New courses obviously play an important role in the growth of higher educational institutions. When new courses are introduced, more opportunities for promotion of teaching and non-teaching staff will automatically be generated. Grants for construction of additional buildings for lecture classes and laboratories and purchase of additional equipment will be available. With the new courses, sometimes new challenges may have to be taken up by the faculty too. Of course, there can be difference of opinion among the faculty on the choice of the area of specialization based on the promotion prospects of individuals.
As part of academic administration, two academic
bodies were constituted with
representatives from the departments. These bodies
were required to prepare,
scrutinise and finalise the curriculum and syllabi of new courses
proposed. These were the Board for Undergraduate Studies (BUGS)
for BTech courses and
Board for Postgraduate Studies (BPGS) for
the MTech, MCA and PhD programmes. Dean (UG) was the
Chairman of BUGS and Dean(PG& SR) Chairman of BPGS. The proposal for the
post graduate course prepared by the department is
discussed in detail in the BPGS before presentation in the senate.
Curriculum and syllabi were discussed and
approved here in several sittings of the BPGS. After these preliminary
works only, the proposal is presented to the Senate for
final approval and acceptance.
As mentioned briefly, emphasis
was on starting new MTech programs in engineering
departments. Engineering departments prepared proposal
based on the expertise available in their respective departments
and new
trends. These were to include the recent
developments in the different branches. Very little difference of
opinion was apparent in these. But, coming to
the proposed Masters programs in
the Science departments, clearly there were
two strong opinions. One was to start post graduate
programs similar to those available in other universities in Kerala. Another was to start
special course unique to other institutions of
higher learning like I.I.T with emphasis on emerging
areas of applied sciences. The Director and myself
were of the opinion that the course
offered by N.I.T should have a stamp of
its own and should not be a ‘run of the mill’ courses. We were of
the opinion that we should start
MSc(Tech) courses of
three years duration instead of the usual
two-year MSc courses available in
other universities. However, members of faculty in the
departments of Physics and Chemistry were for starting conventional
courses, mainly for reasons for ease of teaching. MSc(Tech) courses
could be like the integrated MSc(Tech) courses available
in I.I.Ts.
Mathematics department was ready as they
had been teaching engineering mathematics for the B.Tech and M.Tech
courses already for several years. However, teachers in the science
departments who were teaching
mostly in the first and second
years of the B.Tech courses were skeptical about these new
format courses. However, a few teachers
who had taken their PhD from IITs on new areas were for modern courses. After prolonged discussions,
we decided to start three-year MSc(Tech)
course in Materials Science in Physics department
and Polymer Science in Chemistry department. However, it
is understood that recently these
courses have been converted to the
conventional type courses available in other universities
in the state.
Anyway, during the three
years I was Dean (PG&SR), with advice from
the in-charge Director and
the regular Director who followed and
cooperation of the colleagues in
the different departments, we could start
one more MTech course in
all the engineering departments and three
MSc(Tech) programs in the Mathematics,
Physics and Chemistry. This is something I
look back with gratification.
Further, the Ordnances and Regulations
for MTech and PhD courses were also thoroughly
revised so that the quality of
the courses could be enhanced by
stipulating conditions for satisfactory progress
and ultimate submission of the PhD theses.
Research Full
time or Part time
In the 80s and later, those who go
for full time research in engineering directly after MTech were very
few. The reason obviously was that most of
them could get reasonably good jobs after MTech. Obviously, majority of
the youngsters in our country study to get
a good job and settle down in life rather than
go on a lifetime search for acquiring knowledge and
uncover the unknown. When I
was doing my MTech in I.I.T. Madras(1973) and
PhD in I.I.T. Delhi(1978-81) in spite of being the topmost national
institutes of learning, there were very few
researchers who continued immediately after
their Masters. Even those who join, will be
preparing to write the competitive examinations for IAS, IES
etc during the first year staying in
the hostel and drawing the research scholarship as subsistence allowance. Stay in
the hostel is for nominal rent and good food at
reasonable rates were incentives for the same. Living in big
cities outside the academic institutions will be very
expensive and many youngsters somehow get into these institutions in
the pretext of doing research. If the state of
affairs in I.I.Ts are like this, think of the condition
of remotely located institutions like N.I.Ts. Moreover,
the research scholarship amount at that
time was not very attractive, but later this amount has
been increased several times and now a full-time
scholar can get almost the same
amount or more than the salary he can
get in a private engineering
college at entry level as Assistant Professor.
