It's all about Money
One of the biggest concerns for the IT industry has been the burgeoning wage bill. The rising wages of the new economy workers is becoming an area of concern. The rise of salaries is also reflected in average salaries offered to T-School students. According to the statistics thrown up by the survey, the average salary offered to students across all type of companies has increased by about 28%, from Rs 2.66 lakh per annum last year to Rs 3.41 lakh per annum this year.

Of these, IIT students were the biggest gainers, as they received 113% additional average salary as compared to the NITs and 168% additional as compared to private institutes. The maximum salary offered across all type of companies has also gone up from Rs 36 lakh per annum last year to Rs 45 lakh per annum. The maximum salary offered by IT companies has also increased from Rs 15 lakh per annum last year to Rs 18 lakh per annum this year from IIT, Kharagpur.

A Case of Seats
This year there has been a big ruckus due to the introduction of OBC quotas in premier educational institutes. The government seemed to downplay the impact by talking about how it would increase the number of seats in institutes. Overall, there has been an increase in number of students in quite a number of institutes. Going by the final year student strength, Jadavpur University, Kolkata is the topper with 850 students; Manipal Institute of Technology, Udupi with 829 students came second, followed by BITS-Pilani with 785 students. The IITs have around 3,300 students in the final year, averaging 471 students per IIT. IIT-Kharagpur is the topper with 650 students, and IIT-Guwahati had the least students of all IITs, 209.

Lessons from the Past
In its third avatar, the T-School survey throws up a lot of interesting insights. Of the 100 T-Schools that have been ranked (of the 117) in 2007, 61 institutes were also ranked last year. Out of the Top 100 colleges those which have provided their 2007 pass out figures, about 84% student got first division marks. Meanwhile, 78 colleges offer MTech courses, and out of those, 61 institutes offer PhD courses in engineering. On an average, 34% of the faculty members hold Doctoral/PhD degrees in the Top 100 institutes and there is one faculty member employed for every 11 students on an average.

Movers and Shakers
In terms of upward and downward movement in rankings, there have been quite a few changes. There have been over 22 T-Schools that have shown a shift of more than 10 positions. An analysis of these movers and shakers gives an insight on the best practices that other institutes might emulate and the pitfalls that they need to avoid.

The reasons are pretty much evident: better HR Perception score, and improved placement and academic environment.

On the other end, there have been quite a few big losers and when they fall, they really fall. The reasons were: poor performance in parameters like average salary in all types of companies, computer to student ratio, number of assignments, and batch strength in PG course in engineering.

Percentage of students placed in IT companies, maximum salary offered to students, percentage of students placed in first division and average number of research papers, also contributed to the downfall of many.

In the End
Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister and a noted literary figure had reportedly quipped once that "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damnable lies, and statistics". Yet, when a fact or finding is thrown up in a survey not once, not twice, but three times, it has a certain credibility. There are a lot of reasons to rejoice and also a lot of things to remember. Hopefully, things will be different in the fourth T-School Survey.

Shashwat Chaturvedi
maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in

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