Vikash Sharma

Bhubaneswar: Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' on Monday urged Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) to adopt One IIT - One Thrust Area approach based on local needs.

Pokhhriyal, who chaired the 54th Meeting of the Council of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) today through online medium, asked IITs to develop Institute Development Plan as envisioned in National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 to improve the mobility of faculty between institution and Industry.

The mobility of faculty members and industry experts between technical institutes and industry will promote collaborations between industry and academia, he added.

As per a PIB release, Pokhriyal also mentioned about approval of funds to improve the overall infrastructure of the 4 IITs at Madras, Delhi Kharagpur and Bombay.

The Union Minister spoke about making IITs as multi-disciplinary institutions for holistic growth in all disciplines of education, without losing its main focus on Scientific Research and Technology Development.

Earlier, a committee was constituted under the chairmanship of Dr K. Radhakrishnan, Chairman, Standing Committee for IIT Council for suggesting recruitment of faculties in IITs (Industry interaction and mobility of faculty).

Digital Transformation using Blockchain, AI, ML, and Cloud Computing at IITs also came up for discussion during the meeting.

It was recommended to constitute a taskforce to review use of technology at all IITs and also to accelerate deployment of digital tools. It was also recommended to undertake rationalization of staff from current standards to a lower number.

On the basis of the recommendation of the Chairman of Standing Committee for IIT Council, four Working Groups were constituted on the following issues related to NEP-2020:

Group-1: Graded Autonomy, Empowered and accountable BoG and Director

Group-2: Grooming distinguished academics for directorship of IITs

Group-3: Reform and restructuring of the Academic Senate

Group-4: Innovative funding mechanisms

The reports of the these groups and also of a new group which will work on faculty development will be presented in a meeting to be chaired Union Education Minister, the release added.

 

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