IIT professors earn Rs. 50,000 while Harvard professors earn Rs. 5 lakh. So IIT professors have been demanding pay hike and went on one-day token strike.
Hmmm..I like that idea. Let us compare ourselves with leading US universities. But why stop at the Professor’s salary? Let’s offer good fellowships to grad students so that we can retain some good students for the research. After all, aren’t they the ones who do most of the research work which gets turned into research papers? And in their own words:
They point out that abroad, each time a researcher publishes a paper, he is paid for it separately.
And this incentive, say the professors, will be seen in future research work in the country. Already, the attrition rate in various IIT departments is worrying.
So doesn’t it make sense to give the grad students some kind of fellowship? May be then we can convince some IIT graduates to pursue their PhDs in those “globally acclaimed IITs” (note how both the professors mentioned in the article did their PhD in US), though I am still doubtful.
As far as I am concerned, I would pursue my Ph.D. in India (of course hypothetically speaking. I have no intention of going through this hell again. EVER) if they get rid of some of the office politics (actually I will prefer all but I am being reasonable). While at it, they can change their examination method to understanding-based instead of memory-based, just like MIT and Harvard. And then they can attempt some collaboration with R&D labs of major companies and get some real problems to work on instead of purely academic, again just like MIT and Harvard. And above all, they can stop using their grad students as their personal servants (an average PhD scholar in our dearest “globally renowned IITs” is expected to get groceries, vegetable, milk for the professor’s household on daily basis). Then may be students like us will consider getting a Ph.D. in India and the quality of research might improve. Giving a raise to Professors ain’t gonna do it.
While I am at it, let me clear a few more things. The main reason IITs are so well known is due to the bright students graduating from there and not because of the quality of research done there. And the reason the students are so bright is due to the immense competition in India (Of the 384,977 candidates who appeared in the examination conducted on April 12, 2009, 10,035 candidates have been declared qualified to seek admission in IITs: from Wikipedia). The only way to succeed in India is to be the best. It makes Indian teenager very hard working and goal-oriented as opposed to an average US teenager. The pressure from the parents, family and society adds on to that goal orientation and hard work. BTW, did you know that India has the highest teen suicide rates in the world (read this and this)? But I digress.
The point of the post: let’s give the credit where it belongs. Give better fellowship to the poor Indian grad student and stop treating them like servants. May be it will attract better students to pursue Ph.D. in IIT and hence, improve the research quality.
P.S.: I didn’t even consider the ridiculousness of comparing Indian and US salaries without considering the cost of living in the countries. You need to deflate/ inflate one of them by respective cost of living! Being an IIT professor and all that, this should have been obvious to them.
If you note the fine points, IIT Professors are not asking for an equal salary when compared to Harvard. It is the IIM professors. IIT Profs are asking for a "grade" better than what they have been offered in the Sixth Pay Commission. NDTV has grossly misquoted things. Times of India (surprisingly) has reported the news more fairly and with better quotes.
ReplyDeleteBetter fellowships to students? Do you realise that the institute subsidies a lot of things for the students? The living in hostels, the mess, the fees themselves, are a lot less. In the US, you may get a fee waiver, but for everything else, you have to pay every penny. The institute can give better fellowships, but then it will start withdrawing these subsidies. Then we are back to square one! The current fellowship is enough for a grad student to live comfortably in the hostel, go to and come from his/her hometown by flight once a year and a decent amount of savings!
And, IITs have started to revamp their PhD programmes too. They are now trying to make it as competitive in terms of work quality and environment as it is in the best US Univs. But, if a student is hell bent on fellowship as a criterion for choosing an institute for research, then one cannot do anything about it
The subsidized housing and dining is available in US as well. In my case, at least, the fees and health insurance is also paid by the department and after that I receive a decent amount of fellowship. So let's not compare the IITs with US universities.
ReplyDeleteI heard about the revamped programs too and checked with few people. IITs still insist on memory based examination. It doesn't matter whether you understand the subject material or not as long as you can mug the class notes, you can be a class topper. At least that's what our class topper in Masters was: a very good mugger. Let me give a few more anecdotes:
A professor from here went back to IIT to teach and had pretty bad experience when she tried changing the examination system for her class. She was told that she has to administer a close book examination in order to assess the students. She quit the job after 6 months and came back to US.
And I haven't yet started on the plight of students! I had numerous friends who did do their PhD in IIT. One of them had to quit after 2 years into his PhD due to office politics. He finally landed up in US. In past 3 years he has been here he already have published papers . That's how IITs treat brilliant students who do decide to stay back.
And what about the sequence of names for the author in a paper? In US the student is always the first author; in India the professor is, even though he hasn't even read the draft of the paper forget about doing any work. How is that fair?
Not all of us want to be on foreign soil and go through those rude immigration officers. I wanted to pursue my PhD in my university (an IIT) but amount of office politics and the way professors treat their PhD scholars pushed me away. I passed the NET exams and everything. and then decided to forgo it.
About health insurance: IITs too have a group insurance policy, with almost free medical services at the IIT Hospital. I'm @ IIT Bombay. We pay a premium of Rs. 126/- every year for the group cover. That is a trifling amount, considering the fact that a good pizza costs you atleast Rs. 200/-.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't know which IIT you are talking about. At IIT Bombay, professors are free to take examinations in the way they want.
Many departments in IITB are free from office politics. Of course, PhD degree has to accommodate the whims and fancies of professors, but the cases where they have devastating effect are less when compared to the successful cases. I've a friend in a US university who had to change his advisor after one year, because of the advisor's eccentricity.
About author publications: Majority of the IIT Professors do give due credit. You can see the IIT Bombay ChE website for the list of publications. Most first authors are the students. And there are some journals who insist that the sequence of authors be alphabetical. So, if your advisor is Gandhi and your are Reddy, it can't be helped.
As a T.A., I spend a lot of time taking an experiment for the UGs. I know how many of them are interested. Of a group of 5-6, only 2-3 are interested. The rest keep aloof, even talking on cell phones, going out for tea, when the T.A. is shouting on the top of his/her voice and trying to explain it to them. Ask them the reason for their disinterest, they'll tell you that it is a 5 credit lab and it won't have too much effect on their grades!! And we have the latest hardware and software, which is industry standard for our experiments.
Well let me start this discussion all over again. I grew up in an IIT. My dad is a professor in one. He did his PhD from another IIT. None of them IITB though. the point is: I lived my whole life in an IIT campus and hence know a bit about the system.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the professor I talked about, the one who came back after spending six months trying to teach in IIT. She went to IITB and didn't have a good experience and decided to come back. When I asked her for reason she replied, there was too much politics to deal with.
U.G.s are same everywhere. They don't care about classes or learning but the grades and jobs (actually 50% of interested students is a pretty good ratio). It doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't students who do want to pursue research out of interest.
I don't have many friends from IITB but I do know quiet a bit about IIT-KGP, IIT-R and BHU. The post was based on the collective experience from these three IIT universities.
May be things aren't that bad in IITB or may be you don't interact with other research groups as much. In any case, I think our experiences of IITs are very different.