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Higher Education in India

Notes of an Educator

Interdisciplinary Programs with Computer Science/IT

Computer Science/IT is a young discipline. However, with easy and cheap availability computing power, its use has
become ubiquitous there is hardly any discipline or any sphere of life which is not directly affected by IT. That is
why computing (I will use computing, IT, and CS interchangeably in this note) is sometimes considered as the new
physics it is useful in all disciplines and its basic knowledge is essential. Today, in every discipline, knowledge of
computing is an asset, and there is a demand for professionals in variousdisciplines who also have decent
knowledge of computing.

CS is in some ways a simpler discipline. It is fundamentally about software and systems (many of which are
themselves software). Hence, education programs in CS focus on these. For software, there are courses like
programming, data structures, algorithms, theory behind these, software engineering, etc. And for systems, there
are courses like architecture, operating systems, compilers, networks, etc. Generally a subset of these topics form
the core (or compulsory) part of a BTech program. In the rest of the program, a student often does advances in
these areas, as well as developments special systems like databases, run time systems, etc, or application areas
like computer vision, gaming, image processing, etc.This allows for a relatively small CS core inan education
program.

Contrast this with an older discipline like Electrical Engineering. Even covering the foundations will require multiple
courses in basic sub-areas like circuits, signal processing, communications, controls, power system, etc. And to
become an engineer who can apply concepts of these, one will have to do many more advanced courses, and labs
and projects.

This ability to have a small core to teach decent amount of computing to a student which he/she can apply, renders
CS easily for interdisciplinary programs which combine CS basics with knowledge of other disciplines. And given
the need for the knowledge of computing in many disciplines, having an interdisciplinary program withcomputing
makes a lot of sense, particularly since further progressin many disciplines ishighly dependent on good application
of computing. A good example is biology earlier it was considered an experimental discipline. But now, without
the use of computing, many aspects can simply not be done (e.g. anything to do with genomics requires huge
amounts of computing.)

In fact many senior computing academics have argued that while computing as a discipline must evolve, computing
must get more tightly integrated with some disciplines to havemore impact of computing for society and other
sciences. This is another reason for having interdisciplinary programs with CS/IT.

At IIIT-Delhi, we are taking this thinking as a key approachfor growth. While we will continue focusing on Computer
Science and Engineering (CSE) as a discipline, and also Electronics and CommunicationsEngineering (ECE), instead
of adding more regularprograms in traditional disciplines, we will add interdisciplinary programs with CS/IT in
carefully selected areas which have a natural afnity to CS/IT and where combining them together brings
advantages.

Last year IIIT-Delhilauncheda program in CS and Applied maths. The basic motivationbehind this program was
that for solving problems for complex systems as well as for big data, both mathematics and computing tools and
techniques need to be applied. Hence, an engineer with training in both will be better prepared to handle such
problems. In addition, at research and foundational level also there are many connections between CS and Maths
(in fact, many computer scientists consider themselves as mathematicians also), making mathematics a natural
discipline for an interdisciplinary program with CS.

This year we are adding two new interdisciplinary programs. First is the BTech in Computer Science and Design
program, which aims to develop graduates that are not only well versed with computing approaches, tools, and
technologies, but are also experienced with Design approaches and new Media technologies and uses. The
program will prepare students to work in the IT industry as well as digital media industry like gaming, animation,
virtual/augmented reality, etc. The program will also allow students, who want to pursue higher studies, to take up
higher studies in CS/IT or in Design. The program aims to develop capabilities in CS as well as Design and Digital
Media. Along with this, we are also starting a center for Design and New Media, which will conduct research in
these areas.

The second program is in BTech in IT and Social Sciences.Going forward we are likely to see more convergence of
IT with social systems (e.g. social media) and the role social sciences will play in technology solutions and the role
IT will play in addressing societys and peoples problems, will increase. This will lead to an increase in demand for
IT engineers who are also well versed with social sciences. This unique program aims to develop IT engineers with
strong understanding of relevant social science disciplines as well as their methodologies. It may be an ideal
program for those students who are not sure if they want to pursue engineering careers and would like to explore
the possibility of going for social sciences later, but want to be ready to take an IT career if desired. Along with the
program we are also establishing a research Center on IT and Society, which will research the interplay between IT
and society and impact one has on the other an area which is highly under researched in India.

