talked about inefficient utilization of land by our educational institutions. It primarily focused on IIMs, but what the author says is applicable to IITs and other Institutes as well.

Prof. T T Ram Mohan, in his blog mentioned that it is important for Indian institutions to have a residential campus, and hence the student density cannot be comparable to that of foreign institutions. But he does seem to agree that the class size should be higher to justify the amount of land that IIMs have.

In this regard, I remember my discussion with the Architect of IIT Kanpur more than a decade ago. Kanvinde (senior) was visiting IITK and I asked him a question that I was curious about ever since my student days. Why did he design the Faculty Building to be a six-storey building, while all other buildings in the academic area were restricted to three floors. He told me that the original brief to him was that the academic area had to be designed for 20,000 students (yes, I asked him twice, if he really meant TWENTY THOUSAND, and he did). The first phase would be for 2,000 students. Even in 1960, when land was not considered such a scarce resource, it was not so free that we design an Institute with a student density of 2 per acre (we have more than 1000 acres of land). The planning even at that stage was that of 20 students per acre. (By the way, it took us 30 years to have a student strength exceeding 2,000.)

Of course, amongst other buildings that he designed early on, he did not want to have multiple storey lecture hall complex, because movement of thousands of students within 5 minutes of break time between lectures would be very difficult. The library could not be much taller since books are too heavy a load. And before he could design the next building in the academic area, he got a revised brief. Just to concentrate on 2,000 students, and not worry about future growth. So all the buildings after that had a maximum of 3 floors.

Fifty years later, we are still at only 5,000 students. Even the 20-year future planning is not getting us anywhere close to 20,000 students for which the land was apparently given by the government.

By the way, IIT Delhi has a density of more than 25 students per acre, and they provide similar quality of education as IIT Kanpur. So, one can't really argue that an ultra-low student density is necessary for excellence. And IIT Delhi cannot really afford to tear down all its old buildings and construct taller buildings instead. We have empty land, and can construct tall buildings on them. So the land we have can actually support a much higher student density. Even on fully residential basis, it should be possible to support 50 students per acre easily. That is ten times the size of current student body.

Of course, many at IIT Kanpur will argue that the issue is not that of student density, but of absolute number of students. One cannot maintain excellence when the size becomes too large. Fair enough. (Actually, I don't fully agree with that. I think we haven't explored more efficient administrative structures. But that is for another blog some other day. For now, let me agree with this, to avoid digression.) But if that is the case, then the government has clearly made a mistake by giving us so much land. They thought in 1960 that such a large institute is possible. Let the Government correct its mistake by taking away the unused land. Let it set up other educational institutions on that land. Let there be a cluster of educational institutions on the land which has not been utilized for the last 50 years, and is not likely to be utilized for the next 50 years.

I am giving example of IIT Kanpur only because I am most familiar with this campus. The student density of most IIX campuses is extremely low.

JEE Counseling: Changes in IIT Kanpur

As I said in my yesterday's blog article, I have been getting lots of emails, and the maximum number of them are related to placement data. The next biggest chunk of questions are related to the changes that IIT Kanpur has made in its offerings recently. So, today, I want to talk about those changes, and how they may or may not affect your decision to rank IITK programs in your list of choices.

The first change has been to scrap all BTech-MTech dual degree programs, and add all the dual-degree seats to the corresponding BTech program. The idea is to offer flexibility to all students. The dual-degree will continue to be offered, but it will be an option for students of BTech programs. So after you have been in the system for a couple of years, you can decide whether you want to graduate with a BTech degree or want an MTech degree as well (besides other new options that have been created).

The second change that you will notice is that instead of 5-year Integrated MSc programs, we now have 4-year BS (Bachelor of Science) programs. These are in the disciplines of Physics, Chemistry, Economics, and Maths and Computing. The report of the Academic Review Committee, available from the Dean of Academic Affairs website, does not elaborate the reasons for this change. But I can make a guess.

