Indian Education System

[puneets]

10nnix- Aren't most B.Techs getting starting offers around 5-6 lakhs these days ? When I graduated from IITB 7 yrs ago, the avg used to around 2.5 lakhs. I guess the pay scale for profs hasn't doubled in in these 7 yrs.

[10nnix]

Yes BTechs do get about 4-6 Lacs (IITs Comp Sc) but  not monthly, its annual salary    secondly, it is not the BTechs, we are talking about PHDs.  PHDs are not in as much in demand as comp Sc BTechs from IIT are.

[prasen9]

And at least in computer science, guys with a Ph.D. can get what 2-3 lakhs a month in industry?  T

Which industry? Which country? In India, most of times Comp sc PhDs are undeployable (over qualified) other than in a few companies such as Google (who only need some 5 PHDs in india). In India, no body gets 2-3 Lakhs unless we are talking about a very senior level position (tech positions are seldom considered senior positions the way indian service industry is structured).

One of our Ph.D. students got an offer for 25-30 lakhs a year from Kodak Research India.  You guys may know better if this number sounds wrong, but, that is what he told me when he came to talk to me.  May be one data point is not good to generalize.  He may have special skills that they needed desperately at that point. What would the salary for a Ph.D. researcher be?

I have got feelers from IBM Research L, Microsoft Research India to send my students.  There is also Motorola Research India and HP Labs India from where I see people coming to conferences to present their research.  They must be hiring Ph.D.s.  The market certainly is small, but, the best Ph.D.s would rather choose those with higher salaries than IITs.  Some Ph.D.s go to industry even if they are underemployed than go teach.  One of our faculty members moved to Chennai as the VP of Technology or something like that of a company instead of going to teach at IIT, Chennai.  I think if the salaries at IIT, Chennai were competitive, he may have considered it seriously.

[suresh]

IITM B.Techs get starting annual salaries in the range 6-26 lakhs.

Just one comment: an academic career is not for somebody who wants to make money You have to enjoy teaching and research else it becomes the world's lousiest job. I wouldn't trade my job for something that pays 30 lakhs per annum. Every good paper that I write, every student that I am able to inspire is good enough. Sounds cliched but is true.

[prasen9]

Absolutely, Suresh.  I agree.  But, for a significant number of our students money is a consideration.  It is not the be-all and end-all, but, it is one of the factors when it is 1:8.  Not for everybody.  That is why the IITs have some excellent people in the faculty.  But, will you be able to find enough such people for 16 IITs?  My guess, not, at least not now.  Increasing the pay will get a few more people in.  Some faculty members I know resort to external consulting.  If their salaries were decent, then some would not possibly engage in that and concentrate on their research and teaching more.  Despite some benefits of being grounded by interacting with industry, these gigs are largely a nuisance.

[puneets]

That is why the IITs have some excellent people in the faculty.  But, will you be able to find enough such people for 16 IITs? 

I've added an emphasis on "some". From my personal experience at IIT Bombay (B.Tech Mechanical), I can safely say that this "some" was barely arounds 10-15%. Most of the Maths and Physics profs in the first year were great, and inspired a lot of students. Once we moved into the deptt, the quality of profs was considerably lower. There were some exceptions, but the majority were not great teachers (or for that matter great researchers). There were courses where you could gain much more knowledge by reading the textbook, than by attending lectures.

The lack of enthusiasm from students is a big reason why some profs don't put it a lot of effort in teaching. But I guess that it is not the main reason.

[prasen9]

I agree with you Puneet.  A person who is a good teacher would not teach badly especially at the UG level.  There is absolutely no reason why the faculty does not even engage in good research.  Except a handful of professors in each department with exceptions like the path-breaking work of Manindra Agarwal: Primes is in P, the others are useless.  This is very sad because the Chinese who had almost no culture of research are making progress by leaps and bounds.  In our top conferences where there were no Chinese authors from China ten years ago, now, we see 2-3 papers regularly of good quality and that is on the rise.  The IITs are happy with their slumber, I guess, of course, a few individual glorious efforts notwithstanding.

