Behind IITians opting for non-core jobs are structural issues of JEE Advanced, rigid curriculum, explain IIT-Delhi professors

IIT Madras Director V Kamakoti seems to have stirred a hornet’s nest by expressing concern over engineering students largely choosing non-engineering careers.

In a response to Professsor Kamakoti, IIT Bombay’s Prof. Milind Sohoni has suggested that the primary responsibility for this situation lies with IIT faculty members who have not been able to establish any connect with the society or industry, and the IIT administrators who have not been able to design a suitable admission process that values actual engineering interest.

While these points are partially valid, they do not address the root of a complex problem.

To address the concerns raised by Professor Kamakoti, we need to first acknowledge that students in India choose IITs primarily due to peer or parental or societal pressure.

IITs usually attract students who are interested in its brand value and the potential pay package it can lead to. So, is it that students who are genuinely interested in engineering are unable to crack the IIT-JEE? Is the IIT-JEE not designed to test actual engineering talent and interest?

Engineering is a complex field with many different branches. It requires at least a couple of years of serious study for any student to know whether s/he is interested in it. Clearly, this is not possible at the +2 level.

Expecting students to rationally choose their branch of engineering just after Class 12 and stick to it for the rest of their lives is not practical. At the school level, we can surely organise a few engineering workshops, but that is far from being adequate to enable school students to make a rational career decision.

Additionally, IITs are one of the very few Indian institutions that have a global prestige value. In general, bright students would not want to miss out on this rare opportunity of being associated with the IIT tag.

Although this rat race has benefited India by putting Indian students on the forefront of the software revolution, it is now hurting Indian interests by preventing other important engineering domains from growing.

Of course, software jobs pay much better than core engineering jobs, but that scenario is slowly changing. This is mainly due to the government emphasis on manufacturing and developing global engineering products from India.

We already have some successful examples in Ola and boAt. Many more are likely to emerge in the future. This problem needs to be solved by bringing about much needed reforms in our engineering education system, as well as creating awareness among students and parents.

Regarding the engineering education system, the most important change required is to avoid forcing students to make a choice of engineering branch right after their school or Class 12.

As mentioned above, it is impractical to expect students to make a rational choice at this stage. Most students who are good at science in school tend to have a bipolar view. They are not well aware of opportunities outside of engineering and medical fields.

The ideal solution may be to have a short Bachelor’s degree exploring a variety of science related courses, after which students will be in a better position to decide their professional career path. This is similar to the education model that was followed earlier by IISc Bangalore and Madras Institute of Technology (Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam’s alma mater).

For example, in the 1980s, students could get admission into the B.E. programme of IISc Bangalore only after completing B.Sc. However, this model has fallen out of favour over the years since it took longer for students to get prepared for jobs. It may be good to reconsider this format of education in view of the serious problems created by forcing students to choose a professional path just after completing their Class 12.

A stepping stone towards this approach could perhaps be to make our existing engineering curriculum less restricted by the various branches.

In the first two years of engineering education, students should ideally do some common courses, and then be allowed to take any combination of courses to get an exposure into the basic concepts of various branches that may be of interest to them.

After this initial exposure in the first two years, a student will be in a much better position to decide his/her branch. Some people may think that all students will end up taking only computer science courses, but this is unlikely to happen since a student needs only a few computer science courses to get a software job.

With this model aimed at familiarising students with different branches of engineering, we will most likely see a good distribution of students in various courses. This can be facilitated through close engagement between faculty members and students at IITs. Even the courses with seemingly low popularity among students may see a renewed interest.

In terms of admissions, IITs could downplay the unhealthy obsession with competitive exams like JEE by also exploring non-JEE avenues for taking in students. For example, students who have excelled in one of the international olympiads could be given admission without having to clear JEE.

In line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 recommendations, IITs could also consider lateral entry into higher semesters for students who have done two to three years of undergraduate studies in other science disciplines. This will help in promoting a culture of pursuing excellence in one’s own field of interest. This is a very important cultural shift needed in India where for most people, life is all about chasing the goals set by the society, family or their peers.

While these systemic changes can make a huge difference, implementation is very hard. We should surely keep pushing for them, but it is also important to see if we can facilitate a change in other ways. And this change has to begin by sensitising students in schools and their parents all across India.

There is also hardly any discussion at the school level on the contributions of various professions to the society that could enable students to start thinking rationally about their lives beyond the usual societal norms.

Open conversations can be a great change agent. IITs could take the lead in this regard and start organising regular discussions sessions between IIT faculty and students and parents at various schools.

The goal of these discussions should not reinforce the already bloated image of IITs. It should instead discuss the fundamentals of engineering.

(MR Ravi and Sangeeta Kohli are professors in the mechanical engineering department of IIT Delhi & Kushal Shah is a former assistant professor of electrical engineering at IIT Delhi)