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| Policy to attract overseas students to IITs |
| Press Trust Of India / New Delhi Oct 19, 2009, 01:45 IST |
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The first IIT Council meeting under the chairmanship of HRD Minister Kapil Sibal tomorrow is expected to frame a multi-pronged policy, including introducing scholarships and reduction in fee, to attract more foreign students at the post-graduate level in the institutes.
The council will also decide on allowing the prestigious IITs to create extra seats for foreign students at PG level, to ensure that youths from other countries take part in research and development in a big way.
At present, foreign students have to pay a much higher amount of money than their Indian counterparts as fee. There are two different fee structures — one for the students of Saarc countries and another for students of other nations. However, both the fee regimes entail much more spending than what Indian students pay, an IIT director said.
The number of foreign students are very little in the IITs, mainly because of the high fees.
"IITs attract mainly students from the developing countries. These students find it difficult to pay the huge amount and develop cold feet on coming here," he said.
The council will ratify the revised pay structure of the IIT faculty. The new pay structure had attracted criticism from the IIT faculty which went on a hunger strike on September 25.
Sibal met representatives of IIT faculty who were demanding removal of the 40 per cent cap on promotion of professors to senior grade. The faculty demanded abolition of contractual appointment at entry level.
The minister told them that the government "guidelines are just norms and there can be flexibility or relaxation in exceptional cases".
The Council will also discuss giving more autonomy to the elite institutes. Sibal has said that the government is ready to give more autonomy if the IITs come up with a vision plan for the next five years and achieve these.
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