IITs voice concern over proposed accreditation role

The Indian Institutes of Technology have expressed concern over the human resource development ministry's proposal for helping in the accreditation of institutions on quality criteria, The Telegraph reported.

After the ministry came out with plans to start accreditation centres in the premier tech schools and in the Indian Institutes of Management, the matter came up for discussion at the IIT directors' meeting in IIT Kanpur on 12 December.

Some directors were not favourably disposed with the proposal that the IITs take on the role of accreditation agencies like the National Board of Accreditation (NBA), which accredits engineering and management programmes, and the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), which accredits general colleges and universities.

They said the proposed role would dilute the tech schools' core mandate of teaching and research in technical education. However, they agreed to provide "limited" assistance and expertise so that their core functions would remain unaffected.

HRD minister Prakash Javadekar had been advocating that the IITs take on the role of parallel assessors alongside the NBA and the NAAC.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha on 5 December, junior HRD minister Mahendra Nath Pandey said: "Government had a proposal to create reliable accreditation centres in IITs, IIMs. Details in this regard are being worked out."

Meanwhile, fresh graduates from the IITs seem to be giving more weight to the quality of job profile than to pay packages, going by the ongoing campus placements on the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), The Economic Times reported.

Meanwhile, for the first time, four out of every 10 offers made and accepted in IIT placements so far this year were from the core sector, even as the number of job offers from startups, consulting and other sectors dropped slightly from last year.

''This is the first time that core contributes the highest to the total offers so far," a placement officer at IIT Delhi said, The Economic Times reported.