Six Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) dominated the list of Top 10 T-Schools, according to a survey conducted by IDC for CyberMedia’s flagship publication Dataquest.

IIT Kharagpur topped the list for the third successive year, followed by the five other IITs -- Delhi, Madras, Kanpur, Roorkee and Guwahati, in the 5th IDC-Dataquest T-School 2009 Survey of 111 engineering colleges across the country. IIIT (also called Triple I T) Hyderabad, BITS Pilani, NIT Surathkal and IT BHU Varanasi took the other positions in the Top 10. Interestingly, IIIT Hyderabad is the youngest T-School, set up in 1998, in the Top 10 list. IIT Bombay did not participate.

Table of IDC-Dataquest Top 20 T-Schools

While IIT Kharagpur scored highest on HR perception, IIT Delhi ranked highest on placement records. The HR perception score is based on how recruiters rate each college during their campus visits. Placement score is based on percentage of students placed, number of companies visiting campuses as well as the maximum and average salary offered per annum.

Seven NITs, earlier called Regional Engineering Colleges, made it to the Top 30 T-Schools list compared to only four in 2007-08 as a result of good placement track record and a favorable HR response. No wonder, the HRD Ministry is proposing to convert some of the NITs into IITs.

The link between academia and industry strengthened as institutes like IIIT Hyderabad engaged with companies such as Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Cisco and IBM for R&D, contributing to its revenue and prestige. The government sector and autonomous organizations such as DRDO, DRDL, ISRO, BEL continued their research funding and their joint research projects with IIIT Hyderabad.

Only 16 of the Top 111 T Schools reported 100% placements;
Placements fell to 73% from 84% due to slowdown

Slowdown impacted placements in 2009, with a dip in the number of companies visiting campuses as well as number of jobs offered. Of the 54 companies that visited T-School campuses, more than half were from IT/BPO sector.

Only 16 of the Top 111 T-Schools reported 100% placements. These included BITS, Pilani; IIT Kanpur; Institute of Technology, BHU; Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology (NSIT), Orissa Engineering College, Bhubaneswar and several NITs.

The IDC-Dataquest survey, reveals a drop in overall placements to 73% in 2009 from 84% in 2007-08.
However, this trend could also indicate that more graduates opted for higher studies this year instead of opting for a job.

Engineering graduates’ salary stagnates
Even as NSIT, New Delhi recorded the highest annual compensation at Rs. 45 lakh from Schlumberger, average annual salary across 111 participating T-Schools stagnated at Rs. 3.5 lakh. The average annual salary of engineering graduates in BPO/ IT industry was a shade higher at Rs. 3.6 lakh.

The average annual salaries of IIT graduates registered a drop of 5% to Rs. 5.88 lakh while the average salary of NIT graduates improved 6% to Rs. 4.36 lakh.

“The T-Schools must focus on the quality of faculty and original research to improve the employability of students and funding of research projects,” according to Ibrahim Ahmad, Group Editor of Dataquest.

“Even though the academic environment is not impacted by the slowdown, the T-Schools need to enrich academic standards by collaborating with industry and undertaking research in the required fields,” he added quoting the example of Coimbatore-based PSG College of Technology that was No. 1 on ‘Industry Interface’ due to its strong on industry collaboration.

PSG College of Technology has several Centers of Excellence, including the Siemens Center of Excellence in Automation, Rockwell Center, and Infineon Embedded Systems Laboratory conducting cutting edge research at the institute. Other T-Schools with high level Industry interface included: NIT Surathkal, IIT Kanpur, IIT Delhi and IIT Roorkee.
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Surprisingly, the average number of research papers published by each T-School dropped 10% to 145 with only one in three T-schools filing patents in the last 2 years. Among these T-Schools, the number of patents obtained was 2.7 patents per T-School last year.

Even with the Government enhancing the number of IITs to 15 and upgrading all Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs) to National Institutes of Technology (NITs), only 2 out of 3 T-Schools offered doctoral programs. About 152 students were pursuing doctoral programs in each T-School offering doctoral programs.

The IT infrastructure improved across most engineering colleges. In 2008-09, 79% of the colleges provided Internet access to students in the hostels, as compared to 74% last year. About two out of three surveyed T-Schools were Wi-Fi enabled. Four out of five T-Schools had access to e-books and e-journals, and adopted electronic standards for filing patents.

The detailed report is available on http://dqindia.ciol.com/

About IDC India 
IDC (India) Ltd., set up in 1987 is an ISO 9001:2008 company. IDC (India) Ltd., a subsidiary of CyberMedia, is regarded as the country’s most comprehensive, dependable and respected source for market intelligence and consulting in the fields of IT, telecommunications and consumer technology. With its head office at Gurgaon (near New Delhi), the company has branches in Bangalore, Chennai, and Mumbai. IDC ranked amongst Top 10 Consulting Firms: Business Today-Cirrus Newsmakers Study 2008-09. Additional information about IDC India's research, advisory and Go-To-Market service offerings can be found at www.idcindia.com.  

About CyberMedia 
CyberMedia is South Asia's first and largest specialty media house, with 15 publications (including Dataquest, PCQuest, Voice&Data, BioSpectrum (India & Asia), Living Digital, DQ Channels, DQ Week, Dare, Halsbury's Law Monthly and Technology Review India) in the infotech, telecom, consumer electronics and biotech areas, and is media value chain including the Internet (www.ciol.com), events and television. The group's media services include market research (IDC India), content management and multimedia. Or www.cybermedia.co.in.

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