GATE Eligibility - No to 3rd Year Students in 2012

I first read about change in GATE eligibility in Prof. Giridhar Madras's blog. I talked to a few colleagues at IITK also, and like the comments in that blog, here too I heard that the major reason for not allowing 3rd year students to give GATE was that they can't handle so many students.

This is yet another manifestation of the arrogance of IITs. If you can't conduct this exam, then give it up. It is not your exam. It is MHRD's exam. This is not just for admission to IITs and IISc. This is for admission to ALL MTech programs in the country, where the stipend is charged to MHRD. CBSE has had no problem in conducting an exam for 12 lakh candidates, and should be happy to conduct yet another exam. CBSE has done a far superior job of conducting AIEEE than IITs have done for JEE (at least the way exam is conducted - I don't want to digress by discussing the paper content). And I am sure CBSE can do a far better job of conducting GATE than IITs can. If CBSE refuses to conduct, then we can consider outsourcing it to BITS Pilani, Merit-trac, Prometric, and any number of other players. All of them have huge experience of conducting large public exams.

Have IITs ever bothered to ask other universities when GATE should be conducted. Note that IITs have a small number of MTech seats. Others admit more MTech students than IITs do. But there is no mechanism for anyone to give any inputs. Most universities would want to start the admission process earlier than April, and therefore, would want GATE to be held earlier than February. But IITs won't listen. I know of some places who were seriously considering keeping some seats for "early admission" for those who would have given GATE in the 3rd year. But that won't be possible now.

GATE has also become a way to test your basic knowledge in your field of engineering. Many students would give GATE in the 6th semester, and if they get good score, highlight that in the CV for placement. The industry values such students, but this can't be done any more.

In fact, even at IITK, if someone sent us an email in March telling us that s/he has got a very good GATE score (better than our typical cutoff for calling for MTech admission), we will try our best to invite him/her for summer internship in the hope that next year s/he will join our graduate program. That would no longer be possible.

For many years, there is a talk about GATE becoming a multiple day, online exam. But trust IITs to not do that. Only a few disciplines will have an online exam even after trials for a couple of years. They are so afraid of technology.

All this because IITs and IISc can't find enough invigilators and they are too rigid to consider alternatives. They could have had, for example, more subjects in online format, and spread offline papers on to 3-4 sessions by having the exam on Saturdays as well, thereby reducing the need of faculty members going to various centers.

They have increased the cost of JEE application fee to Rs. 1800. They could have done a similar hike for GATE as well, and use that for solving problems (like going for online exams in more subjects, paying more for larger and better exam centers).

The Idea of an Executive MTech Program

The MTech program in India is considered a research program, which one does leisurely over a two year period. There is a strong need, however, for different types of offerings at the Master's level, and the more innovative universities can create a program fulfilling that need.

NASSCOM (and many others who have studied quality of Indian higher education system) has pointed out that a large number of engineering graduates are not employable, and most of the graduates that the software industry employ, need significant training running into months. Companies also provide short-term training to their employees on a regular basis.

All this training ensures that the employees are aware of latest technologies and tools and they are able to execute projects incorporating those technologies and using those tools. However, after a decade of growth and promotions, many employees start reaching a plateau in the technical arena. If the college education did not teach basics well enough, all this training cannot take you too far.

For these employees, it appears as if the only way to climb the corporate ladder is to go through the management route. This perception of the employee is taken advantage of by the management institutes who have made executive MBA (or equivalent) options easily available. Management institutes have realized that it is unrealistic to expect a working professional to take a long break in career and do a degree at leisurely pace. But the MBA route to career growth is not a scalable option. As long as industry was growing at rates upwards of 20 percent, it could absorb large number of management graduates. But the need for people with higher technical knowledge is becoming acute.

As stated earlier, all the training that the companies provide cannot compensate for education that happens on a campus. A large number of current employees had gone through a relatively outdated curriculum from faculty members who did not know much better. If Indian industry has to go up in the value chain, they will need employees who are better educated, and not just well trained. This means that there is likely to be a large market for an executive (one-year) MTech program, and if some university starts it, it would be doing the industry a huge favor.

