Temples of Modern India

• The quality of faculty, R&D activities, patents filed, all affect
  employability of students, improve the HR perception and impact future funding
  channels
• The newer IITs need a lot of catching up to do and have to go through a
  natural evolutionary process as the older ones took decades to build such
  excellence
• The average maximum salary offered went up from Rs 8.9 lakh in 2007-08 to Rs
  9.2 lakh in 2008-09

It is one of the most-awaited surveys of the year: The Dataquest-IDC T-School
Survey. It is also probably one of those stories that invite the maximum number
of readers responseboth from students and colleges, either appreciating or
debunking it.

With every passing year, the survey has brought out the trends and has been
used as a benchmark by many institutes in India to evaluate where they stand.
This year has served as a level playing field for all technology schools in
India as the recession and its effects did dry up many channels for quick
growth. Lack of research funds, poor campus recruitments, less number of MoUs,
lower average compensations have been the key factors that have affected every
institute participating in the survey this year. These factors have also led to
extremely low HR perception scores which have brought down the overall scores by
an average of two percentage points. These factors have caused a major reshuffle
in rankings and have also thrown up some surprises.

There are six new entries into the Top 20 T-Schools list this year. The entry
of BITS Pilani, Jadhavpur University, and NIT Tiruchirappalli, who decided to
give the survey a miss last year, make for a jam-packed Top 20 list. Apart from
this, the entry of two more NITsNIT Surathkal and NIT Warangalas well as that
of Anna University into the Top 20 list has pushed many other institutes down in
their rankings.

The number of colleges participating in the survey has gone up to 111 from 70
last year. The growth in participation is also because this year we decided to
push our survey fieldwork to October and November unlike previous years when it
used to take place around the month of April. This shift has worked to our
advantage, as by then most colleges have either completed their placements or
are going through their last phase of campus recruitments, hence are able to
share all their placement related information. Till last year, we were forced to
rely on the previous academic years placement statistics. But that anomaly has
been tackled this year and we have been able to conduct all analysis based on
the 2007-08 placement data.

This year, there are hardly any significant institutes which have given the
survey a miss. While the IITs continue to lead in rankings, IIT Mumbai still
remains inconspicuous by its absence. Controversies on fee structures and
strikes by professors demanding pay hikes, have not deterred the performance of
these premier institutes. The IIT brand has been spreading every year with the
launch of new IITs across the country.

Reign of the IITs

The IITs continue to reign, holding onto the top six positions. IIT
Kharagpur continues to hold onto the top spot, IIT Delhi once again follows at
the second position. There has been a minor shift in the order of rankings among
other IITs. IIT Madras climbed up three ranks to #3, pushing IIT Roorke down by
two ranks and IIT Guwahati down one position. The high HR perception numbers and
addition of biggies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Abode, etc, is what has helped
IIT Kharagpur hold onto its #1 position. In addition, the institute has also
been putting in additional efforts and investments to ramp up its flailing
infrastructure. IIT Delhi too has displayed very impressive placement data and a
very favorable HR response. Last year, IIT Delhi became the first institute to
start international outreach programs to students in Ethiopia. IIT Chennais
climb up the ranks is mainly due to its excellent scores in the infrastructure
and academic environment parameters.

From just six IITs in 2000, the IITs have considerably expanded and today
there are fifteen IITs with the latest being launched in Rajasthan. The first
group of the IITsKharagpur, Mumbai, Chennai, Kanpur, Delhi, Guwahati, and
Roorkee stand out as one of the finest technology schools in the country. These
are seen as legacy IITs. The newer IITs need a lot of catching up to do and have
to go through a natural evolutionary process as the older ones took decades to
build such excellence. Another major trend in all the IITs is its expansion from
their typical technology domains. Few months back the HRD ministry drove home
the message that the IITs need to diversify and expand into areas like medicine
and law, and IIT Kharagpur has already launched modules on IT law and will be
the first one to offer a degree in medicine.

Next after the IITs is IIIT Hyderabad that has been one of the most
consistent in its rankings over the past three years. Its extreme research led
focus and excellent placement statistics with the average compensation at Rs 6.1
lakh (despite the slowdown) and growth in number of campus recruiters has helped
it remain firm at its position. The entry of BITS Pilani and NIT Surathkal into
the Top 10 list has dislodged many others from their previously favorable
rankings. BITS Pilani, and the high HR perception associated with it has
automatically pushed up its rankings several notches. This year, also indicated
the growing presence of NITs, despite being among the newest T-Schools in the
country. NIT Surathkal, NIT Warangal, and NIT Tiruchirappalli have all done
exceedingly well across all parameters. While placements and industry interface
have been the strong points of both NIT Surathkal and NIT Warangal, NIT
Tiruchirapalli that came back after a gap of one year has displayed excellent
scores on the academic environment front. The two institutes to have been the
most affected by low HR perception scores are NIT Calicut and Netaji Subhash
Institute of Technology. Having dropped seven ranks, both institutes have lost
their exalted positions in the Top 10 club. Going beyond the Top 20 club,
Bharatiya Vidyapeeth dropped sixteen ranks due to poor placement last year while
Thapar University dropped eight ranks as it still grapples with administrative
issues. It has produced very few PhDs and has failed to create any awareness
among students beyond North India.

