The IIT story: IIESTs, 3 new IITs on way

I was just going through The IIT story: IIESTs, 3 new IITs on way on rediff.

Any good step in the field of Technical education in india is a welcome step and deserves big applaud. This step is one of them. But I have a few points of concerns:

Why do we need to abolish all the existing 4 year B. Tech. courses and convert them into 5 year dual degree M.Tech?

On paper it seems like a good decision as we may boast of introducing technical platform for students who opt for higher education. But reality is something different. Reality story says that in India, most of the students opts for an M. Tech course only when they don't land up with a job during their 4 year B. techs or B.Es. This is a very straight forward fact. Those who can not fetch a job during their bachelors opt for masters from reputed engg colleges like IITs, BITs and IT-BHU. A majority of them end up doing what graduate student does after 4th year, a software job and in rarity a job in his field of specialization.

For a majority of School kids when they take various entrance exams, their first choice happens to be a 4 year course. Only when they DO NOT get one, they go for a 5 year course. It becomes a makeshift arrangement. Towards the end of 4th year, most of them start getting frastrated because their friends who were lucky to get into 4 year courses, get into job a little earlier while they would be landing up into similar kind of jobs a year later. Well, their frastration is natural.

IT-BHUs case will be more complicated than the others in consideration. IT-BHU has been admitting students through IIT-JEE and as it seems from the article, it may not be the same if it is given the status of IIEST. Another point of concern is, it has been famous to produce undergraduates of high quality untill now and this brand name will be in jeopardy for a few years when all the B Tech courses will be converted into M.Techs. To be straight-forward, they would be second to the 4 year courses in most of the cases for the reasons mentioned above. So IT-BHU will be in some kind of loss initially and I am not sure enough to predict about the future.

What could be done?
1. The Govt should make sure that a master course results in a master benefits as well. Where are the jobs in India for all these masters? What is the point in being a master if a graduate and a master, both are joining in a company as freshers?

2. If we are so enthusiastic about having these technical courses of 5 years, are we also ready to support them with enough opportunities at the end of their 5 long years in colleges? Or will they end up joining softwares? Then what was the need of having these special technical streams? Create opportunities first, please.

3. Why do we need to eliminate all 4 year courses? Don't we need them too? Yes we do. By eliminating them, are we forcing students to have Masters degree? They can surely co-exist and flourish more. This way the brand build by institutes like IT-BHU would also not be impacted and it would rather add to it.

The govt committe has definitely done a very good analysis and it deserve an encouragement. But given the above points, a few concerns could be easily eliminated and the plan can be made much better to suit indian conditions and indian mindsets :-)