Typically, in any such interdisciplinary program, a student will do a few foundation courses in rst semester. Then in
the next few semesters, he/she will do about 6 to 8 core (compulsory) courses in each of the two disciplines, which
will provide him/her grounding in the two disciplines. In the last two years, the student will chose 4 to 6 electives
from each of the disciplines, as well as do other courses that can help his/her career. (There are usually some other
requirements, like HSS, and possibilities like Open Electives in the last years.) Broadly, such an interdisciplinary
program satises requirements of a BTech in CS/IT, as well as requirements of a BA/BSc program in the second
discipline. This is feasible to achieve in a 4 year program, particularly since BA/BSc are 3 year programs, and if
disciplines are chosen strategically, there can be many courses which are common and hence can be counted for
both disciplines. Such programs allow a student to pursue an exciting career in the intersection of the two
disciplines, but also prepares the student to pursue high studies and career in one of the two disciplines, as decent
knowledge of both disciplines is provided in these programs. As it is a 4 year program, it also allows students to
pursue higher study programs that require 4 year college education.

Many thinkers believe that interdisciplinary approaches for problem solving is where the future lies, as silo
approaches of individual disciplines are limiting and often unable to take a broader view of the problem and its
context. Such interdisciplinary programs should help develop manpower which has the capabilities of at least two
disciplines for problem solving.

February 20, 2017 8 Replies

Normalizing Class XII Marks

Recently it was reported in newspapers that CBSE moderates its marks by effectively increasing them largely to
compete with other Boards. It was also reported recently that some of the top colleges in Delhi have a majority of
students from one Board in south, and a large number from one school.

Both of these anomalies are due to one reason admission beingbased on Board percentage without normalizing
the marks of different Boards. Due to this, Boards realize that their students will benet if they have a higher
percentage so there is a race to give more marks. Besides distorting the admission process, this race is unhealthy
for education and learning and gives a false sense of achievement to students.
Of course the natural course of action is to normalize marks from different Boards. Normalization across Boards
can be easily done all it requires is a little extra information from each Board. For some strange reason, it has not
become regular practice and Boards do not provide sufcient information for normalization.

Let us rst understand the normalization problem. Each Board gives marks between 0-100%. Normalization requires
that marks between 0-100 given by different Boards be converted to a normalized score, also between 0 and 100,
which provides a common reference where X marks mean the same, regardless of whether the Board was tough
or easy in its marking.

One approachto normalize, which CBSE also used for JEE, is to base it on the percentile of a student in the Board.
The percentile score of a student reects what percentage of students in the Board have marks below that of the
student. I.e. a student with 90 percentile means that 90% of the students have received marks that are below this
students marks. To convert marks to percentile score, students are ordered in the order of marks they received, and
then divided in 100 equal groups the top 1% students fall in 99-percentile, the next 1% fall in 98-percentile, etc.
(This can, of course, be done at 0.1 or 0.01 percentile granularity for ner resolution.) Once percentile is given, then
there are ways to normalize, with the assumption that top N% of the students in a Board are essentially similar to
top N% students in another Board, i.e., a 99 percentile student in one Board can be considered similar to a 99
percentile student of another Board. (If this assumption cannot be made, then it will require calibrating different
Boards an exercise that is unlikely to be undertaken, and if initiated, unlikely to culminate in an acceptable
calibration.)

With a percentile score, one way to normalize across Boards is simply to use the percentile score. In this case, a
student with 99.5 percentile (from any Board) will be ranked higher than a student in 99.3 percentile (from any
Board). The percentile score can have ner granularity, if desired, and within each percentile, there can be tie-
breaking rule.

The ranking with percentile is sufcient if the decision of admission is based only on class XII score, i.e. one needs
to rank or order students only on class XII score. However, if admission is based on sum of multiple scores, in
whichone of them is the class XII marks (as was the case in JEE, where 60 marks came from JEE exam and 40
from class XII), then the situation is more complex and percentile will have to converted to a normalized score to be
added to the other scores.