Every year, 75% of the weightage is given to response from institutes, that
is arrived at after normalization of the weights attributed to aspects such as
placements, intellectual capital, infrastructure, and industry interface. The
remaining 25% is reserved for the perception of recruiters. This year, DQ-IDC
spoke to about thirty companies across all industry verticals such as
manufacturing, IT, oil, and gas, etc, to get a more balanced view in the wake of
the slowdown.

Getting into the Parameters

The institute scores have come down basically due to the low placement
scenario. The number of companies going to campus for recruitment has dipped.
The number of job offers made last year have also been less in number. Hence,
the number of institutes boasting 100% placements are very few. On an average,
about fifty-four companies visited the campus last year of which twenty-five
were IT/BPO companies. However, the average maximum salary offered went up from
Rs 8.9 lakh in 2007-08 to Rs 9.2 lakh in 2008-09. The other good news is that
recruiters were willing to recruit from even relatively less known colleges.
Students who did not get into IITs had a respite as many known recruiters
visited their institutes. NSIT Delhi was among the best ranked colleges on the
placement front at #2. Apart from this, NIT Warangal, NIT Calicut, IIIT
Hyderabad, and Delhi Technology University have displayed excellent placement
figures.

Being the top T-Schools for the past many years, all the IITs are expected to
have the best infrastructure. While IIT Madras and IIT Roorkee hold the top two
positions in this parameter, the NITs, Jadhavpur University, and Anna University
score ahead of even IIT Kanpur and IIT Kharagpur. On the academic environment
front, the IITs once again lead the list. However, giving tough competition are
College of Engineering and Technology, Institute of Technology, IIIT Hyderabad,
and IIIT Allahabadall featuring in the Top 10 list.

While academic environment remains the only parameter that is not directly
impacted by the affects of the slowdown, it still has the scope to create the
differentiating factor in the academic excellence of every institute. The
quality of faculty, research and development activities, patents filed, all
affect the employability of students, improve the HR perception and also impacts
the future funding channels. While many of the autonomous institutes did face
funding issues from the corporate sector, they managed to sustain their ongoing
research efforts and focused on filing patents. No doubt, this has to an extent
brought down the number of new research initiatives taken up by universities
last year. But many institutes are now focusing their efforts on building CoEs (Centers
of Excellence) to narrow down their research expertise and build a niche for
themselves. NITs is a perfect example in this case.

The DQ-IDC T-School surveys for the past five years have displayed that
excellent infrastructure and academic environment does not always lead to
students faring well on the placement front or good HR perception scores. The
institutes level of industry interface, the number of industry training and
internship programs launched, MoUs signed with companies for syllabus
modifications, joint research papers launched, international affiliations;
student exchange programs, etc, all tip the scales in its favor. This year PSG
College from Coimbatore and NIT Surathkal have grabbed the two positions,
respectively. While PSG College is known for its industry focused white papers,
NIT Surathkal has recently brought on Board professional chairs from companies
such as HP, Bosch, SAIL among others which takes it up a few notches in the
industry interface parameter.

While we did touch upon the infrastructure aspect earlier, this year we went
a step ahead and did a study on all the institutes IT adoption levels, IT
consumption patterns, etc. We have rated all institutes. This also gives a vivid
picture of where exactly institutes need to ramp up to provide students with
better IT infrastructure and to what extent the infrastructure quotient affects
the overall score. This year, 79% of the colleges provided students access to
Internet in the hostels. This has gone up from 74% last year. Also, 69% of the
institutes are Wi-Fi enabled. The average number of installed computers is 991
with over 70% of the institutes using Gigabyte Ethernet and over 60% providing
access through VLAN. A quick glance at the nature of technologies adopted by the
institutes is encouraging as it is indicative of the level of sophistication
that the institutes are gradually reaching. Over 79% of the institutes surveyed
have access to e-books and e-journals, and also have adopted electronic
standards for filing patents. Among the technologies and services deployed,
information management, security management and infrastructure management are
the most popular. The level of IT outsourcing is very poor among the T-Schools.
Still, about 55% of the institutes surveyed have an internal IT team managing
all the IT infrastructure and application needs while only 3% of them have
outsourced their IT functions to a third party.

As mentioned earlier, the poor HR perception scores this year have affected
the overall scores of the best institutes. HR perception has always been
influenced by the image building efforts and brand value of institutes. For
example, Thapar University, that was at #13 last year has gone down several
ranks simply because the institute is known to have administrative issues and,
also, has not done much to spread its brand across India. At the same time, BITS
Pilani, which has not done exceedingly well in other parameters, is still
cashing in on past efforts and the immense brand value built over time. While HR
perception is indicative of the brand associated, it has also a lot to do with
how the institute manages recruiters expectations. And expectations were of a
different nature, with recruiters wanting institutes to bring down their salary
expectations and also the number of candidates offered jobs. Institutes which
were able to tackle the recruiters expectations have managed to fare better.

While even the T-Schools could not escape the volatilities brought in by the
slowdown, they now foresee an improvement in research funding, grants, placement
statistics, average compensation offered in the coming year as the market is now
showing signs of stability. Only the T-School Survey next year will be able to
establish whether these expectations come true.

Priya Kekre

priyak@cybermedia.co.in