'We can't do without government funding'

Q&A: professor surendra prasad, Director, IIT-Delhi

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have been in news for their public outcry regarding the disparity of salaries and the perceived injustice meted out to them by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). However, Professor Surendra Prasad, Director of IIT Delhi told Kirtika Suneja in an interview that there are many issues in the education sector which need to be tackled. Edited excerpts:

Why are IITs facing a faculty crunch?
With access to good quality education becoming more widespread, we need to ensure that more people consider academics as a career more seriously. So, we need to produce more PhDs for both the industry and the higher education sector by attracting qualified people from either inside the country or abroad. We at IIT Delhi, have a faculty strength of 440 people but have a shortage of 15-20 per cent. In the last three years, we recruited 80 people. With a student strength of 5,500, the teacher-student ratio is 1:11. There is no one way of attracting faculty but one thing is sure that they don’t come here for money. They join us because they get opportunities, ideas and freedom. Salary is important but not much. It's the infrastructure and facilities that count.

The higher education sector is opening up. What challenges will you face if foreign universities set up shop here?
The higher education system must open itself to charitable institutions and foreign universities but with suitable regulatory mechanisms so that those on the regular footing are encouraged. We feel that as long as we maintain our quality, there will be no issues but if someone else offers better quality, then people will go there. Then the onus will lie on our research capabilities. We don’t fear the opening up of the education sector as it is good to have open and fair competition. All this depends on how these universities will come here. If they come with undergraduate education, then no one from IIT Delhi at least will be tempted to go there. These have to be research universities to be different and setting up R&D centres in science and technology institutes is tough.

What about research at IIT Delhi? How is it funded?
The ministry gives us funding in terms of plan and non-plan grants. The plan grant is for specific purposes like expansion of classrooms and labs and therefore, it rises every year. The non plan grant is a one time block grant that may increase if the salaries go up. We got a grant of more than Rs 100 crore last year. We also generated 30 per cent of funds ourselves. For research, we get government funding besides self raising of funds by submitting proposals and bidding for the funding. Even if we increase the fee after consultation with the IIT Council, that will not be able to support these activities. So, we can’t do without government funding as not only does it support research, but also the everyday running of the institutes. In fact, we are building a research infrastructure for IIT Ropar also.

Is that a part of the mentoring process of IIT Ropar?
The mentoring is still on and we will very soon recruit PhDs for setting up the research infrastructure there. Moreover, we have also spoken to many universities in the UK for additional mentoring of IIT Ropar on the R&D front. The mentoring is happening at all levels. Till last year, IIT Ropar’s first year students were physically with us and we were trying to setup a campus for them. Now, there is transit campus having 240 first and second year students as residents. We have also recruited 25 faculty members for them of which 10 have joined and there will be no difficulty of faculty in the short run. Also, some faculty members from IIT Delhi go there every week. So, the hand holding will continue for some time.

What about foreign alliances for IIT Delhi?
We have 7-8 tie-ups with foreign universities as part of which 25-30 students go for student exchange programmes every year. We do have specific tieups with varsities for undergraduate programmes but for post graduate students, these are always based on research. Then both universities jointly work on research and their faculties collaborate. Successful exchange can happen only when students are given a certain kind of support. The student pays the fee in his home institution but is taken care of by the host institution when he goes there and then only do we go for such a relationship. We expect reciprocal arrangements and that is why, we don’t have too many tie-ups.