The Indian Institutes of Technology (Hindi: भारतीय प्रौद्योगिकी संस्थान), or IITs, are a group of seven autonomous engineering and technology-oriented institutes of higher education established and declared as Institutes of National Importance by the Government of India. These institutes were created to train scientists and engineers, with the aim of developing a skilled workforce to underpin India's economic and social development after independence in 1947. The students and alumni of IITs are colloquially referred to as IITians.
IIT Kharagpur was the first IIT to be established, in 1951. Each IIT is an autonomous university, linked to the others through a common IIT Council, which oversees their administration. They have a common admission process, using the Joint Entrance Examination (popularly known as IIT-JEE) to select around 4,000 candidates a year. About 15,500 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students study in the seven IITs, in addition to research scholars. IITians have achieved success in a variety of professions, resulting in the establishment of the widely recognised IIT Brand. All IITs are autonomous universities that draft their own curricula, and they are, with the exception of IIT Kanpur, members of LAOTSE, an international network of universities in Europe and Asia. LAOTSE membership allows the IITs to exchange students and senior scholars with universities in other countries. and has nearly 360 faculty and approximately 2,500 undergraduate and 2,000 postgraduate students. The campus is spread over an area of about 2.5 km² (620 acres), and has 15 academic departments, nearly 100 laboratories, and 14 hostels.
Biosciences and Bioengineering Department of IIT Kanpur
IIT Kanpur was established in 1959 in the city of Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. During its first 10 years, IIT Kanpur benefited from the Kanpur–Indo-American Programme, where a consortium of nine US universities helped to set up the research laboratories and academic programmes.
The history of the IIT system dates back to 1946 when Sir Jogendra Singh of the Viceroy's Executive Council set up a committee whose task was to consider the creation of Higher Technical Institutions for post-war industrial development in India. The 22-member committe, headed by Nalini Ranjan Sarkar, recommended the establishment of these institutions in various parts of India, with affiliated secondary institutions. The committee felt that such institutes should not only produce undergraduates, but researchers and academics. The institutes were expected to maintain high educational standards.
With these recommendations in view, the first Indian Institute of Technology was founded in May, 1950 at the site of the Hijli Detention Camp in Kharagpur. On September 15, 1956, the Parliament of India passed the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) Act, declaring it as an Institute of National Importance. Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India, in the first convocation address of IIT Kharagpur in 1956, said:
On the recommendations of the Sarkar Committee, four campuses were established at Mumbai (1958), Chennai (1959), Kanpur (1959), and Delhi (1961). The Indian Institutes of Technology Act was amended to reflect the addition of new IITs., and having residual powers. Directly under the President is the IIT Council, which comprises of the minister-in-charge of technical education in the Union Government, the Chairmen of all IITs, the Directors of all IITs, the Chairman of the University Grants Commission, the Director General of CSIR, the Chairman of IISc, the Director of IISc, three members of Parliament, the Joint Council Secretary of Ministry of Human Resource and Development, and three appointees each of the Union Government, AICTE, and the Visitor.
Under the IIT Council is the Board of Governors of each IIT. Under the Board of Governors is the Director, who is the chief academic and executive officer of the IIT. Under the Director, in the organisational structure, comes the Deputy Director. Under the Director and the Deputy Director, come the Deans, Heads of Departments, Registrar, President of the Students' Council, and Chairman of the Hall Management Committee. The Registrar is the chief administrative officer of the IIT and overviews the day-to-day operations. Below the Heads of Department (HOD) are the faculty members (Professors, Associate Professors, and Assistant Professors). The Wardens come under the Chairman of the Hall Management Committee.
Entrance of IIT Madras
Admission to undergraduate programs in all IITs is tied to the Joint Entrance Examination, popularly known as IIT-JEE. Candidates who qualify admission via IIT-JEE can apply for admission in B.Tech. (Bachelor of Technology), Dual Degree (Integrated Bachelor of Technology and Master of Technology) and Integrated M.Sc. (Master of Sciences) courses in IITs. IIT-JEE is a science-oriented entrance exam, testing candidate's knowledge of mathematics, physics and chemistry. It is conducted by an IIT chosen by a policy of rotation. Since its inception, the IIT-JEE has had a highly competitive pattern of questioning. The undergraduate acceptance rate at IITs through JEE is around 1 in 50, with about 300,000India is one of the countries that practices a form of reverse discrimination on caste-based reserved quotas. As per the provisions in the Indian constitution, the IITs have been reserving seats for Backward Castes of society since 1973. The IITs follow a reservation policy that is notably different from the quota policy elsewhere in India.
