IIT reforms committee to submit report by year-end

To prepare a road map to fund quality research, attract international faculty.

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) reforms committee will submit its report to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) by December — eight months behind the April, 2010 deadline.

The five-member panel, which was constituted in Ocotber 2009 and is headed by Atomic Energy Commission’s former chairman Anil Kakodkar, is expected to outline the broad areas of reforms required to make the elite institutions global brands.

“We are going through the consultative process not only among ourselves but also with other stakeholders. That is taking time. We are targeting this year-end to submit the report to MHRD,” Kakodar told Business Standard on the sidelines of the National Summit on Quality in Education by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Mumbai.

The committee will also come up with the vision document 2020 for the IITs. The document would suggest measures on how the IITs can collaborate with the private sector in IT, Biotech and other emerging areas.

At present, the IITs are focusing on under-graduate education. The committee would suggest how more and more students could be encouraged to take up research at the IITs and prepare a road map to attract quality faculty.

“On one side there is the question of access and on the other side of finding resources. Higher education at the level of IITs does cost more but we will have to find resources to increase the number of engineers and technologists in large numbers. While setting up of more IITs could be a solution, we need to find out what more can be done with the existing IITs,” he said.

IIT directors said their expectations from the committee are high. “The IITs are treated like some government department where they have to get clearance for every little thing from the ministry. I am hoping that the committee will at least address the issue of administrative autonomy where we don't have to seek permission from the ministry of finance for clearance of petty things like travel and dearness allowances or hiring of non-faculty staff. We need some decision making freedom here,” said an IIT Director on the condition of anonymity.

Another director said, “We are waiting to see what kind of autonomy and governance issues they would address. We want the committee to give us a future road map for IITs to be world class institutions.”

A proper fee structure is another area that the IITs want the committee to look into. According to the authorities, the institutions are subsidising engineering education around Rs 16 lakh. For the four-year BTech programme, the IITs charge Rs 2 lakh. IIT-Kanpur had earlier suggested increasing the fee to Rs 4 lakh per annum — that would translate into Rs 18 lakh for the four-year programme.

However, IIT authorities are divided on hiking the fees because it would impact students from the financially weaker section of the society.

“The profile of students coming to IITs has changed over the years. Students from upper middle class at IITs are on a decline and students from less advantaged background are increasing. It is very difficult for students to get a loans. If the IITs hike the fee to cover costs, the students will have to shell out much more. How can we expect students from poor families to afford the hike?” Devang Khakhar, director, IIT Bombay, had told Business Standard in an earlier interview.

“To hike the fee, we have to put in a support system like the proposed National Education Finance Corporation (NEFC) so that students can benefit from it,” he had said.

NEFC would ensure that a higher tuition fee does not disadvantage students who are from the financially weaker section.