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The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, has given his assurance that the autonomy of the various Indian Institutes of Technology will not be eroded but be protected at all levels.
The assurance was given at a meeting that representatives of the All India Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Faculty Federation had with the Prime Minister here on Friday. The meeting was called to discuss the concerns related to the ‘one nation, one test' entrance examination for engineering institutes.
“We had a very fruitful discussion. The Prime Minister said that the brand IIT has to be maintained and added that as a former teacher he understands how important an institute's academic autonomy is,” Prof A.K. Mittal, Secretary, All India IIT Faculty Federation, said.
Representatives of all seven IITs were present at the meeting.
“The Prime Ministry appreciated the key concerns we have been expressing. He has agreed to take up the matter with the Human Resources Ministry. We are sure a dialogue will open up again and fruitful solutions would emerge,” Prof K. Narasimhan, President of the Federation, and Faculty at IIT-Bombay, said.
Prof Narasimhan added that though the announcement for the changes should be made at the earliest, the IITs want the reform process to start only from 2014 to enable students to prepare.
He added that the IITs are not against the inclusion of board marks but they are not convinced with the proposed normalisation process and would like the exams in 2013 to be treated as a dry-run, enabling them to analyse how inclusion of Class XII board marks changes the merit list.
The IIT Senates have been opposing the decision to hold common entrance examination, a move which had been approved by the IIT Council in May this year.
However, according to the IIT Act, 1961, the “Senate of an Institute shall have the control and general regulation, and be responsible for the maintenance, of standards of instruction, education and examination in the Institute.”
Further, according to the Act, the IIT Council is responsible for co-ordinating the activities of all the Institutes. The Act goes on to state that the Council will also “advise on matters relating to the duration of the courses, the degrees and other academic distinctions to be conferred by the Institutes, admission standards and other academic matters.”
However, at the meeting with the Prime Minister, the Federation requested that “Senates of IITs be allowed to take decision on admission in IITs (considering all relevant aspects like format of examination, modalities etc).”
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