The decision of the Human Resource Development Ministry to >raise the annual undergraduate student fees at the Indian Institutes of Technology to Rs. 2 lakh marks another major initiative by these leading education institutions to realise their real costs. Continuing with the policy of affirmative action, students from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, candidates with disability and those from families with a defined low income will get fee exemption. An upward revision of the annual fees was made twice by the IITs during the UPA government, taking it from Rs.25,000 to Rs.90,000, based on expert committee recommendations. Several concessions for candidates from the weaker sections were offered even then. It is important that fees for higher education are structured in such a way that the opportunity for the brightest students to enrol in the best institutions is not linked to their socio-economic backgrounds. There is also merit in the argument that education is a basic right that access to this must be widened by every possible means; enlightened policy pursues this ideal in a variety of ways. The fee revision scheme to be introduced broadly meets these criteria, and is consistent with the social deprivations that SC and ST students have faced, although the deficit they suffer due to a neglected school system remains unaddressed by overall education policy. It is also important to ensure that the liberal education loan linkage for IIT students that the Devang Khakhar committee recommended, with no collateral requirements, is in place.
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who envisaged the IIT system as the technological manpower base for a nascent nation, said in his convocation address to graduating students of the Institute in Kharagpur in 1956 that it would be “fantastically stupid” to train people for certain ends and not utilise them. In the decades since, droves of IIT graduates have left for good research and employment prospects abroad, raising the question whether India derived adequate social returns for the beneficial and relatively low-cost education that these institutions offered them. For some time now, though, an open economy with an avowed policy of encouraging entrepreneurial initiative has offered technologists greater freedom within the country, although in several areas of research, such as computer science and materials, the base remains low, and encourages graduates to migrate. The imperative should therefore be to attract and retain talent, while protecting academic freedom and the principle of equity. This can be done through a funding system that does not close the door on a meritorious student who finds the fees unaffordable. An income-linked loan scheme open to everyone, tied to the ability of the graduate to repay (rather than the status of a student’s parents) would be an equitable option. The IITs should still offer generous assistantships flowing from social and charitable endowments. That would serve as a model for technical education and research.
