IITs to increase girls-intake, foreign students, tackle student suicides

There are currently 23 IITs across the country.

According to global rankings of engineering schools published in October 2015, the highest ranked was IIT Delhi. It was on the 103rd place out of 250. Several others IITs ranked between 169 and 229.

Unimpressive rankings in the past have been attributed to a very small intake of foreign students and limited international faculty.

As per current regulations students admitted to IITs are mandated to stay in on-campus hostels.

The proposal to increase intake is intended to do away with mandatory accommodation rules and admit students that can stay off-campus as expanding hostel infrastructure would take a long time.

Another key project underway is 'Vishwajeet' whose focus is to assist seven IITs in boosting their rankings internationally.

All the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) colleges plan to significantly up their intake year-on-year so as to admit 1 lakh students cumulatively by the year 2020.

The upcoming council meeting next week will discuss a proposal to admit 30,000 NRI students over the next three years.

Currently, IITs admit a total of 72,000 students for doctoral, graduate and undergraduate courses.

Following the recent meeting of the Joint Admission Board (JAB), the topmost decision-making body of IIT-JEE (Advanced), IITs have decided to up their student intake by 5% from the next academic session.

Foreign-student intake is also expected to observe a 10% increase.

A total of 23 IITs have decided to implement these changes; however, older IITs face infrastructural limitations for the same.

In a bid to increase the intake of female students, the Joint Admission Board of the Indian Institutes of Technology will implement a 14% reservation in seats for girl students from the 2018 academic session.

The reservation will increase in a phased manner till 20% in 2026.

IITs have been concerned with the slump in the number of women being admitted to courses.

At a meeting, the IIT Council decided to set aside seats in all courses to increase number of girl students.

It is also looking to attract more foreign students; a hike in postgraduate fee is being considered.

The JEE and GATE will be extended to more countries.

The panel also discussed student suicides; IIT-KGP Director Partha Chakrabarti pushed for wellness centres on each campus.