IIT increases its fee

Go to the main page

The government will scrap all engineering entrance exams from 2013-14. It has also come up with a novel idea of hiking tuition fees: students will not feel the pinch during the course of study, but they will have to pay up once they get a job.

Currently, various state boards and institutions, including the IITs, conduct at least 150 entrance exams every year. The government decided to dump all such exams, including the IIT-JEE and the AIEEE, at a meeting of IIT Council (IIT directors) and officials from the ministry of human resource development (HRD). Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal chaired the meeting.

“There will be one merit list. Institutes, including the IITs, will have to pick up students from this list,” Sibal said. “The list will be based on Std 12 marks and the entrance test results. Also, students will be counselled before they choose a course.” This test will be similar to the common entrance exam for medical courses beginning next year.

While rejecting the report of the Anil Kakodkar Committee that had suggested a five-fold fee hike for IITs (BTech and MTech programmes), the government, in principle, approved a fee hike. Sibal said students would continue paying Rs50,000 as annual fee, but they would have to “pay back” the difference money — the fee paid by a student and the money spent on him by an IIT — once they get a job.

Those from the SC/ST and OBC categories and students going for higher education or joining an IIT faculty would be exempted from this policy. The exemption would encourage students to take up research work and meet the faculty shortage, Sibal said.
l Turn to p13

“At present, the fees are nominal because of government subsidy,” he said. “The actual cost works out to nearly Rs6-8 lakh per student. Students can surely pay back this amount in easy instalments, considering the plush jobs they land with once they get their degrees.”

But the government wants a foolproof system in place to ensure students pay back the difference money. The degrees, which will soon be in a DMAT format, will reflect the difference money as loan and employers will be asked to deduct it from a student’s salary and deposit it with the government.

The government knows that several states might oppose its plan of a common entrance test for engineering courses because a large chunk of engineering colleges comes under state purview.

But it is confident of having the support of state governments because of the Supreme Court order in favour of a common entrance exam for medical courses. Sibal said that the Centre would discuss the matter with all state education ministers and representatives of all state boards.

SOURCE

http://www.dnaindia.com/academy/report_goodbye-iit-jee-1-test-from-2013_1587285


New Delhi: The government has decided to effect a conditional fourfold increase in the education fee for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) to Rs. 8 lakh.
The increased amount will, however, be recovered in a staggered manner after the student is employed. For this, the IITs will enter into a tripartite agreement with the employing company and the graduate.
The fee hike, to be implemented from 2013 in all the 15 IITs across the country, will, however, exclude students belonging to scheduled castes/tribes and other backward classes with parental income less than Rs.4.5 lakh per year.
As an incentive, the increased fees will also be waived for those who skip the job market and prefer academics.
The government has effectively signalled its willingness, going forward, to do away with wholesale subsidized education.
The decision was taken at the IIT council meeting comprising officials from the IITs and human resource development (HRD) ministry officials.
“There has been demand for a blanket increase of fees for students, but we have decided not to burden those who are falling under the underprivileged category,” HRD minister Kapil Sibal said after the IIT council meeting in Delhi on Wednesday. The minister confirmed that the increase will come into effect in two years.
Sibal said that education of each BTech student costs the IITs around Rs. 8 lakh for the entire four-year period—implying a subsidy of Rs. 6 lakh.

The HRD ministry took its cue from a government panel, which recommended an increase in tuition fee for IIT students from an annual Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 2-2.5 lakh (Rs. 8-10 lakh over four years) to help the premier schools improve their standards, both in terms of physical and intellectual infrastructure. At the BTech level, the IITs admit nearly 10,000 students every year after a national-level entrance that tests around 500,000 students every year.
The IITs will have an agreement with employers for repaying the additional fees, Sibal said.
“The moment the students gets a job, the institutes will have an arrangement with the employers to reimburse the extra money from their salary on an instalment basis,” he said.
The government is creating an electronic database for all students to help manage the system.
Waiving the fee for those pursuing academics will also help quadruple the faculty base of the IITs from 4,000 to 16,000 in a decade, besides giving research a boost, the minister said.
“By 2020, we are planning to admit at least 10,000 students in the postgraduate and research category of IITs to boost the research and development facility in the country,” Sibal added. “The move is to make IITs research-oriented organizations from the current undergraduate focus.”
Currently, there are around 1,000 students in these categories, according to HRD ministry data.
Experts welcomed the move.
“The fee should be in line with the cost of education. Hiking the fee is good as it will make the IITs financially a little better and less dependent on government funding,” said Bharat Gulia, senior manager (education practice) at consulting firm Ernst and Young.
The decision should, however, be practically implemented so that employers aren’t discouraged by a complicated process, he said.
IIT students were sceptical about the decision.
“Many students have family responsibilities. To deduct a portion of the salary will definitely pinch,” said an IIT Delhi student who didn’t want to be named. Another pointed out that IIT graduates who move on to management school may be able to unfairly claim a fee waiver.
Sibal reiterated that the IIT council was deliberating on a single entrance exam for all engineering colleges by 2013.
“We are examining it, but it needs the approval of the state education ministers and the Central Advisory Board of Education,” he said. “We have two years’ time and hopefully, we will reach there.”
There may be political resistance from the states against such a move.
“We will see whether this single entrance exam is for all central government-run engineering colleges or all colleges across the country,” he said.
The various admission tests include the IIT-Joint Entrance Exam (JEE), state-level JEEs, and a central-level all-India entrance examination conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education for 30 National Institutes of Technology and some architecture institutes in the country.
The council also approved a new campus for IIT Delhi in Haryana.
prashant.n@livemint.com
source
http://www.livemint.com/2011/09/14234413/IIT-fee-set--to-increase-fourf.html?h=B

