Enter, IIT
The announcement that the central government has approved a scheme to set up an Indian Institute of Technology at the Farmagudi campus is welcome news for students and the state in general. To be set up on a public-private participation basis on a 85:15 ratio, the proposed IIT is expected to get Rs 100-150 crore financial contribution from the Centre, while the state government will invite bids to finalize the private partner for the project.
Goa is one of 20 states scheduled to have new IITs and when set up this will increase career options for local students, though it is unclear if any time-frame has been placed to get the IIT started.
Students might also take heart that last week’s visit by Union Human Resource Development Minister M M Pallam Raju also saw the process of setting up a separate campus for the National Institute of Technology get a further nudge. Currently the NIT runs from a new block at the Farmagudi campus, where it has been operational from 2010. Sourcing land for the project has not been an easy issue for the government.
The ministry and NIT board had sought a 300-acre campus site, but given the small size of our state and the shortage of land, besides the difficulty in land acquisition, the government was wise at one stage to negotiate a smaller parcel of land for the NIT, offering 120 acres instead.
Several sites were considered and dropped, including Ponda and at Polem which were found to be too distant from the airport besides running into local opposition. A site near Cuncolim also ran into trouble with locals opposing the same. To the state government’s credit, it stuck to its demand that the ministry assure a 50 per cent reservation of seats for Goan students in the NIT. At one stage, this 50 per cent quota was projected to be shared between Goa and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, besides Daman and Diu. Pallam Raju’s reiteration that the Centre had now agreed to the 50 per cent reservation exclusively for Goan students will now bring the project closer to fruition.
Obviously, NITs that have come to replace the then 17 existing regional engineering colleges in 2007 are prestigious institutions of national importance. When the Goa NIT was proposed under the 12th Five Year Plan, it was offered a Rs 250 crore structure to be borne by the Centre on land provided free by the state government. The latter has been posing a problem, with the state government quite rightly holding its own in trying to get the most for its students for the trade-off in providing the land. While it is true that other states are able to provide larger campus sites, this is a genuine problem in tiny Goa with a land resource crunch. Economy in such disbursements is always a wiser policy, unlike the large parcels handed over in the past.
Until the education system evolves to higher levels of differentiation in curriculum, coinciding with a student-friendly, multidisciplinary curriculum that leverages a student’s strengths rather than the convenience of teaching staff/institutions, there will continue to be a demand for traditional engineering and medicine and consequently science streams for the more scholarly inclined, who see these as conventional avenues to build a career.
Thousands appear for the 1,300 engineering seats on offer in the few aided and non-aided engineering degree colleges in Goa. An upgraded NIT and proposed IIT will offer further options within the stream for local students, though the fact that only some 34 students cleared the IIT/JEE exams this year suggests that Goa would have to find the coaching mechanisms to increase these numbers substantially if it intends utilizing its 50 per cent reservation in the NIT or even ensuring high local presence in the IIT in future. The shortfall of science seats in higher secondary institutions, as witnessed this year, will also have to be addressed, both with additional capacity and some attention to career/aptitude guidance to prevent students from chasing down only conventional streams of study.