Several academicians and national academies have previously talked about the need to make the under-graduate degree in all disciplines, but particularly in Science, to be of 4-year duration, as opposed to the current 3-year BSc. And this change can only happen when some Institute displays a leadership position and just does it, and hopefully, others by looking at the success of this program, will follow. Of course, for the foreseeable future, there will be both a 3-year under-graduate program in most universities, and a 4-year undergraduate program in some universities. Both will be named "Bachelor of Science." To differentiate between the two programs, their short form will be different. The 3-year degree will be known as "BSc" while the 4-year degree will be known as "BS".

It is good that IIT Kanpur has taken a leadership position in introducing BS. But whether this is going to be a sustained leadership position, only time will tell. Obviously, there will be problems that the first couple of batches will face. You will have to explain to everyone that you are not a failure who is doing a 3-year program in four years, but really a pioneer who is helping move this idea that the under-graduate program should be of 4-years. How much will IIT Kanpur support you when you have to provide all these explanations, I don't know. If you are having a difficulty in getting admission to a PhD program somewhere, will Director, IIT Kanpur, pick up the phone and talk to the Director there to explain this new degree. Well, it depends on who the Director will be 4 years from now. So there are some risks, but a good move by IIT Kanpur.

The third major change this year has been the introduction of double major and minor programs. Theoretically, it will now be possible for someone doing an undergraduate program in discipline "X" to also get a second undergraduate degree in any discipline "Y", by spending just one year extra. It is possible because if you look at the detailed curriculum of various programs, you would notice that out of about 40 odd courses to be done, only 15 courses or so are from the discipline itself. You have to do a lot of courses in Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Technical Arts, Engineering Sciences, Humanities, several non-discipline electives, and so on. So to get another degree you only need to do these 15 courses (or whatever that number is for a specific program). It is expected that some of those courses you will be able to do in the "elective slots" of the original undergraduate degree. Some courses may be waived (like B Tech Project may not be necessary in the second undergraduate degree, and some courses in the two disciplines may have significant overlap, and hence waived). The remaining courses you should be able to do in one extra year.

As a concept, this is great. Provides excellent flexibility, the reason because of which I have been recommending IIT Bombay to JEE candidates. But unfortunately, the devil is in the detail.

There is a lack of clarity on how liberal will be the implementation. My guess is that it won't be very liberal. So the report I referred to in the beginning says that the option for double major will be available to only those students who have a CPI of 8.0 or above. This means that you will have to be approximately in the top 40 percent of the class to avail of this option. That is somewhat restrictive already. The next thing it says is that the departments can restrict "admission" of second degree students to 10 percent of their strength. So, for Computer Science, we will have the right to restrict admission to ONLY 9 students, our current batch strength being 92. And, I can tell you that our department will probably restrict access to the minimum number, nine, and most other "popular" departments may do the same thing.

The detailed rules are yet to be formed, and the chances are that it would be possible for someone to change one's mind and after a semester or two, just inform us that s/he is no longer interested in the second major. If this happens, then I would expect that 9 toppers amongst the non-CSE students would ask for admission to Computer Science major, do a couple of CS courses, and then withdraw, but then it will be too late for others to be given admission.

So, I think the impact of second major would be very negligible. Till all the rules are framed, my advice would be to not be swayed by the announcement of double major. We offer good programs anyway. So consider IIT Kanpur based on that. If you are able to get double major in your preferred discipline, that will be an added advantage later on.

The last time IIT Kanpur introduced a new type of program, which was the BTech-MTech dual degree, it could not come up with clear, student-friendly rules for 10 years. And I have no hope of IIT Kanpur deciding rules on a fast track for the double major students.

My guess is that the implementation of minor program will be more liberal, and a lot more students will be able to do courses in another discipline to get a minor, than the double major.

But as always, I am not an official spokesperson of IIT Kanpur. I do not take any responsibility for correctness of the information provided here. Please read the ARC report that I have linked above for more details. And follow my opinions at your own risk.

Added on 1st July, 2011

PDF file for the Frequently Asked Questions on New Changes

Education Bubble in US - a response

A couple of days ago I had commented in this blog on Peter Thiel's article about education bubble in US. My friend Ajay Bharadwaj sends me link to a blog by Robin Cangie, where she argues that Peter Thiel is wrong, the situation is worse than a bubble.

