Vice President addresses IIT Delhi convocation

Updated on: Monday, August 09, 2010

Vice President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that there has not been sufficient appreciation of engineering education being a key enabler of India's growth and a vital element in shaping of our national destiny.

Addressing the audiences at the forty-first convocation ceremony of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi on Saturday, Ansari said that questions about the ability of the present framework of engineering education to respond to national requirements in adequate measure remain unanswered.

He further said that the quality of teaching and employability of graduates is one aspect of it; the dearth of qualified and motivated faculty is another. It is for this reason that the National Knowledge Commission called for "a new paradigm in regulation, accreditation, governance and faculty development" across the engineering education spectrum.

Ansari further stated, "It would seem that an essential concomitant of technological advance is the effort by society, including its professional segment of engineers and technologists, to ensure that it sustains and promotes social cohesiveness through necessary correctives."

"Technological, scientific or digital divides in societies cannot further the larger human cause. Today's professionals cannot function in isolation of the social and political context nor can they remain in ivory towers or professional silos," he said.

He drew attention to some data that makes for disturbing reading viz. less than 1 per cent of IIT undergraduates in the country pursue Masters or Ph D courses within the IIT system; less than 15 per cent of those graduating from IITs move towards teaching or research, whether in India or abroad; the IIT system produces less than 1.5 per cent of the total engineering graduates in the country but accounts for over 70 per cent of those pursuing Doctoral programmes in engineering and technology. Also, in terms of international grading of academic output based on publications, citations of faculty, and patents applied for and granted, India fares poorly in comparison to even some developing countries.

Only IIT-Mumbai and IIT-Delhi find a place in the 2009 Times Higher Education ranking of 50 engineering and information technology institutions. However, no Indian university, not even an IIT, figures in the top 100 of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute of Higher Education's Academic Ranking of World Universities, or in the top 100 of the 2009 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Ansari informed the gathering, "Students from India and those of Indian origin and numbering 35,300 accounted for over one-third of all foreign engineering students in the United States in 2009. Out of these, around 26,000 students were enrolled in Masters Programmes constituting over 65 per cent of all foreign masters students, and 5690 were enrolled in Doctoral Programmes constituting around one fifth of all foreign doctoral students."

"These figures shed light on the opportunity loss for our academic institutions, and eventually to the nation, to benefit from the research potential and effort of the best and brightest graduating from our engineering institutions, including the IITs," he said.

Emphasizing on the need to focus on accessible, affordable and applicable learning, the Vice President said that "We need to close the gap between policy intent and actual delivery. The requirement to up-skill or re-skill 500 million people by 2020 in order to meet growth requirements underlines the need for undertaking this on a war footing. Curricular reforms, faculty development and promotion of a spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation are imperative and compelling."

The Vice President stated that the evolutionary context of any technology determines the purposes to which they would be deployed. "Where such technologies evolve as societal products, they carry the ability to serve larger social purposes. Increasingly, in this era of globalization transforming technologies are emerging in corporate contexts and are being deployed to primarily serve narrow corporate interests and stakeholders."

"Thus, the shrinking base of stakeholders in the development and deployment of technologies is fast eroding their political and social legitimacy. It is increasingly felt that these technologies are widening societal inequalities and deepening political conflict. The situation has also been compounded by the lack of political initiative and social impetus by national leaderships and community elders," he stated.

Quoting American scientist Bill Hubbard, the Vice President said that "progress of biology, neuroscience and computer science will make possible in the foreseeable future technologies of mind and life that will invalidate the working social assumptions of societies."

"The graduating students today represent the young citizenry that constitutes the overwhelming majority of our population. It is for you to question if the technologies that you have imbibed and would develop in future are being co-opted in the massive social and political projects that our nation has undertaken since independence - of ameliorating the condition of each of our citizens so that they have access to opportunity to lead better lives and utilize their potential," Hamid Ansari said.

Congratulating IIT students who had been conferred awards and medals at the occasion, the Vice President wished them success for their professional and personal endeavors.

"I am confident that the graduating students would live up to the oath that you have undertaken to be honest in the discharge of your duties, to uphold the dignity of the individual and integrity of the profession, and to utilize your knowledge for the service of the country and of mankind," he said.

Vice President addresses IIT Delhi convocation

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