There are techniques to convert the percentile score to a normalized score. For this conversion, a desired target
distribution is needed, which gives what fraction of students should be at each mark in the normalized marks
between 0-100. The target distribution for normalized marks is a choice to be made, and any reasonable distribution
can be chosen the preferred distribution for exams is Normal Distribution, in which the largest fraction of students
is at the mean and then the fraction at each mark reduces as we move on the two sides of the mean. If the target
distribution is taken to be Normal Distribution with mean of 50 and the standard deviation (a statistical attribute
indicating the variability in scores) of 15, then 99 percentile will translate to 85 normalized marks, 98 percentile to
81 marks, 95 percentile to 75 marks, 90 percentile to 69 marks. There are standard tables available for this
conversion. (This conversion will be different if a different mean and/or standard deviation are selected.)

It should be clear that with percentile based normalization, inating marks in a board does not help students the
top 1 % students of all boards will be mapped to the same normalized marks. So, in a Board which has inated
marks such that a large fraction of its students get above 90% marks, only the top 1% students will get the same
normalized score (99 percentile, or 85 marks in the above example), which will be same as the top 1% students
from a Board which has a much smaller fraction of students above 90%.

Overall, normalization can be done easily and transparently if information about percentile of a student is provided
by the Boards. If Boards provide the percentile, normalization is straightforward.

Normalization is not possible if Boards only give the percentage marks to students, as they do now. Though
determining percentile is trivial and Boards can easily do it, for some reason, it is not being done. Perhaps because
just with marks a Board can have as many students above 90% as it wants and let the students and their parents
feel good. With percentile only 10% of the students can be in the 90 percentile which will give a clear picture to the
student about his/her relative standing in the Board. Given this situation, probably MHRD will have to mandate that
percentile information must also be provided to the students. And to support this move, all universities that use
class XII marks for admission can declare that they will normalize marks of different Boards and will therefore not
admit students from a Board unless the percentile scores are also made available if this is done all Boards will
have to provide this information.

If normalization is done, besides fairness in admissions, it will also lead to curtailing of the unhealthy exercise of
marks ination that the boards seem to have gotten into. If normalization is not done, given the publicity received
about DUs admission this year, we will see an unhealthy race between Boards to give easy marks, resulting in a
complete failure of merit based admissions, with less deserving students from some Boards getting admission into
the best colleges in the country at the cost of more deserving students from some other Boards being denied
admission.

August 11, 2016 3 Replies

Widen the Entrance Criteria in Higher Education Institutions

It is well established that good quality higher education is the best way to open doors to a variety of opportunities
that is why world over students vie to get into the best universities and colleges. Due to this, while school education
is meant to lay the foundation for a broad development of the individual, the single most important goal of school
education becomes getting admission in a high quality higher education institutions (HEI).

Admission to our HEIs is based almost exclusively on performance in exams class XII or entrance test. Most
engineering institutes admit students through entrance test, though now class XII marks are also given weight, and
most universities like Delhi University give admission based on class XII marks (though have some seats for sports
etc). So, regardless of what educationists may like to see, students, parents, and teachers all eventually align to a
single goal as outcome of school education doing well in class XII exams and competitive entrance tests. As
nothing else matters for achieving the important goal of getting into a high quality HEI, other aspects of
development that the school education is supposed to provide, are mostly ignored.

As a result of this exclusive focus on exams, a student who does innovative projects in schools demonstrating
innate talent and interest for engineering is precisely the one who may not make it to the best engineering
institutions as he/she wasted time doing these projects time which could have been more optimally used in
coaching classes. Similarly, a student who does internship in some company and writes a report on the economics
of a sector perhaps the ideal candidate for an economics program may not be able to get into a good
economics program as others who spent all the time preparing for exams get higher marks. Similarly, students who
engage in school debates, participate in social work, sports, or other activities that can broaden their development
and horizons, are often at a disadvantage for getting admitted to HEIs as compared to those who spend their time
preparing for tests. This uni-focus on attaining high test scores also inevitably leads to shallow learning styles
which maximize performance in tests but prevent deep understanding of subjects.

This focus on exams cannot be changed just by exhortation or changing the pattern of the exam or bemoaning the
state of affairs. We have to squarely accept the fact that the most important goal for a student is indeed getting
admission into best colleges, and if we want students to have wider development in schools, we have to widen the
criteria for admission to include achievements and efforts outside tests.

