Autonomy of IITs will remain intact: Manmohan Singh

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has assured the IIT faculty that the institutes’ autonomy will remain “intact”. Representatives of the All India IIT Faculty Federation met with the Prime Minister on Friday seeking his intervention in rolling back the new common examination system.

“We explained each of our points to the Prime Minister. He has told us he will talk to HRD Minister and assured that the autonomy of the IITs will remain intact," secretary of All India IIT Faculty Federation A K Mittal said.

For the IIT faculty, ensuring that the IIT Senates had the final say on the examination is a key demand. They also want the present system to continue, and don’t want a migration to a new system in 2013, as the May 28 IIT Council decision mandates.

They have demanded that consideration of Class XII board marks, should be worked out over a period of time after analysing the board data and results from the dry run.

The faculty is of the view that the new common entrance test for admission to the undergraduate enginnering programmes undermines the autonomy of the IITs. The Federation had earlier written to the Prime Minister explaining their opposition to the “one nation, one examination” policy agreed to by the IIT Council on May 28. At Friday’s meeting, the faculty members once again raised the issue of autonomy. They said that decision of the IIT Council should be ratified by all the IIT Senates. The IIT Kanpur Senate has already rejected the common entrance examination.

"We also insisted that any change in the entrance test should be effected only after 2013," Mittal said.

The federation also raised the issue of giving weightage to board marks after the process of normalisation for preparing the merit list, saying "normalisation of board marks needs more studies".

Mittal felt all the IITs are free to emulate IIT Kanpur's move to hold its own entrance test following the government's decision to hold the nation-wide common entrance test under a new format.