{"id":14062,"date":"2021-02-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/23-02-2021\/reforms-in-iits-iit-council\/"},"modified":"2021-02-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T00:00:00","slug":"reforms-in-iits-iit-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/23-02-2021\/reforms-in-iits-iit-council","title":{"rendered":"Reforms in IITs: IIT Council"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In News<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Recently, the <strong>Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) Council<\/strong> has set up four committees to explore a <strong>range of governance reforms for the IITs<\/strong>, in line with the <strong>National Education Policy<\/strong> (NEP) <strong>2020<\/strong> recommendations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Background<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In <strong>2018<\/strong>, the <strong>Ministry of Education<\/strong> set up a <strong>seven-member panel<\/strong> to explore the feasibility of <strong>diluting government control over the IITs<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The<strong> Anandkrishnan committee<\/strong> sought <strong>powers similar to the Indian Institutes of Management<\/strong> (IIMs) to appoint their own institute heads and chairmen.<\/li>\n<li>The four committees were <strong>set up in December 2020<\/strong> on the basis of the <strong>recommendation of the Chairman<\/strong> of the Standing Committee for IIT Council, on the issues related to NEP-2020.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Four Committees<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Group-1:<\/strong> <strong>Graded Autonomy, Empowered and Accountable BoG and Director<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It was suggested to <strong>give graded autonomy<\/strong> to the Board of Governors (BoG) of <strong>six IITs in<\/strong> <strong>2021<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>However, there were no discussions on the nature of independence.<\/li>\n<li>This is the<strong> second attempt at exploring the possibility<\/strong> of giving more autonomy to the BoG at IITs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Group-2: Grooming Distinguished Academics for the Directorship of IITs<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It will explore <strong>creating a talent pool of IIT professors<\/strong> <strong>with the potential <\/strong>to become a director and<strong> groom them<\/strong> for the top job.<\/li>\n<li>This will <strong>help save the time taken by an institute director<\/strong> to evolve as an academic leader.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Group-3:<\/strong> <strong>Reform and Restructuring of the Academic Senate<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It will look into restructuring the Senate at each IIT.\n<ul>\n<li>The Senate is the <strong>highest decision-making body of an IIT <\/strong>for all academic purposes.<\/li>\n<li>All <strong>permanent teachers are members<\/strong> of the Senate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>It was suggested to reform the body\u2019s membership<strong> citing the huge number of teachers who are part of the Senate<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The Senate of the older IITs has <strong>grown too large in size for effective decision-making<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Group-4: Innovative Funding Mechanisms<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It will look at <strong>innovative methods<\/strong> through which the <strong>IITs can raise funds<\/strong> outside of government grants.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Other Recommendations<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Rationalisation of Staff <\/strong>from current standards to a lower number.<\/li>\n<li>Discussions on<strong> reducing non-essential manpower<\/strong>, given the<strong> increasing digitisation <\/strong>of administrative responsibilities, and <strong>outsourcing of departments<\/strong> such as maintenance, housekeeping and transport.<\/li>\n<li>It was recommended to <strong>constitute a task force to review the use of technology<\/strong> at all IITs and also to accelerate the deployment of digital tools.\n<ul>\n<li>Digital Transformation using <strong>blockchain<\/strong>, <strong>Artificial intelligence<\/strong> (AI), <strong>Machine Learning<\/strong> (ML), and <strong>Cloud Computing <\/strong>(CC) at IITs were also discussed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The Council also asked to consider a suggestion to organise<strong> Online IIT Research and Development (R&#038;D) fair <\/strong>to <strong>showcase the quality research work <\/strong>being done by IITs to the industries.<\/li>\n<li>IITs have been suggested to develop <strong>Institute Development Plans<\/strong> as envisioned in NEP 2020 to <strong>improve the mobility of faculty between institution and industry<\/strong> to <strong>promote research collaborations<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Significance<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>These will help IITs to <strong>achieve the global rankings by 2022<\/strong>, the <strong>75th Year of India\u2019s Independence<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>IITs as<strong> multi-disciplinary institutions for holistic growth in all disciplines <\/strong>of education will allow them to not lose their <strong>main focus on scientific research and technology development<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>mobility of faculty members and industry experts<\/strong> between technical institutes and industry will<strong> promote collaborations <\/strong>between academia and industry.<\/li>\n<li>The IITs can become a <strong>driving force behind realising the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat<\/strong> which is clear after their <strong>remarkable contribution in combating the Covid-19<\/strong> by way of new scientific research.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:720px\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"vertical-align:top; width:468.0pt\">\n<p><strong>IIT Council<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is <strong>headed by the Education Minister<\/strong> and includes the <strong>directors of all IITs<\/strong> and the <strong>chairs of each IIT\u2019s BoGs<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Function<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Advises on admission standards, duration of courses, degrees and other academic distinctions.<\/li>\n<li>Lays down policy regarding cadre, methods of recruitment and conditions of service of employees of all IITs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>It is the <strong>apex decision-making body<\/strong> of the IITs and <strong>meets from time to time to discuss the functioning<\/strong> of IITs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/iit-council-sets-up-panels-for-more-autonomy\/article33906723.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source: TH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News Recently, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) Council has set up four committees to explore a range of governance reforms for the IITs, in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 recommendations. Background In 2018, the Ministry of Education set up a seven-member panel to explore the feasibility of diluting government control [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/7643035current-affairs (1).jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}