It has been an eventful decade for M.S. Ananth at the helm of Indian Institute of Technology - Madras, the jewel in the crown of higher education in the State. Known for his talks laced with a touch of philosophy, wry humor and a vision for the institute, Ananth stepped down as director last month. On the lawns of his house where deer graze, Ananth shares with Education Plus his accomplishments and the vision for future. Even before he was appointed as director, Prof. Ananth had the opportunity to write down the mission statement for the IIT-M. And he wrote thus: “The institute should be in dynamic equilibrium with its social, ecological, and economic environment.” The idea was to ensure that the institute had dynamic equilibrium, whereby the idea was not insulated from the environment, but involved.
“By taking up socially relevant projects, we ensured that the society valued the institute. Educational institutes through their innovations and competence are indirect contributors to economy. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) will bring in a lot of money into our country in future. And my dream project, the research park, was the result of this idea,” Prof.Ananth says.
The first of its kind, the research park has 38 companies and 10 incubates. Industrialists, professors and students interact and the atmosphere is most conducive for innovations. What he wants are foreign nationals from diverse cultures coming to the research park. “There will be so much of expertise under one roof, where fertile minds and minds that have different attitude meet and function beautifully. This is what I call meeting of unlikely minds,” he says. When Prof. Ananth took over, IIT-M had 320 faculty and 120 of them were to retire in five years. “Having young faculty can refresh the system if they have the academic freedom. With this idea in mind, I recruited 300 young faculty. And this is the biggest addition in the institution in ten years time,” he says. He is of the opinion that research combined with teaching is vital to develop passion in teaching.
Armed with enthusiastic and young faculty of high potential, has had very many advantages. Faculty commitment can enhance the industry-academia interaction. “Once the faculty interacts with industry periodically, they know the industry requirement and that acts as a reality check on their teaching,” he points out. Research publication has gone up by a factor of four. IIT-M has three publications per year per faculty member. Consultancy has grown by a factor of 10 in the last year. The institute has revised 300 courses and proposed 600 new courses per semester across its 16 departments. “At IIT-M the research productivity is on par with any top university around the world.”
National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) was steered by him. NPTEL provides e-learning through online web and video courses in engineering, science and humanities streams. “The mission of NPTEL is to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country by providing free online courseware. For me it was a highly rewarding experience,” Prof. Ananth says.
“The concept of open courseware is new to India. In the U.S. it is used to enhance one's understanding of a subject. After analysing the syllabus of all universities, we got the AICTE nod and prepared the courseware in a confirmed pattern,” he says. Thus far, the NPTEL has created 240 course wares and this has been utilized by four million students. In phase two of NPTEL, 1000 courseware will be prepared by December 2012. In phase two, management and other subjects will also be included.
Management studies and humanities were given lot of importance during the directorship. “In the economic development of a country, technology plays a small role. We need people who will take issues to the grassroots level. Various issues that may affect the life of a common man must be discussed in society at large. A full-fledged department of humanities and social sciences was launched keeping this in mind,” he says. IITM's five-year integrated programme in developmental studies has been highly successful.
Achieving ecological equilibrium in the campus known for its biodiversity has, and will be, quite a tough task. As IIT-M was on an expansion mode, a biodiversity study was undertaken. Prosopisalone, an invasive species was identified as a threat and new buildings were constructed in the areas where these rogue trees were growing, he says. When a new hostel building was planned, the forest department undertook a study of the deer path that crossed the building site and created a new alternative route for them. Fences with in the campus have been removed in order to enable free movement of black bucks. At the IITM, self-help groups are involved in the cleaning of the campus. Under this Ozone Project, organic waste is segregated and manure sent back to the forest. The other waste and scraps are sold and that generates Rs.30,000 per month. This fund is utilized to educate the children of the SHG.
Vision
Internationalization is very important for IIT-M in order to compete with the top class universities in the world. To be ranked internationally we need to have at least ten per cent faculty and 20 per cent students from abroad. Medicine and law must find its way into the IITs. International students must be encouraged to do their internships over here.
Engineers play a very vital and significant role in the field of medicine. The demand for clinical engineers will be high in the country and keeping this in mind, the IIT-M offers an M.Tech degree in clinical engineering and Ph.D programme in biomedical devices and technology, in collaboration with Sri Chitra Tirunal Institute of medical science and technology and CMC, Vellore.
“Without the tremendous cooperation and support of the staff and the faculty, I could not have achieved my visions for the institute. The remarkable success of Research park and the NPTEL was made possible because of teamwork,” Prof. Ananth says. He leaves the city shortly and will relocate to Bangalore, where he will teach at the IISc.
Published - August 08, 2011 03:49 pm IST
