Aptitude test instead of IIT-JEE being mulled.
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will now be able to offer courses in medicine and give degrees in the same, besides getting foreign nationals on permanent faculty positions and students from abroad at the post graduate level.
“We are making sure that wherever the instruction leads to a degree relating to any branch of medicine, then clearances from MCI under the Act will have to be taken. No MCI approval would be required where IITs engage with inter-disciplinary research for the advancement of learning and dissemination of knowledge not leading to a degree or qualification for the practice of medicine,” said Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal here today, after chairing the meeting of the Council of IITs.
The council said areas of medicine involved a large number of engineering techniques and the IIT Act would have to be amended for the premier institutes to offer courses in medicine with MCI’s approval. For this exercise, the council decided to set up a permanent standing committee under R A Mashelkar, former head of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
Also, in an attempt to reduce the multiplicity of entrance exams, class 12 marks along with an aptitude test would decide admissions into IITs and other engineering colleges. The minister said modalities were still being worked out to make changes in the admission process and no timeframe has been set for implementing new proposals.
The council also decided to enable IITs to recruit foreign teachers, who should not be more than 10 per cent of the total faculty strength besides proposing that foreign students may be allowed admission up to 20 per cent on a supernumerary basis in post- graduate programmes, without affecting the present admission norms for Indian students.
“In principle, we agreed that IITs are entitled to recruitte foreign faculty. They will set up a mechanism with the home ministry to ensure there is no hiccup in the process and there is easy exit and entry of people as faculties. The home ministry is revising the guidelines for foreign faculty. Some other issues like bringing amendments to the Indian Citizenship Act will also have to be looked into,” Sibal said.
The council decided that norm-based funding may be considered to allow greater autonomy in financing decisions to the IITs and to put an end to the disputes arising out of the hiring process.
He added that centres for policy studies, which would serve as an advisory forum for policy formulation in strategic areas, would also be set up by IITs and each IIT could concentrate on a particular country. The council also decided to set up a cadre of technical staff within the IIT system for the benefit of academic staff and to ensure seamless teaching process. “The present norm of the finance ministry of having 1.1 technical staff for one academic staff is creating a lot of problem in getting adequate technical people. The proposed cadre will not be covered under this norm and once the papers are prepared, they would move the Cabinet for its approval,” said Sibal.
