The IIT Mania – who loses- an engineers day tribute

I was with some of the professors of IIT discussing the life in the campus news of which does not come out except for the odd by now famous annual fest organized by the IIT. I was more interested in the life of the achievers of the IIT-JEE before and after entry to the campus. My concerns were primarily – first, how do the handle life after the euphoria especially if they are from Andhra and Kota and second, what are the reasons for the increasing number of suicides in campus.

In Andhra and Kota, IIT selection is a religion. Coaching centres, schools embedded with preparation abound and in the last decade , the preparation that used to start after the passing 10^th board exam, has now gone down to the 6^th standard. That means for a four year course in IIT the preparation ranges from as much as 6 years. In all this cacophony created by the coachings and the overambitious parents, the children lose their childhood. Imagine for a young boy of 11 years , we are teaching concepts related to IIT and he might not be in a position to understand what it is. But the conditioning at home and at the coaching centre is such that it is ingrained in the students’ mind that this is the final destination- nothing more , nothing less. The motivation is the advertisement carrying photographs of the past achievers and there are hordes of yearning achievers who wish to make the rank and file of these institutions.

When the stress became too high, the Government came up with the idea of easing the entry level test and made it a multiple choice one which was a knee jerk reaction and diluted the entry. Coaching institutions cracked the code and there were students from Andhra and then Kota who made it through the gates of IITs through a set pattern that was crammed day in and day out into the students from 8 am to 8 pm while the education system was talking of holistic development.

After this fiasco in which the student lost his precious 3-4 years of teenage fun, with his parents, peers and coaching egging him on, he makes it through a lot of struggle and killing of desires. Some make it some don’t. Those who don’t , in line with their conditioning think it’s the end of the world. Those who make it , in line with their conditioning are now used to that regime which is not in consonance with the life at IIT. IIT is fun mixed with creative learning where the mind is opened up in contrast to the stressful, monotonous learning prior to the entry into IIT. This mismatch plus the fact that the euphoria of being the state topper , etc, has died down and the student finds himself one amongst the lot appearing mediocre- a state that he is not used to. This is when the blame game starts . The IIT administration starts blaming the coaching system which sends in misfits and the parents start blaming the IIT administration for the stress and suicides . And the Government in all earnest again takes a knee jerk reaction to ease the stress of the students thereby downgrading the efforts of the IITs in creating engineers who have proven themselves across the world as top notch innovators and entrepreneurs. Its time to take a hard look at the facts . Happy Engineers Day.