IITs To Have 1 Lakh Seats By 2020; Measures Taken To Increase Faculty

During the winter session held at Rajya Sabha, the government announced that the overall student strength of the Indian Institutes of Technology will be increased to one lakh by 2020.

According to officials, the IIT Council has approved the proposal to increase the overall students' strength in IITs. Currently, the student strength in IITs is 82,604 and the proposal means to increase it to one lakh by 2020.

Minister of State for Human Resource Development Mahendra Nath Pandey said the IIT-Council took the decision at its 50th meeting held on Wednesday.

The minister also assured that there is no adverse effect on studies in the institutes due to shortage of facility. He added that the IITs were taking measures to boost the faculty numbers.

In order to curb the shortage of faculty at the IITs, they have been taking measures to attract quality faculty. Some of them which include year round open advertisements, invitation through search-cum-selection procedures to alumni/scientists/faculty, advertisements in international journals, and appointment of NRIs and PIOs to faculty positions on the same terms as applicable to regular faculty.

In addition to all of th above they are also engaging contract, adjunct and visiting faculty.

Several other steps such as outstanding young faculty awards, mobility of faculty from one central educational institute to another, and pay parity to faculty have also been taken to attract best faculty in these institutions.

Meanwhile in December 2015, the government had launched Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) scheme to boost the quality of the country's higher education through international collaboration.

The human resource development (HRD) ministry initiative was launched at IIT Gandhinagar by HRD Minister Smriti Irani, and was flagged off parallelly at IIT Kharagpur in the presence of R. Subrahmanyam, additional secretary for technical education in the ministry.

GIAN aims at bringing high quality academicians to participate in delivering courses in Indian institutions, said Subrahmanyam. Read the complete story here.