Higher education news

Pankaj Jalote offers some ideas for implementing performance-based salaries for enhancing R&D output from the IITs:

Regular performance appraisals and reward based on the appraisal is the way the world academic and R&D management is moving. In many countries that have active R&D programmes, such systems are becoming the norm. In the US, appraisal-based salary raises have been there for decades.

They also now exist in countries like the UK, China, Singapore and Korea, which have started these mechanisms in the last decade or so. And, many countries in Europe, like Germany and Italy, are now moving towards this.

In an earlier article, Jalote recounts some of the revolutionary changes in the Chinese higher education system in just over a decade. Clearly, he is impressed.

Finally, we have this from the Department of "Message: We Care":

... [S]ome of the professors at the IIT-K observed that the reason of falling number of girl students was due to high fee structure. They realized that many parents avoided spending huge amount on the education of their daughters and they preferred to admit them to the less expensive colleges even after their selection to IIT.

They suggested that a slight reduction in the fee structure for girl students would help raise their number at the institute. [link]