IITs to offer MBBS, have foreign faculty, students

 

Recognizing the long-standing demand by many IITs and recommendations by various committees, the IIT Council on Friday gave its consent to the institutes to start courses in medicine.

But the IITs have a follow a slew of procedures before they can start medicine course. To begin with, they will have to seek approval of the Medical Council of India.

The HRD ministry will also have to amend the Institutes of Technology Act to allow them offer medicine course.

A proposal by IIT Kharagpur to open a medical college and hospital has been in the pipeline for the last few years. However, the health ministry is not in favour of IITs starting medical courses. Instead, it has suggested that they should consider starting Ph.D programme, involving collaboration between engineering and medical science.

IITs can now undertake inter-disciplinary research in the field of medicine, bio-engineering, biotechnology and related subjects.

In another major decision, of the total faculty strength in an IIT, up to 10% of the teaching staff can be foreign nationals.

The move comes in the wake of the fact that IITs have been facing a severe faculty crunch for a while. Though there are 4,267 vacancies, only 2,983 have been filled.

However, security clearance is required a head of hiring of a foreign national at a salary that is on a par with his Indian counterpart.

"We will set up a mechanism with the home ministry so that the process can be done without any hiccups," HRD minister Kapil Sibal said.

Interestingly, the ministry's proposal for Innovation Universities says foreign nationals will be hired as faculty for which the Citizenship Act needs to be amended.

The Council also decided to allow 25% foreign students on a supernumerary basis in post-graduate courses, which will not affect admission norms for Indian students.

Lack of consensus on reforms in the Joint Entrance Examination - proposed by the Damodar Acharya committee - led the IIT Council to set up another panel, under T Ramasami, secretary, science and technology that will submit its report in three months.

On JEE, while there was unanimity that the present system was a burden on the students, there was no consensus on an alternate model. Though there was agreement that class XII results should be given weightage, the interim report by the Damodar Acharya panel, which has suggested normalization of class XII results, did not find enough support.

Directors of seven IITs felt that the existing system of test should continue as an add-on examination along with the marks in class XII and aptitude test.

Ramasami has suggested that instead of normalization of marks given by all state boards there should be a system of determining state-wise percentile of students, who take the examination. "Nothing is final. We want the present system to change. It has been left to the Ramasami committee to give its report in three months," Sibal said.

Another decision taken was that IITs would be allowed to broad base their collaboration with institutions across the world. Social scientists would be on the board of governors of IITs. The premier institutes can set up Centres for Policy Studies to serve as an advisory forum for policy formulation in strategic areas of importance.