Nowadays, research fellowships during the first
year itself is more Rs.25,000/ month.
Because of these reasons, in
the early stages of N.I.Ts, not many full-time
scholars used to join in
engineering departments. Many of those who joined were
teachers working in other engineering colleges. Some of them must
have taken three years leave with
or without salary and joined for research. Government of India had
introduced two schemes for improving the
quality of teachers in engineering colleges by offering additional
stipend for teachers selected under these schemes and
were being paid full salary from the parent
institutions. The scheme is called Quality Improvement
Program (QIP) for engineering teachers and Faculty Improvement
Program (FIP) for Science teachers. Selection to
these schemes were a little difficult as the
number of seats was limited but once selected to an institution
where these schemes are available ( approved as QIP Centers or FIP centers), the research scholars will
be eligible to get full salary from the parent
institution and a stipend for compensating for
dislocation from the institution where research is being carried out. Those who
were deputed for higher studies under these schemes had
to sign a bond to serve the institution for a minimum period equal to the
duration of the course. The facility of getting salary and
stipend together was available to Government and Aided
Colleges under the Directorate of Technical Education only. Many of
the private colleges under the self-financing category
will depute their teachers under this scheme, but very
rarely they used to give full salary to them. At the most, the
sponsored teachers will be given a certificate that they are being
paid salary, a few may give a nominal amount or yet another group
will guarantee a job once they return
after acquiring the higher degree.
Another method of doing PhD was to do
part time research without taking leave from the parent
institution. Most of them are teachers in
private engineering colleges. The average workload per
week will be around 20 hours or more and doing research along with this work
load is not easy. Calicut university had a provision for
doing research on part time basis. The only restriction was that the
student should register under a recognized guide of the university
and work in an approved research centre of the university. As REC was an approved research center with
large number of active guides,
there were several part tie research scholars of Calicut University. When NIT was
formed, many of these part time scholars opted to be transferred to NITC. In addition, more part
time students had joined in the first few years. Many of
these research scholars had been on the roll for several years without showing any
significant progress in the research. Most of them
were not able to do research on a regular basis
because of their heavy work load and other commitments.
Whenever they get some leave or holidays, they
thought they could do something. Research requires sustained efforts
on a regular basis. Research cannot thrive as an occasional
exercise. A research scholar has to spend at least an hour or
two every day for the research and a disciplined approach is
essential for doing significant work. Very few of the part-time
scholars could complete their work and get their degree
and even those who could complete would take 7-8 years for
completion. Even if done, the quality work used to be quite
inferior.
In NITC, research students had to
study 4 or more subjects
as course work, along with regular MTech
courses or as PhD self-study courses. They have to get a
minimum Grade Point Average(GPA) of 6.5 / 10 in the course work.
For completing this coursework and the comprehensive
examinations to make sure that the scholar is adequately prepared for doing
research, at least one year will be required. So, even
for part-time scholars, minimum one-year institutional
stay was essential. After the
satisfactory completion of course work , the scholar can
return to their parent institution and continue their work if
facilities are available there. At the end of
each semester the scholars have to present the
work done till then to their Doctoral Committees and get
a ‘satisfactory progress’ for registration in
the beginning of the next semester.
When I joined as Dean,
there were large number of part
time scholars in NITC. Many of them had done practically nothing in research
except paying the fees to the institute every semester.
They will prepare something in a hurry and present it
before the Doctoral Committee, just for getting their registration
done. This, I thought, cannot be allowed and I was of
the strong opinion that those who have done
practically nothing even after three years or so may be
advised to discontinue or show marked progress
within a semester. Even some of our colleagues in the
department without PhD had registered as part time
scholars and were struggling to
meet the necessary requirements and
show progress. As PhD degree became
the minimum qualification to become a
professor as per All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) norms, there was
a frantic struggle to get a PhD degree somehow
and this resulted in many untoward actions from
these part time scholars. Some of these unfortunate
incidents which happened will be reported in
the next episode .
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