Centre asks Offshore IITs to Offer Courses in Data Science and AI

The ministry of education has proposed offshore IIT campuses to offer undergraduate degree programmes in areas such as data science and artificial intelligence. Under consideration by the Centre, the proposal to have these courses was based on feedback from Indian embassies abroad.

A survey report shows most of the universities in the target nations, have undergraduate programmes in conventional disciplines. “From the feedback shared by the ambassadors of the identified host nations, the most frequently mentioned disciplines are related to computer science or IT, data sciences, AI, machine learning or robotics, electrical, electronics, mining, metallurgy, petroleum and energy,” the report read.

Further recommendations were made on the various modes of admission, including JEE, GATE, SAT, GRE, and JAM. “A JEE or JEE (Advanced) exclusively for offshore campuses can be conceived in the future if it’s economically and logistically viable,” said the report. 

The committee noted that academic programmes such as Bachelor of Technology (BTech) and Masters of Technology (MTech) would be named Bachelor of Science (BS) and Masters of Science (MS), which are commonly used for international degrees. 

The 17-member committee is led by IIT Council Standing Committee chairperson Dr K Radhakrishnan and also includes the directors of IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Guwahati and IIT Dhanbad. 

Flexible joint faculty contracts were proposed identifying provisions for deputing faculty members from the existing IITs to the proposed institutes abroad in their formative years. The committee set up by the Centre for the global expansion of IITs has Indian missions abroad and identified UK, UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Malaysia and Thailand as prospective locations for offshore campuses under IIT’s brand name.