Train faculty before establishing IITs, IIMs
Much as the Chief Minister’s inclination to have an IIT, IIM and a super specialty hospital on the lines of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, is welcome, it makes one wonder, if Goa is biting off more than it can chew in great haste, considering the State’s special circumstances pertaining to human resources, limited land resources and needs as perceived by the people.
Considering that land in Goa is at a premium, with almost 37 percent of the land area under sanctuaries and forests, and more under unusable land, one important question will be finding suitable land. The CM’s assurance of finding non productive land will have to be assessed by exploring options, given that there is tremendous pressure on land for housing, etc.
Already there has been serious protests over locating the NIT at Cuncolim, which forced the previous government to push the project to Goa Engineering College’s Farmagudi campus.
The second and more important issue is for whom will these institution cater to –Goan or non Goan students. Will this land and other resources benefit, the State’s students? For this the government needs to thoroughly assess the number of graduates coming out from related streams from all Goan colleges. There is also need to assess how many Goan graduates apply and or get qualified to merit seats in such institutes outside the State, in the present circumstances considering that admission to these institutes are conducted on national merit based examinations. A macro assessment reveals that not many Goan students attempt and or qualify at the national merit based entrance to IITs, IIMs or medical institutes other than to Goa Medical College.
Indications are that since not many Goan students qualify for such merit based entrance tests, the state will have to throw open majority of the seats to non Goan students, with reservation to make allocation for Goans, which will consist a small percentage of the seats. It also has to be known that reservations (unless these are caste based) defeat the very purpose of merit based institutions such as IITs and IIMs.
The third major question while contemplating setting up such institutions in Goa is from where will the faculty come? When institutions such as the National Institute of Oceanography and Goa University were set up without advance human resource planning, a deluge of faculty came from outside the State, now making it extremely difficult for locals to get into these jobs. Presently, the UPA’s licence for setting up more IITs and IIMs in the states has left them struggling to find competent and meritorious faculty on par with international standards, which these institutions have come to live up to. The question is therefore from where will Goa find such excellent faculty?
If the government of the day (and the people) decide to establish such institutions in Goa by weighing the pros and cons, the same should be done in a time bound manner. In the immediate future, the government has to interview and shortlist bright students emerging from the colleges in Goa from the relevant streams and prepare them as faculty send them for specialized training either in India or abroad to groom them as faculty for such institutes. Outside faculty should be recruited on tenurial positions. Without long term human resource planning for the benefit of Goa, these institutes will become white elephants to subsidise other state faculty and students. Funding, which the Centre would initially provide, is only one dimension of the issue, but certainly not the most important. Just because funds are available, the state should not rush into such ventures. Goa is facing a huge unemployment problem and a threat to its land resources and identity. In larger states setting up such institutes does not largely affect either the land or demographic variables, but in Goa, which is the size of a district of larger states, both considerations are of extreme primacy to prevent the very minoritisation of Goans in their own land.
