The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) on Friday asked the Kakodkar Committee to “re-work” its proposal seeking a four-fold increase in fees for undergraduate courses at the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
At a meeting of the Joint Council of IITs held here, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said the proposal to increase the fee from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 2.5 lakh a year would act as a deterrent to aspiring students. He asked the committee to re-work the “mathematical model” and present its report to the Board of Governors of the IITs before forwarding it to the Ministry for a final call.
The five-member committee, set up to suggest a road map for IITs' autonomy and growth, had recommended the hike to make IITs more self-sufficient, reduce dependence on grants, and enable the institutes to create faculty and non-faculty posts on their own without having to seek government clearance.
The committee, which presented the report before the Council, also suggested that the 15 IITs should raise the money to run undergraduate courses entirely through tuition fees and not depend on grants.
The Kakodkar Committee was set up in October 2009. Its other members are: T.V. Mohandas Pai, Director (Human Resource), Infosys; K. Mohandas, Vice-Chancellor of the Kerala University of Health and Allied Sciences; Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala, IIT Madras; and Hari Bhartia, Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry. IIT Guwahati Director Gautam Barua, IIT Mandi Director T. Gonsalves and IIT Kanpur Chairman M. Anandakrishnan were special invitees.
The committee had a series of meetings with the IIT directors, faculty and industry representatives.
Its members visited five universities in China last November to familiarise themselves with the best practices in science education and research. The committee will come up with fresh recommendations within a month.
The Joint Council could not take up the Ramasami committee report on the format of the IIT Joint Entrance Examination due to Mr. Ramasami's absence from the meeting.
Research parks
However, it was agreed that 50 research parks — on the lines of the one developed by IIT Madras — would be developed in the 12{+t}{+h} Five Year Plan. The members also agreed to enhance the Ph.Ds from the current 1,000 to 10,000 annually.
Cyber security
A presentation was made to the Council on adopting “cyber security as part of the curriculum by IITs.”
It was decided that a committee under Dr. R. Chidambaram would be set up to develop a road map for the future and give a report in three months.
The committee would involve all educational institutions as well as government departments for this purpose.
The report of Professor Devang Khakhar on attracting grants from Unesco and other multi-national agencies, such as the European Union, was welcomed by the members of the Council and the report approved.
Keywords: Indian Institutes of Technology fees
Depending on your own instanct is actually difficult for anyone. You will need years of building confidence. Them doesn’t genuinely precisely appear find out what I mean.
Fee structure at IITs are at the higher end. Students of economically backward classes are not in a position to bear the present fee structure. If the IITs again rise the fees most of the eligible students of IITs will not take admissions really. Government is spending lot of money in the name of development of backward classes. Similarly more and more grants must be pumped by the government; So that it will helpful for the eligible IIT students.
Having increased fees structure might probably be the easiest way to make the IITs independent. But increasing the fees would only burden the banks, more than the students, which fund(fully!!!) them with special interest rates. Already the banks are showing increased NPA levels of such Education loans (thanks to the then Finance Minister PC for his populist measures). The argument of increased burden for students (who end up getting 6-7 digit pay packages through 100% placements!!!) sounds a way too stretched.
Utilizing the potential of the consultancy wings, like the one in IIT Madras (Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research), which could increase the number of consultancy assignments with active participation of the students can augment the funding needs. Increasing the fees structure and simultaneously attracting more and more sponsorships (from industry) for the students could possibly a tough yet optimal balancing act.
I agree that iits are ranked lower globally .But the main reason for that is lack of infrastructure and other facilities compared to colleges in us or uk.But if you will see the quality of students ,it is good enough.The students of iits easily qualify in globally renowned colleges .At least the statistics do show that.Good companies which are known all over the world do visit iit's campus for recruiting iitians.That's enough proof of iit student's credentials............
I must say the quality of the education at IITs is going down, also number of articles published are reducing. Year after Year IITs are ranked Lower and Lower on global University scale. Coaching centers are generating students for IIT's, what can any one expect!!
Fees of IIT was revised just a year ago and it's already creating problems for students coming from poor or families and backgrounds. So govt. should thimk about giving scholarships to poor but talented students to promote them instead of increasing the fees.
Being an ex IIT Bombay graduate, I am against raising the fees like they do in the US. Please don't have to ape everything US because lots of US ideas and policies on education are all passe and obselete in today's world. So solution to all economic problems in education is just NOT to keep raising fees to burden the students. Indian policy makers have to think outside the box to come up with more justifiable solutions than just raise fees which any uneducated dumb person can come up with.
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