Indian Institute of Technology

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), are a group of thirteen autonomous engineering and technology-oriented institutes of higher education established and declared as Institutes of National Importance by the Parliament of India. The IITs were created to train scientists and engineers, with the aim of developing a skilled workforce to support the economic and social development of India after independence in 1947. The students and alumni of IITs are colloquially referred to as IITians.

In order of establishment, they are located in Kharagpur (1950; as IIT 1951[1]), Mumbai (1958), Chennai (1959), Kanpur (1959), Delhi (1961; as IIT 1963), Guwahati (1994), Roorkee (1847; as IIT 2001), Bhubaneswar (2008), Gandhinagar (2008), Hyderabad (2008), Patna (2008), Punjab (2008) and Rajasthan (2008). The Government of India has announced plans to add three more IITs, to be established at Indore, Mandi and Varanasi (via conversion of the IT BHU).

Some IITs were established with financial assistance and technical expertise from UNESCO, Germany, the United States, and Soviet Union. Each IIT is an autonomous university, linked to the others through a common IIT Council, which oversees their administration. They have a common admission process for undergraduate admissions, using the Joint Entrance Examination (popularly known as IIT-JEE) to select around 4,000 undergraduate candidates a year. Postgraduate Admissions are done on the basis of the GATE, JMET, JAM and CEED. About 15,500 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students study in the IITs, in addition to research scholars.

IIT alumni have achieved success in a variety of professions. Owing to the autonomy of the IITs, these institutes are among those few institutes (the other institutes being NITs) in India that offer degrees in technology (B. Tech.) at the undergraduate level as opposed to the Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degrees awarded by most other Indian universities. Most of the IITs were created in early 1950s and 1960s as the Institutes of National Importance through special acts of Indian Parliament. The success of the IITs led to the creation of the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT) in the late 1990s and in the 2000s.

History

The history of the IIT system dates back to 1946 when Sir Jogendra Singh of the Viceroy's Executive Council set up a committee whose task was to consider the creation of Higher Technical Institutions for post-war industrial development in India. The 22-member committee, headed by Nalini Ranjan Sarkar, recommended the establishment of these institutions in various parts of India, with affiliated secondary institutions. The committee felt that such institutes should not only produce undergraduates, but researchers and academics. The institutes were expected to maintain high educational standards.

With these recommendations in view, the first Indian Institute of Technology was founded in May 1950 at the site of the Hijli Detention Camp in Kharagpur. On September 15, 1956, the Parliament of India passed the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) Act, declaring it as an Institute of National Importance. Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India, in the first convocation address of IIT Kharagpur in 1956 said:“ Here in the place of that Hijli Detention Camp stands the fine monument of India, representing India's urges, India's future in the making. This picture seems to me symbolical of the changes that are coming to India. ”


On the recommendations of the Sarkar Committee, four campuses were established at Mumbai (1958), Chennai (1959), Kanpur (1959), and Delhi (1961). The location of these campuses was chosen to be scattered throughout India to prevent regional imbalance.The Indian Institutes of Technology Act was amended to reflect the addition of new IITs.[18] Student agitations in the state of Assam made Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi promise the creation of a new IIT in Assam. This led to a sixth campus at Guwahati under the Assam Accord in 1994. The University of Roorkee, India's oldest engineering college, was conferred IIT status in 2001.

Over the past few years, there have been a number of developments toward establishing new IITs. On October 1, 2003, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced plans to create more IITs "by upgrading existing academic institutions that have the necessary promise and potential". Subsequent developments led to the formation of the S K Joshi Committee in November 2003 to guide the selection of the five institutions which would become the five new IITs.

Based on the initial recommendations of the Sarkar Committee, it was decided that further IITs should be spread throughout the country. When the government expressed its willingness to correct this regional imbalance, 16 states demanded IITs. Since the S K Joshi Committee prescribed strict guidelines for institutions aspiring to be IITs, only seven colleges were selected for final consideration. Plans are also reported to open IITs outside India, though not enough progress has been made in this regard. Eventually in the 11th Five year plan, eight states were identified for establishment of new IITs, and IT-BHU was recommended to be converted in to IIT.

Reputation

The degrees provided by IITs are recognised by the AICTE and hence recognised by all institutions in India. Even outside India, IIT degrees are respected, largely due to the prestige of the IITs as created by their alumni. One of the contributing factors behind the success of IITs is the special status of the IITs as Institutes of National Importance under the Indian Institute of Technology Act. The IIT Act ensures that the IITs have special privileges and lays the foundation for them to evolve as world-class institutes. The autonomy ensured by the Act enables the IITs to implement changes quickly, to keep up with changing scenarios in both the educational world, and society in general.

