Friday, January 17, 2014

IITs plan to increase intake of foreign students

Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have planned to open the premier engineering institutions to more foreign students at the post-graduate and research levels. The premier technical institutes have also planned to step inter-disciplinary research collaborations tailored to meet the national development agenda.
The decision comes in the wake of deciding to make a mark on international ranking lists for educational institutions. It was reported that it was agreed at a retreat of IIT Directors, hosted by the Union Human Resource Development Ministry recently.
According to reports, in advocating greater intake of foreign students, the IITs see a double-advantage. First, it will help internationalise IITs. As per the report of the IIT Ranking Committee — which was presented and accepted at the Retreat — IITs are “weak, almost nowhere, on internationalisation”. It was reported that the motive is like their own alumni who have returned from foreign universities to work in India but continue to fondly recall their campus days overseas, the hope is that foreign students of IITs would become IIT brand ambassadors.
The IITs have also decided to set up design schools to develop a design spine in Engineering education. According to a concept note, this would be done by not just making design an autonomous field of education by establishing centres or departments for design in IITs but also ensuring that design thinking percolates into other areas of expertise.

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