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During a meeting Monday of the IIT Council — the apex coordination body of the premier institutes — it was agreed upon that IITs will have to go in for accreditation but questions remain over which body will accredit them and the modalities, a senior Ministry of Education official said.
The NEP 2020 recommends setting up a National Accreditation Council, an overarching body for the accreditation of institutions, meant to be part of the proposed Higher Education Commission of India (HECI), which is hanging fire.
Officials said that the details about the accreditation process, including the timeline, are yet to be worked out, adding that the IITs are likely to come up with suggestions for a framework.
Currently, the IITs follow an internal system for periodic peer evaluation and assessment of programmes, and are not accredited by the NAAC, which accredits higher education institutions.
In a 2023 report on strengthening assessment and accreditation of higher education institutions, a committee, formed by the Ministry in 2022 and chaired by Dr K Radhakrishnan, suggested that IITs be brought under the ambit of the unified accreditation process.
During the meeting Monday, held after a gap of two years — the last one was in April 2023 — the council discussed the matter of ensuring the mental well-being of students and officials said that details of measures taken so far by IIT Madras were presented.
The council agreed on the need to overcome language barriers by incorporating regional languages in education, the official said.
A Ministry statement said Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan urged IITs to promote Indian languages by introducing regional languages as the medium of instruction for “inclusive growth”. Decisions on these matters will be taken by the Senate of each IIT, the official added. IIT Jodhpur is the only one offering the option of classes in Hindi to first-year BTech students.
While the implementation of the National Credit Framework was to be discussed, it did not come up, but the IITs have developed a framework for implementation, the official said.
