IISERs To Have Common Counselling With IITs Next Year: HRD Ministry

The Indian Institutes of Science Education & Research (IISERs) will be allowed common counselling process along with the IITs and NITs from the next academic year. The HRD Ministry has approved the common counselling process for the IISERs from next year as the IISERs were keen for it and the ministry said the decision should be rushed.

Last year, common counselling process was introduced for IITs and NITs.

According to TOI, "We advised caution. It is a good idea. Common counselling has found support among students," said a source after the day-long meeting of the standing committee of IISERs.

There are 7 IISERs across th country with 1,120 seats up for grabs, i.e., 200 seats each in the 5 campuses in Kolkata, Pune, Mohali, Bhopal and Trivandrum, and 60 seats each in the newer centres of Tirupati and Behrampur.

Similar to that of the IITs, it has been decided that the 15% of the supernumerary seats of each IISER will be made available for foreign students. However, the foreign candidates will have to clear the joint entrance test to make it to the IISERs.

Indian students can take any of the following three options to make it into the IISERs: either by clearing JEE or by bagging Kishore Vaigyanik Protshahan Yojna (KVPY) awards and being among the top 1 per cent of each school board, including CBSE.

According to reports, the NRI students studying in India can get admissions into any of IISERs through any of the three routes mentioned above similar to Indian students, the fee charged for them will also be same as those taken from Indian students.

Foreign students will also be allowed to take admissions for post-doctoral research, however, they will have to fulfil all existing criteria.

The originally started 5 IISERs have made a mark with cutting-edge research in various fields, especially biotechnology. "In ranking and research, IISERs are just below Indian Institute of Science," a senior official said. In terms of output, each IISER has about six or seven US patents and also have on an average 1,000 research papers published in international-refereed journals.