This refers to the editorial "An ostrich-like approach" (October 7). Higher education in India has failed to pass muster in global rankings. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) must share a part of the blame. The entirely misplaced sense of runaway superiority of the IITs came about since the urge to acquire the "Brand IIT" overtook the desire to imbibe skills. As a result the coaching industry earned money many times more than the funds, grants and running expenses of all the higher technical/management institutes of the country put together. We need premier institutions to lead us to newer horizons, to expand and conquer. The new human dimensions needed to be identified towards this can not be assessed at one given time but would need continuous evaluation. But the existing worn pathways up to the portals of these tall institutions will not take us to any new destinations. The low rankings of these institutions on a pan-global scale cannot, thus, come as a surprise. We now need to scale up our institutions and their aspirants for meeting futuristic demands of skills, packaged in fine value systems.
R Narayanan Ghaziabad
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R Narayanan Ghaziabad
Letters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:
The Editor, Business Standard
Nehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg
New Delhi 110 002
Fax: (011) 23720201
E-mail: letters@bsmail.in
All letters must have a postal address and telephone number