HRD Ministry sides with UGC in course clash with IIT Kharagpur

NEW DELHI: In what could revive the age-old confrontation between the government and the IITs regarding the latter’s autonomy, the human resource development ministry has endorsed the University Grants Commission’s attempt at exercising its authority over the elite engineering schools.

IIT Kharagpur — the oldest of the 16 IITs — had recently shot off a letter to the government protesting a recent circular from the higher education regulator asking all the institutes to align their courses with pattern approved by UGC.

In his letter to higher education secretary Ashok Thakur, IIT Kharagpur director Partha Chakrabarti had asserted in that IITs are governed by their own Act of Parliament and are, therefore, outside the purview of the UGC.

The ministry, however, is learnt to have backed regulator’s move and told Chakrabarti that it will be more “appropriate” for him to identify the mismatch between UGC-specified degrees and the ones offered by his institute and work towards a solution in the students’ interest.

Justifying its decision to side with the UGC, the government has observed that IIT Kharagpur was trying to stretch IITs’ powers to ‘institute courses of study’ to ‘institute their own degrees’. Chakrabarti didn’t comment on the issue as he had not read the ministry’s reply to his letter yet. The UGC letter to all higher education institutions stems from the new government’s decision to roll back Delhi University’s four-year undergraduate programme.

This programme was withdrawn on the ground that it does not fit UGC’s approved nomenclature of degrees. This led the regulator to correct discrepancies elsewhere. The attempt, however, has had its share of controversies with the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore , openly opposing UGC’s directive to tweak its four-year programme to suit the regulator’s approved pattern. Now IITs are unhappy over UGC’s “overstepping”.

The dean of academic affairs at IIT Kanpur, which offers a four-year undergraduate programme in bachelors in physics, chemistry, mathematics and economics, told ET that the institute is not aware of the ministry’s stand on the matter and hence hasn’t taken any decision regarding making any changes.

The matter could come up for discussion at a meeting of IIT heads with President Pranab Mukherjee, PM Narendra Modi and HRD minister Smriti Irani on Friday.