IIT-Gn to increase association with other engineering colleges

So far, there was only limited association with one engineering college — Vishwakarma Government Engineering College in Ahmedabad.

IIT GN

The Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, (IIT-Gn) plans to increase its association with other engineering colleges in the state to help them perform better. This comes after the institute got a nod during its board meeting on Friday. So far, there was only limited association with one engineering college — Vishwakarma Government Engineering College in Ahmedabad.

“Yesterday (Friday), the board decided to increase association with other engineering colleges. If there is a good institute then there should be talks between the institutes. Education institutes grow when they talk to each other. As of now, we have decided to call principals of all engineering colleges and conduct workshops for them,” said IIT-Gn Director Prof Sudhir Jain on the sidelines of the institute’s 7th convocation on Saturday.

There are total 16 government, three grant-in-aid and 121 self-financed engineering colleges in the state. Vacancy of seats in the private colleges is nearly 55 per cent.

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Denying any instructions being given by the state government in this regard, the director said, “We have a small corpus of Rs 50 lakh but we want to spend more (in this regard) and have been assured by the government that we can have more funds if we want.”

The institute also plans to increase the total number of students by 200 next year.

The number of students has increased this year in M Tech, MSc, PhD and marginally increased in BTech courses. There is also a hostel under construction for 1,450 students that will be ready by June next year. The old hostel will also be made air-conditioned by next year. “So, then we can increase the intake of students generously,” he added.

Jain said that intake of students from foreign countries at IIT-Gn is less, but added that efforts are on to increase it. “Talks on this have been going on in the country and deliberations are on that if India needs to become a world leader then people from outside should come and study here. Even in Takshila and Nalanda people would come from outside and study. There are students from four countries (Nepal, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea and Turkey) who have come to IIT-Gn to study. We are gradually working on this and increasing this intake,” he said.

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The institute has launched a new BTech-MSc dual degree programme from this year that will enable BTech students to also obtain MSc degree in four years. The course is intended to benefit students interested in both science and engineering.