HRD ministry to bring in separate bill for IIITs

The HRD ministry has decided to bring in a "separate bill" to govern the affairs of Indian Institutes for Information and Technology (IIITs) which are functioning under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model.
The ministry has also decided to allow increased intake of foreign students in IIITs and prepare a roadmap for brand building these institutes.
Establishment of IIIT Secretariat at IIIT, Gwalior, is another of the key decisions taken at a meeting of IIIT council chaired by HRD minister Prakash Javadekar yesterday.
According to an official statement, among the key decisions is that a separate bill be prepared to govern the affairs of IIITs which are functioning under the PPP mode.

As an interim measure, IIITs under PPP model will apply for the status of deemed university, the statement added.
At the meeting, Javadekar called for updating of the IIIT curriculum to meet the evolving Information Technology scenario.

He said the IIITs, which were introduced during the tenure of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, have played an important role in India becoming a software giant. He added that though India is known as a software giant, it has not come out with popular IT tools like Google, WhatsApp, Facebook or Twitter.
"We must become real power in software by innovating such new possible utilities," Javadekar said, adding that each IIITs should strive to become 'centre of excellence' in the next 3-5 years.

Noting that there are two streams of IIITs - some government-funded and some under PPP, the minister said all the IIITs should work together and share among themselves best experiments and practices.
In the meeting it was also decided that steps would be taken to groom PhD scholars as future faculty, to provide enough flexibility in statutes to retain talent as faculty and researchers and to allow MOOCs along with a system of discussion, assessment and evaluation as credit / audit courses.
It was also decided to enhance intake of foreign students up to 15 percent as per the existing regulations.