IITs Madras, Delhi, KGP on fast-track for expansion overseas

IIT Madras director Prof V Kamakoti said a team led by the institute’s Dean of Global Engagement has been entrusted with the coordination work to set up the institute’s proposed campus in Tanzania which will primarily offer courses in Mining, Metallurgy and Ddata science.

An official in IIT Delhi, which will have a campus in Abu Dhabi, said teams from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were in New Delhi recently to study the model followed by IIT-D while also holding talks with teachers and students here. “A dedicated team stationed in Abu Dhabi is working on it,” the official said.

Two faculty members from IIT-D will also visit Abu Dhabi soon. Apart from IIT-D and IIT-M, IIT Kharagpur is going to launch a campus in Malaysia.

Kamakoti said that the proposal was at a “nebulous stage”. When asked if the institute had set a deadline for the project, he said, “We are looking at a year”.

The IIT overseas expansion project has been a refrain of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

On Friday, speaking at the launch of a two-day event at IIT Delhi where all 23 IITs have come together to showcase their research and development projects to mark the 75th year of India’s independence, he said: “Our IITs have to move beyond being just engineering colleges. We have to stop benchmarking IITs on the basis of placement packages. IITs should redefine parameters and benchmark on the number of innovations brought in the market, innovations monetised, and number of job creators created.”

For the proposed offshore campuses, the model being explored is that of fully residential campuses with students and faculty from India as well as the host nations. In this regard, the IITs are following guidelines prepared by the Ministry of Education committee, led by IIT Council standing committee chairperson Dr K Radhakrishnan. “But we are going beyond the guidelines,” said an official.

Both undergraduate and postgraduate courses are likely to be offered, particularly in emerging areas.

“The host country will have certain expectations. They will see whether we will be offering courses that are relevant to their nation. They will also measure our level of interest or commitment. Ultimately we also need to ensure it gets recognised as a brand,” Kamakoti said.

The Radhakrishnan committee’s proposal that the new institutes be called “Indian International Institute of Technology at (country name)” has also been adopted.

“The suggested name is sufficiently close to IIT with international added to emphasise/clarify that the institute is located outside India. The difference in name (with sufficient similarity) will allow the newly established institutes to evolve their own identity and ethos, while drawing upon the strength of the existing IITs,” the report said.