IITs have failed to deliver in research and development. In my very humble opinion, they have transformed in glorified employment exchanges main emphasis being on fetching a 7 figure paycheck after 4 years.
Students here are driven by a lot of social pressures to get into an IIT just with a mindset that this wil l help them get high paying job helping them to lead a cushy life.
And pray, you being from IIT what makes you qualified enough to show this statement is wrong? I'm not saying the portrayal of the movie was correct but to make a sweeping generalizable statement above ; one needs to be part of a setup other than IITs.
I know some great teachers too. But, the majority of the teachers are just wasting their time as well as those of their students. There is no love for the subject they teach.
"While I agree that a lot of educational institutes in India suffer from under-qualified or uninspired teaching - I do not believe that it is the core reason of all that is wrong with the education system."
Finding a core reason for the maladies of Indian educational system is a never-ending exercise. But, a lot of problems will be solved if we have more inspired teachers.
As much as I would have want to do research with full rigor and motivation, I find myself not as bright as those who I have seen being very successful. I still try to do as much as I can, hoping that my efforts will be enough. And I know that there are many many others who don't have a zeal for their research projects at all and I can give their point of view as well. IITs are the best place to for Undergraduate programs, they are very popular among parents and high-school students alike. If a student is not 100% sure about what he/she wants to do in life or if the parents are not open enough to let him try extreme things (in the Indian sense of occupation) like acting, fine arts etc, you give JEE and you go to IITs if you can. A lot of students find engineering to be just what they were looking for, a lot of others don't and do something else. As of research work, keeping aside the fact that IITs do lack the infinite resources that US universities have, we lack industrial connections and a research oriented culture for undergraduates. Not sure if US universities face the same kind of issues with their UG students or not, but I think it is unfair to expect a lot from UG students.
Now coming to PG curriculum and research there: I like my research project. I feel proud whenever the simulation ends and when my modeling results match my simulation results, and sad when they don't. Proper PG students (ie not DD students like me) in IITs work harder, much harder, than UG students. The lack of research output may be because the brightest of UG students get into US universities where there are better research groups and opportunities. Or may be because other engineering colleges from where the PG students have completed their Undergraduate programs didn't offer as much as IITs (or US universities do).
It is unfair to compare IITs with other institutes, there are a lot of factors at play. Sure, we want high paying jobs - but if they are available who won't? Think about the socio-economic pressure on the students as well. For a middle income family most salaries that are offered to IIT graduates will bring about a significant change in lives of these students as well as their families. It might be a different case in US (and other countries) but a lot of us face these issues. I was lucky that I don't, but I know many students with parents who will feel happier if their child settles down with a high paying job and not pursue higher education for another 2 - 5 years.
If you really feel so strongly about the issue, I really suggest you give back to an IIT (or your own alma-mater) in some way - donations (you can decide where exactly is your money spent), visits to share experiences and even research projects. I just did 2 Research and development projects in last two semesters - one was in collaboration with an external company. They were great fun!
I find myself not as bright as those who I have seen being very successful. I still try to do as much as I can, hoping that my efforts will be enough.
I didn't get into the IITs after my 12th and thought myself not smart and hardworking enough to do well at an IIT, leave alone at research. Many years and plenty of twists and turns later, I'm now a graduate student at a well-regarded and extremely selective US university. I have a small number of papers, some of which even get cited every now and then (!) and a couple of patents. The main thing I learned from all this is that in research it's not very important to be smart, because I see people smarter than me all the time, what's important is to actually like what you're doing sufficiently that you enjoy thinking really hard about it.
lack of research output may be because the brightest of UG students get into US universities where there are better research groups and opportunities. Or may be because other engineering colleges from where the PG students have completed their Undergraduate programs didn't offer as much as IITs (or US universities do).
There's a combination of factors here. Many good students do choose to go the US/Europe over India and I can sort of see why they do that. Life, in general, sucks a little less here, the professors are little better, opportunities are a little easier to get, and of course, a good job after graduation is significantly easier. I studied at IISc and got to know quite a few faculty there and at a couple of IITs. I feel that the Indian system is improving rapidly and there are many good professors who are doing excellent research at IISc and the IITs. Having said that, I think that some things are still harder to do in India, and some professors are still very mediocre and some still harbour rather regresive views on how research should be done. A generation or two from now I expect things will be a lot better.
It is unfair to compare IITs with other institutes, there are a lot of factors at play. Sure, we want high paying jobs - but if they are available who won't? Think about the socio-economic pressure on the students as well. For a middle income family most salaries that are offered to IIT graduates will bring about a significant change in lives of these students as well as their families. It might be a different case in US (and other countries) but a lot of us face these issues. I was lucky that I don't, but I know many students with parents who will feel happier if their child settles down with a high paying job and not pursue higher education for another 2 - 5 years.
This is an excellent point.
We're still at that phase in our development where it's more important to ensure economic security for oneself so that one is guaranteed a reasonable standard of living. Foregoing these "high-paying jobs" and doing research, in effect, means accepting a significantly lower standard of living and it's completely unreasonable to expect people to do that in a still-developing country like India.
Each year almost 7000 teenagers are filtered out in India to be sent to IIT, the best place of all in India. At least 10% of these are supposed (or 'have the potential') to drive scientific, technical innovation in India. The present conditions at IIT are not at all encouraging in Research except Computer Science and Electrical mostly. The problems are many fold. One important problem is the faculty, except that of CS, lack a vision and passion for research. While CS, Elec profs have undergrad experience at IITs, it is not at all true for other departments like Physics. [Yup, I am from EP]. The profs are ones who had a B.Sc at some regional university and MTech and Phd at IIT. And I say CS students are not the ones who can contribute to the core Scientific Research. They drive Technological Innovations. But the research in CS is very 'volatile'. There is no sharing of Ideas in other departments as in CS. Ideas quickly spread in CS and give rise to better solutions to problems. But not so in medicine or physics. India already has a great 'research' contributions in CS. I myself has lost all the passion taking Physics as my professional career after coming here, and I am pursuing CS (which I was naturally able to connect, given it's mathematical nature, the first fav subj for any IITian). And I regret for loosing Physics. And there are so many friends in Physics, BioTech who had taken the dept in spite of good chances in other departments. And it is very essential to make use of these bright students for research. The IIT is the only bet for good research. Even if research is not directly produced at IIT, at least the conditions should be encouraging to instill the passion in students, before pumping money.
There are attempts already being made to do this. In past 5 years at IITB I have seen: Student Satellite Project, RaceCar (BAJA) Project, Some very neat summer projects for freshmen, BioFuel project and others. Enthusiastic faculty is now trying on their own time to reach out to students and motivate them. And this was across departments not just CSE or Electrical Engineering.
If you believe that we do not do real work and research, either back your claim or keep your prejudice to yourself. IITs are involved in research work[2] and we do not do fictional/worthless work. I have no idea what qualifies as real research work for you, but I am sure you will find a lot of decent research work happening in IITs if you are willing to shed your prejudice.
[And I do not believe that this is the right place to discuss this. We can discuss it here if you wish to continue, you can leave a comment on my profile: https://plus.google.com/112310425433589490684/posts]
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_of_India [2]: List of papers by just IITB Academic Community: http://www.ircc.iitb.ac.in/IRCC-Webpage/DisplayResearchPaper...