Union Education Minister Chairs IIT Council Meeting, implementation of NEP remains discussed

Vinod Kakumanu
Feb. 25, 2021, 3:29 p.m.

Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank discussed the implementation and explained the outlook of the National Education Policy while chairing the 54th meeting of the Council of the Indian Institutes of Technology.

The meeting of the Council was held virtually and the Minister appealed for the IIT leaders to come up with an Institute Development Plan as outlined in the NEP. The institute's Development Plan would enhance the mobility and collaboration between faculties of the educational institutions. Enhanced mobility of expertise between technical institutions will enhance collaboration between the industry and academia.

The process of the development of the faculties in the IITs and evolving a mechanism for the interface between industry and academia is already underway. In this regard, a committee, chaired by Dr.K.Radhakrishnan had been established.

The Standing Committee for IIT Council had made recommendations on the basis of which 4 Working Groups were constituted on NEP 2020 areas. The groups and their delineated areas of operation are--Group-1: Graded Autonomy, Empowered and accountable BoG and Director, Group-2: Grooming distinguished academics for the directorship of IITs, Group-3: Reform and restructuring of the Academic Senate and Group-4: Innovative funding mechanisms

As per the press release, the reports of the abovementioned groups and an additionally envisaged group will be the basis for the laying out of the mechanisms for faculty development discussions that occurred during the meeting chaired by the Union Education Minister.

The meeting also saw the tabling of the suggestion for organizing an online IIT Research and Development fair by the IIT council. The Fair is supposed to showcase the R&D work for the Industries.

In addition to that, the funding for the 4 IITs’ infrastructure development was also discussed in the course of the meeting, and the initiatives for making IITs multidisciplinary institutions while preserving the science and technology focus were discussed. To move in the direction of making IITs multidisciplinary and enhancing the focus on scientific research, it was advised that the National Research Foundation be harnessed.

The Minister expressed the ambition of placing IITs in the global rankings by the year 2022. He assured support in terms of finance, administrative guidance, issues relating to various other ministries and agencies of the government.

The Minister also commended the conduct of academics overseen by the IITs leadership during Covid-19 and the contributions made in developing mechanisms and technologies to withstand the pandemic and the consequent chaos.