Finding faculty will be a challenge when we expand: Gautam Barua, Director, IIT Guwahati

POSTED BY paras

Bikash Singh, ET Bureau Jun 3, 2011, 02.09am IST

[Source: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-06-03/news/29617116_1_phd-students-student-intake-phd-courses ]

Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT-G) will nearly double its student intake to around 6,000 from the current strength of 3,400 over the next five years. The 13-year-old institute, which was established as part of a political accord, taken several initiatives to attract bright students, director of the institute, professor Gautam Barua, Director, IIT Guwahati told ET. Excerpts from an interview: 

Is there a government directive behind the decision to increase student intake?

There is no directive from the government to increase capacity. All the old IITs are now expanding, taking student capacity to 6,000-plus. Our expansion is in tandem with other IITs.

How did you arrive at 6,000?

Every year, since our inception, we have been adding 400 students. While there is no fixed figure, our numbers can cross 6,000 in the next five years. We cannot grow faster than this. Finding faculty, and funding will be issues. Even if the government offers help with funding, the main constraint will be hiring faculty. Growth has received an impetus after reservation of seats for other backward class students.

What will the break-up of seats look like? What percentage of seats will go to B-Tech and M-Tech courses? 

It could be 50% of seats for each. It could also be 45% for undergraduate courses and 55% for post- graduate courses. This year, we had 710 PHDs. At present, PHD students comprise 20% of the students, which we would like to move up to 30%.

What challenges are you likely to face?
Getting good students is a challenge. We have taken a number of initiatives to attract them, though. These include allowing M-Tech students to move to PHD courses after one year, depending on performance. We have also allowed B-Tech students to work on PHD thesis at the end of the third year, which can later be used in the PHD course. With this incentive, students can wrap up their PHDs quickly. We are also building more hostels and increasing their capacity to 6,200.
Setting up of physical infrastructure in time is another challenge. Land fills, construction have all to be planned in advance. We have sought Rs 750 crore as capital expenditure for the 12th Plan period.
Since it is a residential campus, we have to ensure all the arrangements are in place. On the other hand, in a typical American university, none of the 30,000 students or faculty members stay on campus.

Do you think good students and teachers will choose IIT Guwahati?
It is becoming difficult to get good students to do their PHD, as they get lucrative job offers. Getting students in general, however, will not be a problem as we can double the JEE student intake.
The problem is in getting students at the post-graduate level. Students from private engineering colleges do come, but are not that good. At this stage, it is difficult to work on them.
Our faculty strength is 269 while the number of students is 3,400. The gap is huge, which holds true for other IITs too. We are trying to close this gap. More teaching staff will mean less load on them, giving them more time for research. The non-faculty staff strength is 323. We were able to secure the ministry's approval for creation of a 100 new posts, while many more on contract will be absorbed. So with 3,800 students by August, the number of posts will go up to 418.