One direct approach can be to assignsome marks (say 20 out of 100) for achievement in other spheres while the
remaining 80 can remain based on results of class XII and entrance test. With this, the problem reduces to
developing sound procedures for assigning marks out of 20 for achievement in other spheres. This will be a
challenge but not one that is unsurmountable PG/MBA programs or public service exams routinely do this, by
having an interview and assigning some weight to it.

IIIT-Delhi has been following another approach for the last few years for this. In IIIT-Delhi, for admission in BTech
program, up to 10 bonus marks (on a base of 100) are given for achievements in various spheres, through a
published criteria. For example, bonus marks are given to students who reach nal stages of various Olympiads,
participate in national school games, have Chess FIDE rating, get an award in the INSPIRE or IGNITE program, win
prize in programming contests, have ministry of cultures scholarship for talent, etc. The program was slow to start,
but in the previous two batches, over10% of the students admitted are ones who have received bonus marks.

We have also done some analysis of how these students perform in our Institute. As we had anticipated, the rst
year performance in the Institute of the students who had received bonus marks was signicantly better than the
performance of students without bonus marks (the average CGPA was higher by more than 1.) This clearly
demonstrated that students with broader base are likely to be better prepared for higher education.

Most US universities, while giving a considerable weight to SAT scores and performance in high school, consider a
host of other factors and achievements for admission. In fact, in top universities it is now known that just good
grades and SAT scores are not sufcient, and students must show other achievements. This hugely motivates
families to develop other aspects of a students personality sports, culture, social work, volunteering, etc. If we
start incorporating achievements and contributions in other spheres in admission to most of our top HEIs, we may
also see an increase in motivation and drive to undertake such activities in school this can only be good for our
students and their development.

August 6, 2016 5 Replies

First Year of College may be Critical for Success

Many faculty have observed that often performance of students in later years of a 4-year program is similar to the
performance achieved in the rst year. At IIIT-Delhi we didsome analysis of student performance in the Institute in
various years and relationship between them. IIIT-Delhi has a rigorous and demanding education program, as good
as the best in the country, and taught by faculty with qualications similar to those of faculty in established IITs. Its
program, though somewhat different and more innovative than in olderinstitutions, is similar to the programs in IITs
and top universities across the world it has a common rst year program, core courses for the discipline done in a
few semesters after the rst year, and mostly electives in nal few semesters. Therefore, I suspect the trends in our
analysis may hold for other similar autonomous institutions which have high quality education. Some interesting
ndings are:

Correlation between performance in rst semester and second semester is over 0.8. In other words, for most
students, performance in second semester is similar to the performance in the rst semester.
The performance in an academic year is very strongly correlated with performance in the previous academic
year again correlation of more than 0.8. In other words, performance in 2nd year has a strong correlation with
performance in 1st, 3rd year performance is highly correlated with 2nd, and 4th year performance is highly
correlated with the 3rd.

Before discussing what these correlations may mean, it should be emphasised that these are statistics they apply
in a general sense and not to an individual. An individual students record may not follow the above pattern at all
someone may have had a bad 1st semester/year (due to illness, lack of seriousness,) who can do much better
later. And someone who takes rst year seriously and then slacks off, will nd performance falling.

What do these mean for students in a general sense. The data seems to suggest that the rst semester and year
can often be the most dening year of a students college education, and the performance in rst year often reects
the level at which the student is likely to perform academically in the rest of his/her program.First year of the
program is when the students are settling in their new life at a university/college with the freedom and responsibility
that comes with it a life very different from that in school which is far more structured and dened by the
teachers, school discipline, uniform, parental oversight, etc. It seems that the students dene their approach to
college life and academics in the rst year and often develop habits, discipline, and balance (or lack of it) which is
likely to stay with them for the rest of the program.

As mentioned, while the data suggests this for most student, it need not apply to all students. If a student misses
building the discipline and balance in the rst year, but realises the folly of his/her ways later (say after a semester
or a year), this data should be treated as a statistic that can be overcome by putting the due effort for making up
for the lack of effort in the rst sem/year, or by repeating the rst year, if the university allows. (In IIIT-Delhi students
who do not pass some number of courses in the rst year have to repeat the rst year. In the past we have seen that
there are some cases of students who have changed their behavior after repeating the year and have successfully
completed the program with good CGPA.)

