DNA Edit: Small is bountiful

When it comes to ensuring placements, that too in blue chip IT companies, the IITs are light years ahead of private engineering colleges.

Though the information technology sector is bleeding – evident in the Artificial-Intelligence induced massive layoffs, protectionist policies of the US and Australia, and sundry other cutbacks – the students of the new-generation of IITs seemed to have bucked the trend by securing financially-rewarding offers from campus recruitments.

The younger crop of institutions, especially the ones in Mandi and Patna, have even outperformed the old, traditional bastions like IIT Bombay and Madras with a higher percentage of placement success. This has partly to do with the government’s recent emphasis on nurturing the top institutions -- such as the IITs of Madras, Delhi, Kharagpur, Bombay, Kanpur, Roorkee and Varanasi -- as citadels of research.

With no such chip on their shoulders, so to speak, the younger ones are focused on establishing their dominance in the job market. Their roaring success comes at a particularly distressing time.

According to the 2016-17 data of the Union HRD ministry, only 6,013 IIT graduates got jobs out of a total of 9,104 in 17 IITs. There are 23 IITs in the country with a cumulative student strength of 75,000. The government’s twin strategy of research and jobs for the premier institutions seem to have worked, with IIT Madras taking the lead in filing the maximum number of patents, followed by Bombay, Kharagpur and Nagpur.

India needs to invest in research and development in a sustained manner if it wants to achieve breakthroughs in science and technology. It must inspire the best talents in the country by creating the right infrastructure and environment. The dividends will be reaped in the long run. The IITs can even give a much-needed boost to the Centre’s skilling programme to generate employment for the masses.