Narayan Murthy vs Chetan Bhagat

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avi

avi

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Yesterday :

NEW YORK: Voicing his displeasure over the quality of engineers that pass out of the IITs, Infosys chairman emeritus N R Narayana Murthy has said there is a need to overhaul the selection criteria for students seeking admission to the prestigious technology institutions.

Addressing a gathering of hundreds of former IITians at a 'Pan IIT' summit here, Murthy said the quality of students entering Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) has deteriorated over the years due to the coaching classes that prepare engineering aspirants.

He said the majority of the students fare poorly at jobs and global institutions of higher education.

"Thanks to the coaching classes today, the quality of students entering IITs has gone lower and lower," Murthy said, receiving a thundering applause from his audience.

He said apart from the top 20% of students who crack the tough IIT entrance examination and can "stand among the best anywhere in the world," quality of the remaining 80 per cent of students leave much to be desired.

Coaching classes teach aspirants limited sets of problems, out of which a few are asked in the examinations.

"They somehow get through the joint entrance examination. But their performance in IITs, at jobs or when they come for higher education in institutes in the US is not as good as it used to be.

"This has to be corrected. A new method of selection of students to IITs has to be arrived at."

Drawing a road map to put IITs among the top engineering institutes in the world, Murthy said it has to be ensured that IITs "transcend from being just teaching institutions to reasonably good research institutes" at par with Harvard and MIT in the next 10-20 years.

"Few IITs have done well in producing PhDs but in reality when we compare ourselves to institutions in this country, we have a long way to go," he said.

More emphasis has to be given to research at the undergraduate level and examinations should test independent thinking of students rather than their ability to solve problems.

Murthy said in order to produce good research at IITs, the Indian government has to be persuaded to create institutions that fund research projects.

In addition, faculty members should also be evaluated annually on their research performance by an independent committee, Murthy said adding that India must shift from the tenure system for its faculty to a five year contractual appointment system.

The Infosys mentor also lamented the poor English speaking and social skills of a majority of IIT students, saying with Indian politicians "rooting against English", the task of getting good English speaking students at IITs gets more difficult.

"An IITian has to be a global citizen and must understand where the globe is going," he added.

Murthy also stressed the need to have the governing council of IITs made up of its alumni.

The only way IITs can become better is if 80-90 per cent of members on their governing council are alumni.

"Nobody is bothered about an institution more than its alumni. We must somehow persuade the government of India to let go of its control and make sure majority of the council members is the IIT alumni."

Murthy urged IITians spread across the globe to work with their alma mater to ensure that IITs are among the top 10 engineering schools of the world.

He said while only a couple of IITs feature in the top 50, there should be at least five IITs in the top 10 engineering schools in the world in the next 10-20 years, he added.
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Source - Poor quality of students entering IITs: Narayana Murthy - The Times of India

Today :
NEW DELHI: A day after Infosys chairman emeritus N R Narayana Murthy commented on the falling standards of IIT engineers, his comments have met with strong opposition from Chetan Bhagat.

Reacting strongly to Murthy's remarks, Chetan Bhagat has tweeted, "It is ironic when someone who runs a body shopping company and calls it hi-tech, makes sweeping comments on the quality of IIT students."

Bhagat furhter writes, "Mr Murthy had a point, but wish he wasn't so sweepingly high handed. Fix the system. No point judging students."

Referring to the contribution of IIT students in the making of Infosys, he tweets, "IITians have made a great contribution in making Infosys what it is. Hope people remember that."

Addressing a gathering of hundreds of former IITians in New York, Murthy had said poor quality of students were entering IITs. He had said that the quality of students has deteriorated over the years due to the coaching classes that prepare engineering aspirants.
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Source - Those who run body shops should not comment on IITs: Chetan Bahagat to Narayana Murthy - The Times of India
 
Have to agree with Chetan Bhagat. I'm no IIT, but its the industries fault. They hire BE's and high quality degree students to do the wrong job - like software coding or putting them in elearning. Such jobs, even a BSc or Bcom grad can do easily. And its all cause they have a source of cheap labour in this country. Where are those research jobs in engineering, or in any field? Why is indian industry having negative growth year by year? Its cause they dont spend on research. These large corporates want everything without spending anything.

There's nothing wrong with education, whats wrong is with the industry. Industry drives education here. The only point industry people care is a degree which the children are striving to get.
 
Chetan Bhagat should stop his all encompassing false patriotism based journalism and go back to writing simple fiction for the weak minded. Narayana Murthy has provided jobs to thousands of Indians with his 'Body shop'. You cant argue with what he has done. And its wishful thinking that we will all be rocket scientists working in research jobs. There is no scope in India for high end research, there is no funding and regulations that provide an environment for that. Why blame Infosys for that? Its not an R&D company to start with. Mr. Bhagat says Mr. Murthy has no right to comment on IITs. What right does Mr. Bhagat have to comment on Mr. Murthy? because he wrote 5. some1? Meh.