What does the data mean for academic institutions and administrators? One clear insight is that rst semester (and
the rst year) can be extremely critical to a students success in the program. Therefore, to help students succeed in
the program, it is important to provide good support to them in their rst semester (year) not just for academics
but also for developing good habits and discipline. This implies that the systems we have for later year students,
may not be well suited for students in their rst year, who require closer monitoring and more support and
counselling.

To conclude, datasuggests that incoming students should be extra cautious and alert when starting their higher
education program while a student must explore new ideas, build new bonds, try new activities, pursue non-
academic interests, engage in deep discussions in the canteen, etc, he/she must not lose sight of academics, as
that is the primary purpose of entering a university. Students must develop sound habits and a good discipline and
balance in their rst year the habits and discipline developed in rst year is likely to persist through the rest of
their program; laxity in the rst year may make it harder to make up in later years.

And for Institutions the data clearly suggests that special measures must be taken to handle students in their rst
year they are just transitioning from school to college and support must be provided so they can develop a proper
balance and discipline to handle college life. (At IIIT-Delhi, a few years ago we started a one-week induction program
for the new students where issues like this are discussed with them by counselors, senior students, and other
professionals. And we have started a program of monitoring rst year students more carefully in the key courses
and provide extra support where needed.)

July 26, 2016 1 Reply

Selecting a College for Admission

This is admission time again for higher education, and most students have multiple choices of higher
educationalinstitutions(HEIs colleges, universities, institutes) for admission. Finally, of course, the student has
to get admitted in one HEIand study there. For most students and their parents, this is a hard choice which HEI to
chose fromthe colleges, universities, institutions where the student can get admitted. This note points out some
parameters that can be used for assessing an HEI (or a department).

First, let us understandthat there are two main end goals of college education. (i) Education: gaining knowledge
and skills for productive careers, and (ii) Self growth: developing interests, friendships, associations, hobbies, etc
which help in leading a happier and richer life. A high quality HEI shouldprovide good support for both.

For assessing the capability of the HEIs, or one of its departments, to deliver high quality education, there are some
well understood parameters. I am giving some of the key ones here. These are the parameters which I advise
parents and students to look at for making a decision, and I myself used them when my daughters were seeking
admission. Importance of most of these is self evident, and many of these are also given in the World Bank
framework forWorld Class Universities.

Faculty Quality and Qualications. This is undoubtedly the single most important parameter that decides the
quality of education in an HEI. World over, the best Universities indeed have the most qualied faculty. In
India also, you will see the same pattern places like IITs, IISc, some IIITs, some ISERs, etc, which are known
to be the best places for education, have the most qualied faculty. By qualications of faculty I mean
highest degree obtained (PhD, Masters, or lesser), andfrom where the degree was earned. While higher
qualications are clearly desired in faculty, the second factor is also very important an Engineering institute
that has faculty with PhDs from reputed universities of the world, or from places like IITs/IISc, clearly has
superior faculty than a college that may have PhDs from other institutions. This can be checked easily see
 where the faculty of established IITs have obtained their PhDs from you will see that they are from top
Institutes in the country, or from good institutions overseas.
Faculty Student Ratio. This is clearly the next important parameter an HEI which has lower F/S ratio is likely
to be better for learning and education, as it allows more faculty time per student and only with manageable
ratio can faculty spend time with students for projects etc. In many US universities, about 20:1 is a standard
ratio that they try to maintain some lower ranked universities mayhave ratios as high as 35:1 or more, and
some of the Ivy League and other top univs may have lower ratios. In older IITs, the ratio is about 15:1.
Infrastructure. The quality of infrastructure is another important parameter clearly for education delivery,
quality of classes, libraries, labs, etc. is important. But even other infrastructure facilities for faculty, quality
of student hostels and facilities, quality of sports and other facilities for extra curricular activities, etc. matter
as they have indirect impact on education.
Quality of the academic program. All good HEIs spend a lot of time designing their programs. First important
factor here is the structure and layout of the program the courses the program and the nature and variety,
and the degree of exibility it provides to students to chose their courses. The second aspect is very
important and can be assessed by the number of electives a student can take in the program and the number
of choices offered for electives. Weaker HEIs will have fewer electives, and fewer choices for them, as
electives require a larger range of courses to be taught.
Delivery of academics. Getting a good program on paper is not too hard programs of the best of HEIs are
available on the internet. It is, of course, the delivery of the program that matters the most. Quality of delivery
is decided, rst and foremost, by the quality of faculty. However, there are some other indicators e.g. the
level and nature of work a student has to do in the courses. If the student has to spend minimal effort and
that is mostly around taking tests/exams, you can be sure that the delivery of courses is weak. Good delivery
of courses requires students to put in effort outside the class in assignments, projects, labs, term papers,
presentations, etc. Learning happens largely when students are asked to apply the concepts covered in
lectures in the assignments/labs/projects Learning without due effort is a myth effort and practice is
essential for learning and developing skills.
Administration, leadership, culture. Administration and leadership impact the overall functioning hugely
good administration and leadership will ensure that the HEI continues to improve and keep addressing issues
that may come up. Seriousness with which academics is taken, how students are supported, are students
feedback on programs and courses taken, etc. are all important cultural aspects that have impact on the
quality of education.