Student politics in IITs is kept under control with strict vigilance over the way student body elections are held. The IIT-JEE is another important factor behind the success of IITs, as it enables the IITs to accept only a select group of meritorious students. This combination of success factors has led to the concept of the IIT Brand.[53] Other factors that have contributed to the success of IITs are stringent faculty recruitment procedures and industry collaboration. The procedure for selection of faculty in IITs is stricter as compared to other colleges offering similar degrees. The Ph.D. degree is a pre-requisite for all regular faculty appointments. The IITs have better interaction with various industries as compared to most other Indian colleges. The IITs are also considered highly successful institutions compared to other engineering colleges in India according to a number of educational surveys.

The view that IIT graduates are intelligent and hardworking people has been established by the success of IITians. Former IIT students get greater respect from their peers, academia and industry in general. The IIT brand was reaffirmed when the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring Indian Americans and especially graduates of IIT for their contributions to the American society. Similarly, China also recognised the value of IITs and planned to replicate the model.

Most IITs are consistently ranked above any other engineering colleges in India in engineering education surveys, with regard to quality of faculty, teaching standards, research facilities and campus placements. In international surveys, the IITs fail to achieve top rankings. The Times Higher Education Supplement (2008) ranked IIT-Delhi and IIT-Bombay 157th and 174 th best overall universities respectively in their World University Rankings. The THES also ranked 5 IITs in the top 100 globally for technology with IIT-Bombay ranking the highest at 36th. For Natural Sciences, IIT-Bombay ranked 77th and was the only IIT to feature in the 2008 rankings.

In the Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities, only one IIT (IIT Kharagpur) was listed among the top 500 universities worldwide. The IITs fall short in many parameters that are considered for educational rankings. The criteria for ranking prominently include internationally recognised research output, in which the IITs do not achieve notable success. Another criterion being the Social Science Citation Index, the rank of IITs suffers as they do not have large departments of liberal arts and social sciences. Since the IITs have only a few international faculty and students (except those by exchange programs), the rankings of IITs in many international surveys have suffered. Since the IITs have scored better under most educational ranking criteria than other Indian colleges and universities, they continue to achieve top positions in nationwide surveys.

Education

The IITs receive disproportionately high grants compared to other engineering colleges in India. While the total government funding to most other engineering colleges is around Rs. 100–200 million (USD 2-4 million) per year, the amount varies between Rs. 900–1,300 million (USD 18-26 million) per year for each IIT. Other sources of funds include student fees and research funding from industry and contributions from the alumni. This has translated into superior infrastructure and better faculty in the IITs and consequently higher competition among students to gain admissions into the IITs. The faculty-to-student ratio in the IITs is between 1:6 and 1:8.

The Standing Committee of IIT Council (SCIC) prescribes the lower limit for faculty-to-student ratio as 1:9, applied department wise. The IITs subsidise undergraduate student fees by approximately 80% and provide scholarships to all Master of Technology students and Research Scholars in order to encourage students for higher studies, per the recommendations of the Thacker Committee (1959–1961). The cost borne by undergraduate students including boarding and mess expenses is around Rs. 65,000 per annum. It has increased significantly over past ten years. For instance, the cost was about Rs.12,000 per annum for the students graduating in 1998.

The various IITs function autonomously, and their special status as Institutes of National Importance facilitates the smooth running of IITs, virtually free from both regional as well as student politics. Such autonomy means that IITs can create their own curricula and adapt rapidly to the changes in educational requirements, free from bureaucratic hurdles. The government has no direct control over internal policy decisions of IITs (like faculty recruitment and curricula) but has representation on the IIT Council. The medium of instruction in all IITs is English. The classes are usually held between 7:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., though there are some variations within each IIT. All the IITs have public libraries for the use of their students. In addition to a collection of prescribed books, the libraries have sections for fiction and other literary genres. The electronic libraries allow students to access on-line journals and periodicals.

The academic policies of each IIT are decided by its Senate. This comprises all professors of the IIT and student representatives. Unlike many western universities that have an elected senate, the IITs have an academic senate. It controls and approves the curriculum, courses, examinations and results, and appoints committees to look into specific academic matters. The teaching, training and research activities of the institute are periodically reviewed by the senate to maintain educational standards. The Director of an IIT is the ex-officio Chairman of the Senate.

All the IITs follow the credits system of performance evaluation, with proportional weighting of courses based on their importance. The total marks (usually out of 100) form the basis of grades, with a grade value (out of 10) assigned to a range of marks. Sometimes, relative grading is done considering the overall performance of the whole class. For each semester, the students are graded on a scale of 0 to 10 based on their performance, by taking a weighted average of the grade points from all the courses, with their respective credit points. Each semester evaluation is done independently and then the weighted average over all semesters is used to calculate the cumulative grade point average (known as CGPA or CPI—Cumulative Performance Index).

The Times Higher Education Supplement (2008) ranked IIT-Delhi and IIT-Bombay 157th and 174 th best overall universities respectively in their World University Rankings