6pack said:
Have to agree with Chetan Bhagat. I'm no IIT, but its the industries fault. They hire BE's and high quality degree students to do the wrong job - like software coding or putting them in elearning. Such jobs, even a BSc or Bcom grad can do easily. And its all cause they have a source of cheap labour in this country. Where are those research jobs in engineering, or in any field? Why is indian industry having negative growth year by year? Its cause they dont spend on research. These large corporates want everything without spending anything.

There's nothing wrong with education, whats wrong is with the industry. Industry drives education here. The only point industry people care is a degree which the children are striving to get.
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if murthy is so unhappy with IITians whos stopping him from hiring MITians or Stanfodians,

betcha he cant afford them :bleh:
 
IIT graduates aren't what they used to be and I agree with Narayan Murthy here. Also, good thing Chetan Bhagat reacted, coz he's a living example of what Narayan Murthy said.

From what I know, IIT's ranking indeed has fallen.
 
Most of us have not understood what N Murthy is pointing out. When he says Quality of IITs it is not the quality of BTech graduates but the quality and quantity of RESEARCH & quality of PhDs, he is referring to. There is no problem with quality of BTechs. Only problem with most of them is, they either go abroad or joining IIMs. How to motivate them to pursue their Mtech & PhD program in IIT only is the challenge! In fact the quality of under graduates in IIT is improving & hence most of them are absorbed by MNCs or get opportunities abroad. And they are not available to our own country.

In 2004, China produced 2,652 PhDs in computer science and in that year the figure was 24 in our country, this is the most damning true statement, and a fact. Unfortunately to us Indians- truth hurts- and it seems to have hurt Mr Chetan Bhagat- but wrong tweet Mr, Bhagat !-Mr N Murthy was only speaking the truth as he always does !!
 
Not sure how you decode his statement to this.

His point was that coaching institute spoon feed students about what will come in JEE; Now due to this; some students joins the institution; which otherwise would not be possible. In short IIT is suppose to take a prospect engineer and groom him. But all they get is a spoon-fed coaching student; obviously the type of input you get decides the quality of output. So he indeed pointed to engineering graduate IMHO.
 
A man who revolutionized a company vs other bring a celebrity for writing fiction novels.

I know my sides .
 
agantuk said:
Isn't Shobha De male?
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Correct, quite debatable.
dragonball said:
Really? I thought Chetan Bhagat is female. He even looks girly. I don't know why many of today's boys look like girls.
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Again, correct, quite debatable.
 
Its war between two IITians (one old and other older). :P
One speaks from New York and other from New Delhi.
Everyone knows what kind of work IT companies do here in india , so they better stop talking about quality and all.
 
Who's Chetan Bhagat anyway?

Actually the problem lies right at the roots ie the schools and our education system.

For us Indians, the emphasis since the very beginning of our educational lives, is on passing exams and not on gaining knowledge or applying it.

We can solve complex equations, explain abstract theories or pass exams by cramming up but when it comes to do something with all that knowledge we shudder.

Its not like that we Indians haven't achieved anything globally but we're just programmed to be so circumventive about our jobs.

Working in a multinational and multicultural environment, I experience this first hand when I see the Japanese doing their jobs so very diligently and honestly while most of us are trying to avert some thing or the other or using a short cut.

I too got selected through the JEE but only after being spoon fed and programmed to crack that exam, by a coaching institute.

It seriously didn't have anything to do with my intellect as is the case with many others who get through.

Its not like we don't want to learn but we've just been robotized too much at the initial stages of education.
 
Chetan has got nothing on Murthy. What has he done with his IIT B.Tech and an IIM MBA. Has he contributed to either of those fields? All he seems to do is to write lousy books. I have seen a engineer friend of mine write better in his spare time.

Murthy may be running a 'bodyshop', but its a body shop that lets tens of thousands of people earn decent money within our own country and also give back taxes to the govt. It definitely beats people being unemployed or going to some other country neither of such is going to get any revenues back to our govt.

On the other hand, Infy is not a technology innovation company and its never meant to be a place for IITan's. No one was stopping IITan's from taking up opportunities on the research side or going into core technology based companies if they had a knack for that.

When Murthy said that the quality of IITan's is falling down, I think he definitely has a point. He is blaming the recruitment process and the students themselves which is correct. IIT's should be recruiting guy's who have a natural knack for technology, not guy's who can crack the IIT-JEE exam just because they have been coached for 5 years. With such an entrance system, its more likely to find guy's looking for fat pay packets than guy's who are genuinely interested in technology. IIT's for the most part are places for self learning, not spoon feeding. You have everything from facilities to expert guidance and a lot of freedom, so ultimately how an IITan turns out is to a most extent dependent on the student's attitude. If a guy with the wrong attitude gets in, its only natural that he may not be up to the mark in terms of technology.
 
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