[Kumar]

IITians not joining ISRO, 60% students walked out of a recruitment drive after seeing pay structure: S Somanath

"Our best talents are supposed to be engineers and they are supposed to be IITians," he said in an interview with Asianet News. "But, they are not joining ISRO. If we go and try to recruit from IIT, no one joins."

Somanath's revelation that less than one per cent of IITians join ISRO has sparked a debate, with some suggesting that many talents should join the space agency as their education at IITs is heavily subsidised. However, some also backed students saying money is the main attraction for everyone. "I believe ISRO has to make packages attractive for the freshers of IITs," said one Anmol Sharma.

https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/sto ... 2023-10-11

Replying to Saffron post in this thread restored from obscurity

Why not look for candidates from IISEr where importance is allegedly given to Research? Either way, packagers has to be attractive. U want the best, pay the best.

Average fees in private schools is between 600-1500 rs per month. these are the lowest rung pvt schools.

the so called international schools that have become a big fad these days - charge between 12000 to 40000 rs per month

Wondering how much the schools charge today compared to 15 years back. Also government spent 800Rs per student in govt school then. What do they spend? Probably 4000?

[prasen9]

My point is that you have to pay. Or require service in response to subsidies during the college years, like compulsory army service in some countries. But, just talking about it saying oh, these people should join isro is B.S. Achieves nothing. Will never happen. ISRO possibly knows that and is fine with who they are getting. They are also doing fine with whatever people they have and sometimes having a good team of worker bees is a good idea. You don't always need the best minds for everything. Although I suppose you do need some best minds for rocket science. And, as Suresh commented 15 years ago or so, yes, people will take less money to go into these research positions.

I have made less in academia than I did in Silicon Valley. And, I could not be happier.

So you have to give people something. Either pay. Or a fantastic opportunity to make something great. Or some combination of the two and various other things.

[srini]

So you have to give people something. Either pay. Or a fantastic opportunity to make something great. Or some combination of the two and various other things.

ISRO gives free Masala dosa and Filter coffeee ! Happy ??
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/trend ... 94931.html

Now tell me why IITians or for that matter engineering graduates from any decent engineering college should be joining ISRO ? Many engineering graduates may start with 8-10 Lakhs but with in no time (say 5-10 years) most of them will be earning 35-40 lakhs annually in IT-services which creates the major chunk of jobs in India now a days. Covid time has brought about a disproportionate rise in IT/Service industry salaries compared to their peers in other engineering industry or government sector. Due to the export nature of IT industry, it helps sustain such salaries.

Now here is the current salary structure for government sector.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaries_ ... s_in_India

25-30 Lakh salary cap in Gov sector. As you said "You don't always need best minds for everything" but if an average IQ level IT/Service professional with 10-12 years of experience earns more than ISRO director how would you motivate even decent brains to join ISRO. ISRO may seem to be doing 'ok' now, but the people who steered ISRO to this level joined the organization back in 1990s when they were paid significantly higher than what most IT/Service companies used to along with the social esteem such a career would give. The number of people in IT-Services was also very small in number back in 1990s. All that has changed now. I ask when ISRO is earning so many millions in revenue from their commercial ventures (i would suppose the government spending on the ISRO scientists salaries would be a fraction of the millions of dollars revenue it earns from placing the foreign satelites with its PSLV launches) then why not pass some of the benifits back to the brains behind the earnings? You plan to lure them with free Idly,Dosa...and ISRO will become another Roscosmos with no successful interplanetary launch in the last 2 decades.

[Omkara]

Yes BTechs do get about 4-6 Lacs (IITs Comp Sc) but  not monthly, its annual salary    secondly, it is not the BTechs, we are talking about PHDs.  PHDs are not in as much in demand as comp Sc BTechs from IIT are.

Any idea where is this guy? He stopped posting after 2010....

[suresh]

I hope y'all are aware of the Indian Institute of Space Technology (IIST) at Trivandrum -- how many of their undergraduates work for ISRO? This is an ISRO run institution.