Pokhriyal discusses implementation of NEP in 54th meeting of IIT Council

Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on Monday chaired the 54th meeting of the Council of Institutes of Technology (IITs) to discuss the implementation of New Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

During the virtual meeting, Pokhriyal asked IITs to develop Institute Development Plan as envisioned in NEP 2020 to improve the mobility of faculty between institutions and industries. The mobility of faculty members and industry experts between technical institutes and industry will promote collaborations between industry and academia, he said.

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).

On the basis of the recommendation of the Chairman of Standing Committee for IIT Council, four Working Groups were constituted on issues related to NEP-2020: --Group-1: Graded Autonomy, Empowered and accountable BoG and Director, Group-2: Grooming distinguished academics for the directorship of IITs, Group-3: Reform and restructuring of the Academic Senate and Group-4: Innovative funding mechanisms

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

In today's meeting, the Council also put up for consideration a suggestion to arrange an Online IIT Research and Development (R&D) fair to showcase the quality research work being done by IITs to showcase the R&D work of IITs to the industry.

Highlighting several initiatives undertaken by the government, Pokhriyal mentioned about approval of funds to improve the overall infrastructure of the 4 IITs at Madras, Delhi, Kharagpur and Mumbai.

The Minister spoke about making IITs multi-disciplinary institutions for holistic growth in all disciplines of education, without losing its main focus on Scientific Research and Technology Development. He called upon IITs to make full use of the recently announced scheme National Research Foundation.

He hoped IITs will strive to achieve the global rankings by 2022, the 75th Year of India's Independence and assured IITs of every possible help and support in terms of finance, administrative guidance, issues relating to various other ministries and agencies of the government.

Congratulating heads of all IITs and chairpersons for successfully continuing the academics during the challenging times of COVID-19 and for their remarkable contribution in combating the COVID-19 by way of new scientific research, he exhorted the IITs to become a driving force behind realising the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat, as envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.