For assessing the quality of an HEI for supporting self development, one should look at the breadth and exibilityin
the curriculum does the curriculum includecourses other than main subject courses, and does it provide exibility
and choice to take a variety of courses including those that may help more in self development. For example, one
can look at if there are courseon humanities, social sciences, music, art, etc, and if it is possible for students to do
independent study, independent projects, etc to pursue their interests. For students who may be interested in
research, one should look at if there are provisions for UG students to undertake research.

Other important factors that affect the self growth dimension are the level of extra curricular activities (which may
get reected in the variety of student clubs), infrastructure (the quality of infrastructure to support the extra
curricular activities) and support (e.g. is there sufcient budget) for such activities.

While these are main factors that affect the quality of education, another way to assess the quality of education
and overall development of students is to examine what the graduates of the HEIdo after graduation, and how well
the alumni of the HEIare doing. Opportunities after graduation include placements after graduation (quality of
placements, median offer, etc), higher education opportunities (how many students get these opportunities and
where), and entrepreneurship.

This note focuses only on assessing the quality of an HEI. Choosing a program to study is a different issue it
depends on the students aptitude and capability. In an earlier note, I had discussed this issue.Of course the
complication comes when the two factors choosing the HEI and the program of study are combined. The most
common question is I am getting X in A but am getting Y in B which option should I choose. In general, if one is
sure that one wants to study X and is fairly sure that he/she has the aptitude for it also, then I would say that nd
the best HEI you can get X in, and go study X in that HEI. The problem gets more complex when the student does
not know what he/she is interested in or has aptitude for I have discussed this briey in my earlier note, though
have no good advise to offer.

Finally, I would end by saying that choosing the HEI for your college educationis a serious decision, and a lot of
people try to inuence it mostly to try to convince others about their own view/decision. I have had students write
later I was misguided and I took admission in A as many of my friends were taking. but I nd no academic
atmosphere here . can you please consider me for admission now.. You dont want to be in this situation. So, I
suggest that you take inputs from all your parents, friends, teachers, experts but be aware of the biases that are
often there in such suggestions, and make up your own decision by doing your analysis of the information/data
available.

For information onIIIT-Delhi: On BTech programsvisit the BTech programs page; for information onfaculty, visit the
faculty page; for information on research, visit the research page; for information about student life, visit this page
more information on student clubs is available here.

Other notes you may want to look at on this: Article comparing various institutes, and blog of Prof. Dheeraj Sanghi.

June 28, 2016 Leave a reply

Older posts

Recent Posts

Interdisciplinary Programs with Computer Science/IT

Normalizing Class XII Marks
Widen the Entrance Criteria in Higher Education Institutions
First Year of College may be Critical for Success
Selecting a College for Admission
Summer Camp for School Children at IIIT-Delhi
Current Approaches to Teaching Cannot Deliver High Quality Education
High Cost of Quality Education and Who Pays for It
Using Online Courses for Credit in Degree Programs
Faculty Attrition in Research Universities

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