New Delhi: Union HRD Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ chaired the 12th Meeting of National Institute of Technology, Science Education and Research (NITSER) in New Delhi today.The meeting was attended by Directors of the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur and Chairpersons of Board of Governors of these Institutes.
Issues related to enhancing the academic performance of the Institutes alongwith ways to achieving the higher educational standards were discussed in detail. Matters concerning faculty recruitment, service conditions of employees including issues on recruitment rules, well being of students and staff, reservation issues, tuition fees, and reports of CSAB-2018 & 2019, CCMT-2018 & 2019, DASA-2017 & 2018 were discussed.
Agenda related to Entrepreneurship development, aligning engineering education with emerging trends, identifying thrust areas, research productivity, etc. and need for Plastic free Campaign, Fit India Movement, Jal Shakti Abhiyan and One student, One Tree, were well responded and adopted for implementation at Institution level.
The report of the ‘NIT Think Tank’ Committee was elaborately discussed to improve upon rankings of the NITs & IIEST and it was decided to continue with quarterly meetings for proper evaluation of each NIT. During the discussion, shortage of faculty was prominently flagged and all NITs were advised to expedite their recruitment process so that improvement in rankings is affected.
Following important decisions were taken in the Council meeting:-
- to launch the recruitment drive to fill up approximately 2200 faculty positions by December, 2019.
- in-principal approval for implementation of Tenure Track System for Faculty Recruitment after further examination of the issues highlighted by few of the Institutes.
- sustainable development of Institutes in Thrust Areas like earthquake resistant structures; mapping of available ground water; artificial intelligence; research in ethics in technology; research in artificial intelligence and robotics for humanities; developing technologies for recycling of waste for useful applications; cyber security for sustained efforts & focus; climate disaster resilience, urban risk reduction; aerospace; resilience in socio ecological systems; blockchain technology in conventional and non-conventional communication media; digital manufacturing and IIOT; solar thermal etc.
- recommendations of the Oversight committee regarding anomalies in the recruitment rules of faculty were also accepted.
- Council also decided to accept tuition fee waiver to SC/ST/PH M.Tech. student in NITs & IIEST where such fee waiver is not available to SC/ST/PH M.Tech. students.
Few of the issues which require further discussions / examination were either referred to the Standing Committee of the Council or were decided to be examined at MHRD level.
