Established in December 1959, the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, also known as IITK or IIT Kanpur is one of the prominent institutes in India that provides top-level education related to basic and applied research and technology.
Under the Institutes of Technology (Amendment) Act, 2011, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), the Government of India established this autonomous institute to provide higher education in technology and engineering.
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is approved and recognized by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), New Delhi and as an Institute of National Importance (INI) by the Government of India. IIT Kanpur is also ISO 9001:2008 certified.
IIT Kanpur arranges for a wide variety of activities in the institute campus by partnering with various institutes and industries so that the students here can be exposed to current trends in their specialized fields of study and acquire practical knowledge.
IIT Kanpur is the fifth Indian Institute of Technology to be set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India in order to increase the reach and improve the quality of technical education in India.
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is administered and controlled by a Board of Governors. The Chairman of the Council is the Minister of Human Resource and Development, Govt. of India.
IIT Kanpur was set up with the support of UNESCO and the Soviet Union which provided the funds. The technical expertise and the equipment were provided by the Soviet Union, as was agreed by UNESCO. The Government of India took up the responsibility of incurring other recurring expenses and funding the project.
In December 1959, the institute became operational at the Harcourt Butler Technological Institute at Agricultural Gardens in Kanpur. It was started in a room of the canteen building of the institute. In 1963, the institute was shifted to its current location, on the Grand Trunk Road.
This was near Kalyanpur village in Kanpur district.
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur was the first institute in the country to provide education on computer science, under the supervision of economist John Kenneth Galbraith. In August 1963, the first computer courses were started at the Institute on an IBM 1620 system.
The institute offers research, postgraduate and undergraduate degrees in engineering, management, sciences and humanities across eleven disciplines. It also awards Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) and Master of Technology (M.Tech) degrees in several engineering fields. Ph.D. programmes in various fields and M.Sc. in basic sciences are also offered.
Admission to IIT Kanpur can be sought by taking the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (JEE Advanced) which is conducted every year.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has awarded the college with the title of "College with Potential for Excellence (CPE)". As per the National Institutional Ranking Framework in 2017, IIT Kanpur is the fifth best engineering college amongst all engineering colleges in India. In the international scenario, as per the QS World University Rankings of 2018, the college was placed at 293.
It is to be noted that Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur was founded with the support of a coalition that comprised of 9 US research universities to run the Kanpur Indo-American Programme (KIAP).
Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) provide higher education in India. These are autonomous public institutes. These institutes are governed as per the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961. The Act has formally announced them as centres of national importance. The Act also specifies their framework for governance, powers, duties, etc.
The Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 lists 23 institutes located at Ropar, Palghat, Dhanbad, Bhilai, Delhi, Dharwad, Jodhpur, Goa, Jammu, Kharagpur, Kanpur, Mumbai, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Gandhinagar, Varanasi, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Indore, Roorkee, Mandi, Patna, and Tirupati.
The IIT Council links each IIT to the other as these are autonomous institutions. The IIT Council oversees their administration.
The ex-officio Chairperson of the IIT Council is the Union HRD Minister. For undergraduate admissions, the IITs have a common admission process, the Joint Entrance Examination Advanced. Before 2013, the common admission process was called IIT-JEE.
The older IITs (Madras, Bombay, Kharagpur, Delhi, Kanpur, Roorkee, Dhanbad, Varanasi and Guwahati) administer the post-graduate level programs. They award the MS and M.Tech degrees in engineering. The Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) is conducted for MS and M.Tech admissions.
Other than offering MS, B.Tech and M.Tech programs, IITs also award M.Sc degrees in Maths, Physics, and Chemistry; Ph.D.; MBA; etc. In order to get admission to these courses, students have to clear the Common Entrance Examination for Design (CEED), Joint Admission Test for Masters (JAM) and Common Admission Test (CAT).