Difference between theoretical and actual reservation in IITs
As per the rules of admission to IITs, 15% of the admitted students must be of the Scheduled Castes, and 7.5% of seats are reserved for Scheduled Tribes. The classes are usually held between 7:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., though there are some variations within each IIT. All the IITs have public libraries for the use of their students. In addition to a collection of prescribed books, the libraries have sections for fiction and other literary genres. The electronic libraries allow students to access online journals and periodicals.
The academic policies of each IIT are decided by its Senate. This comprises all professors of the IIT and student representatives. Unlike many western universities that have an elected senate, the IITs have an academic senate. It controls and approves the curriculum, courses, examinations and results, and appoints committees to look into specific academic matters. The teaching, training and research activities of the institute are periodically reviewed by the senate to maintain educational standards. The Director of an IIT is the ex-officio Chairman of the Senate.
All the IITs follow the credits system of performance evaluation, with proportional weighting of courses based on their importance. The total marks (usually out of 100) form the basis of grades, with a grade value (out of 10) assigned to a range of marks. Sometimes, relative grading is done considering the overall performance of the whole class. For each semester, the students are graded on a scale of 0 to 10 based on their performance, by taking a weighted average of the grade points from all the courses, with their respective credit points. Each semester evaluation is done independently and then the weighted average over all semesters is used to calculate the cumulative grade point average (known as CGPA or CPI"Cumulative Performance Index).
Undergraduate education
The B.Tech. degree is the most common undergraduate degree in the IITs in terms of student enrolment. It is based on a 4-year program with eight semesters. In all IITs, the first year of B.Tech. courses is marked by common course structure for all the students, though in some IITs, a single department introduction related course is also included. The common courses include the basics from most of the departments like Electronics, Mechanics, Chemistry, and Physics. At the end of first year, an option to change departments is given to meritorious students on the basis of their performance in the first two semesters. Only few such changes eventually take place as the criteria for it is usually strict, allowing only the exceptionally meritorious students.
From the second year onwards, the students study subjects exclusively from their respective departments. In addition to these, the students have to take compulsory advanced courses from other departments in order to broaden their education. Separate compulsory courses from humanities and social sciences department, and sometimes from management courses are also enforced. At the end of third year, the undergraduate students have to undertake a summer project at an industry or reputed academic institute as part of the curriculum. In the last year of their studies, most of the students are placed into industries and organisations via the placement process of the respective IIT, though some students opt out of this either when going for higher studies or when they take up jobs by applying to the companies directly. as against 6 years in conventional B.Tech. (4 years) followed by an M.Tech. (2 years). The reason for starting this program was to encourage IITians to complete postgraduate studies from IIT rather than going to other reputed institutes. All IITs (except IIT Guwahati) have schools of management offering degrees in management or business administration.
All IITs organise annual technical festivals, typically lasting three or four days. The technical festivals are Shaastra (IIT Madras), Techkriti (IIT Kanpur), Kshitij (IIT Kharagpur), Cognizance (IIT Roorkee), Techfest (IIT Bombay), Tryst (IIT Delhi), and Techniche (IIT Guwahati). Most of them are organised in the months of February or March. Shaastra holds the distinction of being the first student-managed event in the world to implement a formal Quality Management System, earning the ISO 9001:2000 certification.
The IITs have faced criticism from within and outside academia. Major concerns include allegations that they encourage a brain drain and that their stringent entrance examinations encourage coaching colleges and skew the socio-economic profile of the student body. Other critics are concerned at the insufficient representation of women and the disadvantaged.
Brain drain
Among the criticisms of the IIT system by the media, academia and the people in general, the most prominent is that it encourages brain drain.