Here are some of the points she makes:

"Students pay top dollar, not for quality, but for a name brand education. Classes, even at elite universities, can top 500 students and are disproportionately taught by poorly paid adjuncts and graduate students, not professors. Cheating and grade inflation are rampant and quietly tolerated. All of this points to a spectacular betrayal of the educational principles that these institutions are supposed to uphold – namely, to educate."

Was she writing about US education, I wonder.

At IIT Kanpur, undergraduate students don't pay top dollars or rupees, but they come not for quality, but for name brand education. More than half the students have no interest in the specific program they are pursuing, and will not get into a career related to that program.

Classes at IIT Kanpur exceed 500. For decades, we have followed the model of a large lecture followed by smaller tutorials. But it was a success when the class size was 200-300. Faculty does not necessarily believe that the model is scalable to 500+ size classes, but quality of education is less important than the faculty workload, and splitting the class into two will require one additional faculty member. (This was the reason given for large classes in a recent meeting that I attended.) The tutorial section size has gone up from 30 to 40. The tutors are increasingly graduate students, and not faculty, as they used to be. But we do not have any formal mechanism for training these students on how to handle a group of 40 students. (By the way, I am fully in favor of using graduate students for tutorials and labs, but someone should be telling them what to do.)

Cheating is not rampant, but is quietly tolerated. In last few annual reports of the disciplinary committee, there is hardly any mention of cheating cases. And now, it has been decided that in most cheating cases, the matter can be resolved by the instructor hirself, and it may not even be reported to the disciplinary committee.

Grade inflation has been encouraged in the last few years. The failure percentage now is little over 2 percent - mostly those who did not give the end-semester exam, or were ill. And the graduation requirement has been reduced from a CPI of 5.0 (on a 10 point scale) to 4.0 (from 2011 batch onwards). If you can pass JEE, you deserve to get a degree from IIT Kanpur.

And yet, I have no doubts that IIT Kanpur continues to be one of the best technical education providers in the country. I shudder to think what will be happening in thousands of other colleges across the country.

Plagiarism case in IIT Kanpur

Just to refresh the memories of the reader, a journal retracted two review articles published by an IIT Kanpur faculty member (and some students). This came to the notice of IIT Kanpur in September 2010. Nothing was done about this till the media published this news item. Here is the link for news item by Times of India on 9th October. At the same time, faculty of IIT Kanpur also demanded that the charges be investigated and a quick decision be taken. Soon a committee was formed to look into the charges. Here is the link for the news item in Indian Express. The committee was expected to give its report within 10 days. It was promised by IIT Kanpur that the report and the proposed action will be discussed in the next Board of Governor meeting on 2nd November 2010.

Of course, one does not expect IIT Kanpur to release the report of the committee till someone asks for it under RTI. But no final decision has been taken on this issue.

The News report in Indian Express tells us that Director has promised that the final decision will be taken by May 2011.

Why is so much delay. We criticize judiciary all the time for postponing trials. But do we complete trials that we are responsible for. When we are in an administrative positions, how many times do we put that file in one of the drawers and forget about it. How much time does it really take to read two papers, and the papers from where the alleged copying has taken place, and talk to authors and seek explanation, if something unusual is there.

In the meanwhile, the faculty member does not know what to do. With such a charge, he will not be able to write project proposals, get PhD students and carry out research as usual. If the charge is false, he should be cleared at the earliest. If the copying is such that it constitutes a minor offense, then he should be admonished, or given a warning, and allowed to get on with life. But if the copying is such that it constitutes a major offense, then a harsh decision has to be taken, perhaps asking him to find another job.

Why is it that IIT Kanpur is delaying the matter. One can only guess, but my feeling is that it is waiting for the faculty member to resign. No one wants to take any decision in such a case. So they will just let the faculty member remain in the state of stress for a long enough time that either the press and public forgets about it, or the faculty member for his own sanity resigns and moves on.
And once the faculty member resigns, no decision needs to be taken.

The administration is not comfortable taking a decision, since it opens up all the past cases where no decision has been taken for years.