IITs Reject Govt.’s Plan of Making them Accrediting Agencies

Indian Institutes of Technology are not in favour of becoming accrediting agencies and therefore rejected the government’s plan on the same. Earlier, the government of India suggested that IITs could play a significant role in assessing and evaluating the institutes of higher learning across the country.

The suggestion came from Union Ministry of Human Resource and Development to make IITs and IIMs the accreditation bodies. The objective of the ministry was to maintain a close watch on the quality of the higher education in the country. As of now, IITs have rejected the plan of the government.

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The ministry raised the suggestion during the IIT Council meet. The members of the Council clarified that IITs cannot become full-fledged accrediting bodies for evaluating universities and higher educational institutions. However, IITs will help in consolidating the existing bodies.

IIT Council further clarified that their focus is on enhancing research activities. There is also an increasing demand for expanding student capacity. IITs are not ready to take extra stress by involving themselves in non-administrative activities. On the other hand, some of the IITs are facing the shortage of faculty, and involvement in non-administrative activities will increase the problem further.

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One of the government officials revealed that IITs have assured to strengthen the existing bodies such as National Board of Accreditation or NBA and National Assessment and Accreditation Council or NAAC.

Mr. Prakash Javadekar, HRD Minister had spoken against the existing system in August 2016. He planned to make IITs and IIMs as the accreditation bodies in order to complete the process of accrediting educational institutes in time without much delay.