IIT Council's decision earlier this month to reform JEE Advanced, MTech and PhD programmes is an acknowledgement that India's elite education model is under pressure to adapt. When institutions as reputation-conscious and tradition-bound as IITs decide to revisit how they select students and train postgraduates, it reflects unease not with intent but with outcomes.

India has long lived with two parallel ideas of education. One is mass-oriented - designed to expand access, improve employability and ensure minimum competence across a vast population. For a country with 1.5 bn people, such 'socialist' ideas can't be ignored. The other is unapologetically elitist. It selects aggressively, excludes without remorse and rewards those who survive prolonged competition. Institutions such as IITs and IIMs belong to this category.

The entrance processes of the latter are among the most competitive in the world, their brand value is global, and their graduates are embedded in capitalist systems of production and management. By philosophy and design, these institutions cannot be separated from markets, hierarchy or competition. Any serious reform must begin by acknowledging this reality rather than softening it with comforting rhetoric.

So, elite engineering education cannot confine itself to abstract discussions on pedagogy or academic ideals. Its graduates do not merely acquire knowledge, they enter systems of power, capital and influence. Nation-building becomes an implicit expectation, even as the definition of 'nation' remains flexible. Many graduates contribute to building other countries' tech and economic capabilities.

This global mobility only heightens institutional responsibility. If elite institutions are producing individuals who will shape industries, technologies and policies across borders, their education must emphasise real-world problem-solving, not just exam excellence.

Which makes the latest emphasis on mandatory internships welcome. Over time, however, many internships, particularly at the PG level, have drifted into academic comfort zones. Students remain within labs or research groups, producing outputs that satisfy evaluation metrics, but often fall short of industrial or societal relevance.

Exposure to industry teaches constraints that classrooms rarely capture: hard deadlines, imperfect information, organisational frictions and that deployable solutions matter more than elegant ones. For institutions that wish to remain relevant in a rapidly changing tech landscape, deeper industry engagement is no longer optional.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of the proposed reforms is the implicit recognition that exceptional performance in entrance exams is a poor proxy for long-term success or innovation. Of late, the IIT entrance ecosystem has become heavily pattern- and preparation-driven. Coaching systems have professionalised success in entrance exams to such an extent that many students arrive on campus fatigued.

Curiosity gives way to optimisation. Intellectual risk-taking yields to strategic caution. But these are absent in a considerable proportion of students admitted through the present process dominated by multiple-choice answering frameworks. This is not individual failure, but a predictable outcome of sustained hyper-competition. Burnout at entry point also casts a long shadow. Industry leaders and research supervisors report a similar pattern as well.

Adaptive testing, curriculum restructuring and rethinking PG pathways are attempts to recalibrate incentives. If implemented thoughtfully, they may help restore balance between assessment and imagination.

There is also a broader societal expectation that elite institutions can no longer overlook. It increasingly expects graduates from top institutions to not merely compete for the best jobs, but to create jobs themselves. In an economy aspiring to scale innovation rapidly, employment generation cannot remain incidental.

So, internships can't be confined to corporate absorption alone. They must be equally oriented towards entrepreneurship, exposing students to product development, market validation, regulatory navigation and early-stage failure. An internship that teaches how to build, pivot or responsibly abandon an idea may be as valuable as one that trains students to optimise existing systems.

Elite education will always remain competitive, and rightly so. But competition must remain a means, not the destination. The timing of the decision is appropriate. But its success will depend on whether reforms translate into measurable outcomes, rather than well-meaning frameworks.