Developing Man-Power but no Brain-Power
Myself, Ramna and Luoyi were discussing about some of the new M.Tech. courses being floated in IIT-M [A rant about the way these courses were conceived and the way they are planned is a rant for another day.].
One of the reasons for starting one such course (ours is a care-taker department for this one) is because some big-shot somewhere* thought that it is IIT’s mandate to generate scientific manpower. On hearing this, Luoyi mentioned that the problem with our system is that we just develop man-power, no brain-power.
Wanting to prove Luoyi even more correct, a student met me recently seeking help with some issues they are trying to address in the PhD thesis. This is a non-IIT student. The student has been in the PhD program for about three years now and has hardly any clue what is going on. The bigger problem is really what the PhD project entails. They are looking into a particular type of reacting system and wish to do reactor dynamics and control studies on it. As I said, the student is quite clueless about the motivation behind the project. What is worse is that an idealised$ version of a same system is used as a 20% project in a 3-credit graduate course I teach at IIT-M.
Almost an year back, a friend of mine proudly showed me a news article proclaiming that India produces more PhDs in technology that UK. If this is the kind of PhDs we don’t mind producing, I don’t see any reason to be proud of the so-called achievement.
[*] Sorry, I will not be able to give further details, so don’t bother asking.
[$] In fact, my student also uses a similar system for his M.Tech. work. The point is that applying a well-tested algorithm on a standard problem does not warrant a PhD.
Update: Edited to correct grammatical errors.
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