by dkeviv

Created on: March 05, 2010

Everybody knows about the consequences of the reservation; 49.5% for Backward Communities (BC) and Scheduled Castes(SC), Scheduled Tribes(ST), then another 25% for Other backword communities (OBC). This means Forward Communities (FC) can only go for 25% of the seats and these 25% seats will be competed by everybody.

Almost we can say like the effective output of a Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) will be 25%. So as usual the country’s best will fill the 25% but the actual capable students for the other 75% seats will be left over and also I am sure that the 49.5% seats won’t even be fully filled as they won’t even get past the prelims.

So now the government will say we are unable to fill all the seats because the exams are tough. So the next step will be to bring down the quality of Joint Entrance Exam (IIT-JEE) and Common Admission Test (CAT).

This will lead to incompetence. Eventually IITs and IIMs will be no better than run of the mill colleges. Ultimately it is the doom for IIT but not for the brilliant minds. Still, whatever happens, diamonds shine better in the dark.

Possible consequences on the bright side:

Accounting to these changes, some private universities will come up with a better infrastructure, better faculty, better than IITs and of course with more fees. Now the students will flock there. Maybe this will lead to a lot of private IITs.

Nothing can be done about the politicians right now. They will ruin any government organization (government funded) at any cost for their personal benefit.

So, now the big corporations like Reliance, Tata and Infosys should come forward to open their own universities with state of the art technology such that each university excels in a particular area, say, as reliance is one of the leaders in oil refinery and petrochemicals and computer engineering and IT.

Biocon should start a university in Biotechnology. Actually Reliance, Tata, Birla have grown to become conglomerates that they can start universities with multiple specialties and can provide “in-house industrial training” to the students to make the best of the best engineers and managers.

As these companies have already got the best employees in their own institution, they need not flock around the world in search of employees. If this is done, then as in US the universities will become R&D centers instead of institutions that teach some obsolete, out of the mainstream courses.

There is always a risk of reservation in private universities too. I think business merchants are the only people who can take the bull by its horns (politicians). As the politicians need money for their campaign, that comes from the industrialists.

Industrialists can manipulate the politicians. I can bet on the industrialist than on politicians. Every downfall comes to reach a new peak. So every downfall is an opportunity. The above idea is not only good for the students but also for the particular company that will get benefited by the R&D in the universities, and the whole country as such.

At the start these state of the art universities may be expensive but as the Indian per capital is increasing, it will be affordable to most of the population and private merit scholarships can help the poor to reach their high goals. But with time, universities becoming research centers, the schools will be able to fund the meritorious students, and we will see the students becoming research scientists.

I hope the brilliant minds in the big corporates are contemplating this idea, though not in a real academic view but at least in a business view. Hope they make this into reality soon.

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