The IIT Affiliate Program

The IIT Affiliate Program A program to make teaching and research at IIT more attractive to faculty as well as PhD students

In Next Few Pages
IIT affiliate program
A distance learning program
Teach 50x more students at 0.8x quality
Offers individual course certification
Affiliated students pick and choose courses
Pay for the courses
No additional Infrastructure needed
Financial rewards for faculty and graduate students
Attract talented affiliated students for PhDs at IITs
No Government help needed

Background Faculty crunch at IIMs, IITs IIT-Bombay faculty joins nationwide protest for higher pay IIT faculty to go on hunger strike on Sep 24 IIT Bombay, Roorkee faculty go on mass leave The professors of IIT Bombay who held placards and walked out of the campus pointed out that to become the professor of an IIT, one has to have a PhD which entails loss of income. The government is not even giving any scholastic pay, said another professor of IIT Bombay. IIT faculty take casual leave to protest against snipped pay hike Foreign Faculty to teach at IITs Faculty shortage: IITs to go on a global hunt IIT faculty vacancies at 30%’ Govt raises pay for IIT faculty Professors earn Rs 50000 at IIT, Rs 5 lakh at Harvard

A Simple Solution
Learn from the the story of Higwe Bazar
A video by Arvind Kejriwal
http://www.nextindia.org/index.php/2009/07/04/swaraj-story-of-hiware-bazar/
IIT Affiliate program
Don’t ask the Government, do it yourself
Provide IIT quality education to 20x more students
Increase financial opportunities to faculty
Attract more PhD students

The IIT Affiliate Program
An IIT distance learning program for
Corporate employees
UG students in affiliated colleges
Offer course certification with grades
Maintain same quality at that of IIT students
Same questions paper as regular IIT students
Same evaluation standards
Get paid well

Logistics
Record IIT lectures
Distribute DVDs within 24 hours of lecture delivery
May consider live webcast/telecast – but less reliable, more expensive doesn’t add value if students cannot ask live questions
Strict quality control of testing is a must
Success of IITs is partly because of the quality and integrity of its entrance test
The program to be made highly prestigious
Enroll 50x students, let 40x fail
After all everyone doesn’t get admitted to IITs
Conduct major/minors with regular IIT students
Same tests as those to regular IIT students
Decide cutoffs based on the bell-curve of IIT-students only
Use those cutoffs to decide grades to the affiliates

Finances
Get paid well (even failed students pay)
If they can pay Kota coaching Institutes why not pay IITs?
Everyone doesn’t get admitted to IITs but everyone pays Kota
But an IIT Affiliate gets the IIT education
Minus formal degree and lab works
Plus IIT course certification
Some numbers
Affiliate strength 1000
A three credit course if charged at
Rs 1000 per month per college student per credit
Rs. 3000 per month per corporate student per credit
Will generate Rs. 30-90 Lakhs per month
Use the money to
Handle logistics cost
Pay faculty consulting fee proportional to the number of students enrolled in course
Pay graduate students who assist faculty in handling the course

Some Important Points to Consider
Ensure freedom, accountability and decentralized decision making
Each department to handle affiliates program independently
Each faculty free to decide course prerequisites
Needs to be a regular IIT course
Need a critical mass of regular IIT students (for grading/QC)
Gets paid by course strength
Students free to choose courses
Faculty evaluation to be made public
To help next batch of affiliate pick the courses
Efficient operation using outsourcing
Lecture recording and distribution
Financial management

Long Term Plan: IIT for Everyone
IIT-degree to full-time students
In selected local engineering colleges
Follow the complete IIT curriculum
A pyramidal structure
Admission to next semester conditional on good performance in the past semester
Selected affiliate students may study in IIT campus in the final years
Invited to the IIT campus interviews
Get access to faculty recommendations
May join MS/PhD program at IITs
IIT Strength = X Year 1 (50x) Year 2 (10x) Year 3 (2x) Year 4 (x/2): Get IIT Degrees

Conclusions
Most major Universities in US have distance education programs
Charge heavy fee
Make extensive use of IT and Internet
Why can’t IITs do it?
The IIT affiliate program
Good for society
Can teach many more students with little addition in infrastructure
Good for students
IIT opportunity for those who had a bad day on JEE (e.g. traffic jam)
Good for faculty – get more income
May be able to attract more PhD students
Access to 50x more students
IITB already making video lectures available, for free
Complement it with rigorous testing and certification
Instead of asking higher salaries, ask freedom
To run the IIT affiliate program

http://www.nextindia.org	85
http://iitaffiliate.wordpress.com	2
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com	1

The IIT Affiliate Program

by rahulgarg2000 on Sep 22, 2009

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

3 Embeds 88

Statistics

The IIT Affiliate Program — Presentation Transcript