IITs to offer scholarship for foreign students
Indian universities don't have good visibility among universities globally
By : n. arun kumar
Update: 2014-12-21 06:01 GMT
Chennai: The Standing Committee of the Indian Institute of Technology’s Council (SCIC) has consented to provide scholarships to its undergraduate students from countries like Myanmar, Philippines and Korea who want to pursue post-graduation and research there.
The IIT Council, which met in September, is expected to clear SCIC’s recommendation soon. Prof. Gautam Biswas, director of IIT-Guwahati, said that students from South East Asian countries, like the Philippines, Mongolia, Korea and the Arab countries too, who had a good academic record and interest in research could apply.
“We get good quality students from South Asian countries too and they want financial incentives. All directors of IITs felt that in a globalised world it would be foolish to miss them,” he said.
Union HRD minister Smriti Irani wanted the IITs to admit good quality postgraduate students who could do world class research and increase India’s research output, he added. Asked about the ranking committee, which the IIT Council constituted in its recent meeting in September, Prof. Biswas said that the ranking committee tried to sensitise IITs and universities across the country about the need to get ranked in global university rankings.
“Despite doing high class research and having a good teaching-learning process, Indian universities don’t have good visibility among universities globally. So the ranking committee has been telling the Indian universities which areas they need to focus on more to get ranked in global university rankings,” Prof.Biswas added.