It is common in US universities (and elsewhere) to have multiple options for a master's degree. One can do very few courses and significant research work, or some more course work and a project, or even just course work. One can complete a course-based master's program in one year, though the thesis option would normally take six months longer.

If we look at the way MTech programs are structured in India, it is easy to compress them into a shorter duration programs. At IIT Kanpur (and I believe the credit requirement at other IITs would not be significantly different) one needs to do about 8 courses over 2 semesters, and a thesis work over another 2 semesters where the expected effort is equivalent to 8 courses (with minor variations across departments). Till a few years ago, the requirement was 6 courses and thesis equivalent to 6 courses, which could be completed in 3 semesters.

Why is it that a BTech student does 5 or 6 courses a semester, while an MTech student does only 4 courses a semester. Well, most of the MTech students are expected to provide some support to teaching or research to their department for about 8-10 hours a week. They get financial assistance for doing this work. Because of this requirement, they do only 4 courses. But, if someone does not want this financial support, and would rather do additional courses and finish early (and get a much higher corporate salary in the period that one saves as a result), it should be possible for someone to do 6 courses a semester. MTech students in general, and working professionals in particular are more mature than under-graduate students. They do not spend much time on partying, Internet surfing, movies, and games.

The rest is straight-forward. If the MTech program starts at the beginning of the summer term, a student does 2 courses in the summer, 6 courses each in the two semesters, and another 2 courses in the next summer, and in a total of 14 months, one has completed the 16 courses required for an MTech program. This does not reduce the credit requirement for the MTech program, only replaces thesis with courses, keeping in view the requirement of the industry.

Notice that it is possible to start the program in the beginning of the summer term, since the target audience are the working professionals. So no issues regarding having to wait for the result of the BTech program.

In fact, one can further reduce it effectively to one year, by requiring a project work to be done in the second summer, which would be equivalent to two courses. And this project work can be done in the company where the student is getting employed.

To run such a program at a very high quality, one can follow the ISB model. In the ISB model, one does not have an 18-week semester, but rather 6-week terms (including a couple of days break between two terms). So a student does not do 6 courses in parallel, but only 2 courses at a time, which get over within 6 weeks. It is easier to bring in high quality visiting faculty for 6 weeks, rather than for
a full semester of 18 weeks. So overall, the year is organized as seven 6-week terms. The exact dates can be tweaked to make it convenient for the visiting faculty. One could have a break of 3 weeks after four terms, which could be used for placement activities.

The puritans will balk at compressing the courses so much, but I believe that at the master's level, when one has only the motivated students and high-quality faculty, adequate learning can take place at the fast pace. But I concede that this may not work at the under-graduate level.

The program makes financial sense for all stake holders. If we assume that we would be able to attract high quality faculty by offering a compensation of about Rs. 10,000 per lecture hour, then the cost of faculty is about Rs. 4 lakh per course. If the physical infrastructure already exists in the institute, normally one would expect all non-faculty costs to be roughly equal. So the total cost to the institute for one course is about Rs. 8 lakhs. Assuming that there are only 40 students in a course, the average cost to the student is about Rs. 20,000 per course. If the student has to do 14 courses, the total cost to the student is only Rs. 2.8 lakhs. Even if we throw in goodies like a free laptop, invite a few foreign faculty at a higher cost, include personal costs of the student like mess food, the total cost to the student will still be within Rs.4 lakhs for the entire program.

In the current two year programs, typically the student earns enough during the program to take care of tuition and other expenses. So there is generally zero cost to the student. In the one-year program, the cost is Rs. 4 lakhs, but this is peanuts compared to what the student will earn in that one year that s/he saves.

Students will be attracted towards this program, if either their current employers promise to retain their jobs after they return, or there are other employers who have promised to consider the graduates for employment (of course, at a higher salary than what most of these students were earning). So one has to have agreements with employers for providing support to this program. Also, some students would have cash flow problem to pay high cost in the beginning. Therefore, arrangements have to be made with banks for student loans.

To summarize, universities need to innovate to solve real problems of industry in terms of not having sufficient number of people who can become technical leaders. The idea of an executive MTech is a step in that direction.