India's premier technical institutes, including IITs and IIMs, will be put to test soon. All centrally funded technical institutions, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) will conduct internal departmental reviews and be assessed by an external panel every five years. This peer review by academia and industry according to international benchmarks is expected to bring about transparency and accountability to the institutes and could start from next year.
On Monday, the IIT Council gave the nod for all IITs to be subjected to a peer review. Elaborating on the decision minister for state in the HRD ministry M M Pallam Raju said, "The Council of IITs decided that the peer review of each institute would be carried out on a periodic basis, once in every five years. IITs need to review themselves in terms of what is happening academically, in terms of research, in terms of evolutions towards meeting world standards.''
The minister added that the IIMs were already in an advanced stage of discussion regarding the review, while CFTIs had also agreed to the process. The move comes at a time when only a handful of India's tech institutes have made a mark globally.
The peer review will be based on similar well-established review systems in world-class institutions and would be rigorous and forward looking. Besides periodic review of the institutions, each IIT will similarly undertake an in-house, department-wise review before any external peer review is carried out, the minister said.
The review committee would consist of five eminent persons from the industry and the academia. The committee members would be selected by the Chairman of the Council of IITs from a panel of 10 names given by the Board of Governors of respective institutes, Raju said. For the new IITs, similar exercise will be carried out after they complete five years.
The process, results and the follow-up on Peer Review would be uploaded on Institute/IIT Council's website as a mechanism to foster a culture of transparency and accountability.
India Education Review reported that none of the Indian institutions made it to the top 200 in the QS World University Rankings for 2012. The QS rankings for institutes of higher education had featured IIT-Bombay in 2010 which was ranked 187, but dropped to 225 in 2011. This year it was down to 227.
While in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2012-13, only IIT-Bombay, Kharagpur and Rourkee figured in the list of top 400 universities across the globe.
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