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) on Friday asked the Kakodkar Committee to “re-work” its proposal seeking a four-fold increase in fees for undergraduate courses at the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

At a meeting of the Joint Council of IITs held here, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said the proposal to increase the fee from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 2.5 lakh a year would act as a deterrent to aspiring students. He asked the committee to re-work the “mathematical model” and present its report to the Board of Governors of the IITs before forwarding it to the Ministry for a final call.

The five-member committee, set up to suggest a road map for IITs' autonomy and growth, had recommended the hike to make IITs more self-sufficient, reduce dependence on grants, and enable the institutes to create faculty and non-faculty posts on their own without having to seek government clearance.

The committee, which presented the report before the Council, also suggested that the 15 IITs should raise the money to run undergraduate courses entirely through tuition fees and not depend on grants.

The Kakodkar Committee was set up in October 2009. Its other members are: T.V. Mohandas Pai, Director (Human Resource), Infosys; K. Mohandas, Vice-Chancellor of the Kerala University of Health and Allied Sciences; Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala, IIT Madras; and Hari Bhartia, Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry. IIT Guwahati Director Gautam Barua, IIT Mandi Director T. Gonsalves and IIT Kanpur Chairman M. Anandakrishnan were special invitees.

The committee had a series of meetings with the IIT directors, faculty and industry representatives.

Its members visited five universities in China last November to familiarise themselves with the best practices in science education and research. The committee will come up with fresh recommendations within a month.

The Joint Council could not take up the Ramasami committee report on the format of the IIT Joint Entrance Examination due to Mr. Ramasami's absence from the meeting.

Research parks

However, it was agreed that 50 research parks — on the lines of the one developed by IIT Madras — would be developed in the 12{+t}{+h} Five Year Plan. The members also agreed to enhance the Ph.Ds from the current 1,000 to 10,000 annually.

Cyber security

A presentation was made to the Council on adopting “cyber security as part of the curriculum by IITs.”

It was decided that a committee under Dr. R. Chidambaram would be set up to develop a road map for the future and give a report in three months.

The committee would involve all educational institutions as well as government departments for this purpose.

The report of Professor Devang Khakhar on attracting grants from Unesco and other multi-national agencies, such as the European Union, was welcomed by the members of the Council and the report approved.

source http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article1109463.ece ee

Kakodkar committee for steep hike in IIT fee NEW DELHI, May 14, DHNS: A committee, set by the government to suggest measures for making all the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) world class institutions, has recommended a steep hike in their tuition fee from the current Rs 50,000 per student to at least Rs 2 lakh per annum.

Justifying its recommendat­ion for hike in tuition fee of the premier engineering institut­ions, the Anil Kakodkar committee said that it was reasonable considering the high demand for IIT graduates and the salary that an IIT BTech is expected to get. “The tuition fees of IITs sh­o­uld be between Rs 2–2.5 lakh per year per student,” committee recommended in its report. It proposed that the fee ch­arged by the IITs should cover the full operational cost of education, which works out to be roughly 30 per cent of the total current cost of education. There should be “hassle-free” bank loan scheme specific to IIT students. “No collateral would be required. This would enable access to all eligible and deserving students,” it added. The committee has come up with its recommendation for four fold fee hike in IITs despite the suggestion was rejected by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal during a meeting of IIT council earlier in January this year. Sibal was of the view that such huge fee would not be affordable to a large number of st­udents and hence the committee should reconsider its su­ggestion to increase fee by four times. The committee made presentation of its final report bef­o­re the HRD minister this week. Sources said that Sibal, who was already not convinced with the suggestion to increase the tuition fee of IITs, noted that its implementation would be difficult. The report will now be placed before IIT council and opinion of all the stake ho­l­ders will be sought before any final decision is taken, sources said. The committee has also proposed that Ministry sh­ould fully provide for fees and living expenses for all research students (post graduates) as well as under graduate students from weaker sections as per currently prevalent no­r­ms at IITs. “In addition, all students whose parental income is less than Rs 4.5 lakh per annum (to be revised from time to time), should be paid scholarships covering 100 per cent fees, and a monthly stipend,” the committee suggested. It also proposed to give inc­e­ntives like deferm­ent of loans for students entering postgraduate education and research and proportionate repayment of loan for students joining as faculty and researchers into programmes at IITs and other areas.